But remember everybody, the Zimmerman case WAS NOT ABOUT RACE!

From the Daily Mail article Mudede links to:

... there are less white-on-black shootings in the FBI data - only 25 total in both the Stand Your Ground and non-Stand Your Ground states. ...

In other words, the resulting statistical comparison is virtually meaningless.

@2 - This is for you. But since you may not read it: "Indeed, the problems begin when a man [or woman] starts offering solutions without understanding the group’s history or the history of the problem. Or, worse, when he intimates that a group has not already been working on solutions to their problem and that he’s the first damned genius to ever realize that perhaps problems need fixing. As if the group hadn’t been smart enough to recognize that their problems might need fixing and hadn’t already been doing some stuff."

Charles, I saw a similar article that mentioned that stat, but it also mentioned that in states without stand your ground laws, a white person was 250 percent more likely to be found not guilty of killing a black person. Stand your ground/no stand your ground, we live in a fucked up country that doesn't value black peoples life as much as white peoples life. Fucking sickening...

What are the stats for Hispanic on Black shootings?

Hispanic is an ethnicity, not a race. You can be black and Hispanic, or white and Hispanic in this country (or white/black and non-Hispanic, etc).

@2 how about having guns laws that reflect a civilized society not the wild wild west.

@7, Zimmerman was white/black and Peruvian. Call it whatever you want, but I don't think there are any stats on that.

Regardless, @3 wins the thread, so it's all moot.

The authors themselves give the number of similar cases as 23, with 9 of these resulting in acquittals based on justifiable homicide. No breakdown given for how many of these occurred in the 7 non-SYG states.

I feel like its the 17th century and I'm the lone atheist adrift in a sea of hysterical retards. this shit is like jerry springer/judge judy on steroids and it's completely taken over the ship. God help us.

I'm tempted to offer you a life preserver and point you in the direction of that mike judge movie: Idiocracy, but I'm afraid this is about as effective as telling people to wake up while referring to them as sheeple.

zimmerman is mudede's new amanda knox.
buckle up, kids. chuckie is going to keep this going for a long, long while.

The purpose of SYG is to permit the casual murder of black males. That's what it was for; that's why it was passed. White southerners don't like appearing on court; they liked things better the way they were back in the days of Le Crevecoeur, who went out walking one day in Charles Town, SC (now Charleston), just a couple of hundred miles up from Sanford, FL, and found a slave in the woods suspended in a cage, flogged to within an inch of his life, being preyed upon by birds and insects. The guns weren't that good back then, and slavery isn't legal anymore, so today the Zimmermans have to hunt them down before killing them, but the result is the same. Murdering black boys is legal in Florida.

@9, you go right on defending that piece of shit. It looks real good on your resume.

Research by Dr. E.M. Beck at the University of Georgia and Stewart Tolnay of the University of New York at Albany uncovered thousands of previously unnoticed lynchings in the South from 1882 to 1930, and found that Florida, previously believed to be less violent than other Southern states during the Jim Crow era, in fact had the highest rate of lynchings in the country -- seven times higher than North Carolina and nearly twice the rate in Georgia.

And while the popular image of lynching involved a white mob hanging a black man from a tree, the researchers found that these executions usually involved shooting rather than hanging.

Ah, Florida.

Now bear in mind that the NRA and white douchebags like 5280 want to turn every state into Florida. A case like Zimmerman's can be very helpful in tearing off the mask of decency that conceals the heart of a Klansman in our midst.

blip @ 12 -- And what are the conceivable lower bounds for a comparative statistic drawn from sample sizes N1<9 and N2=9-N1, respectively?

Looks like somebody's attempting to murder the maths here.

Fnarf @ 17 -- Please note, Washington is one of 27 states (per the article, or 29 per the study authors) that is already "just like Florida".

Florida is also the state where modern-day slavery is most likely to be found, especially in the sugarcane fields. Virtually all of the sugarcane in the US is grown in a legal monopoly by the Fanjul family, Cuban exiles who receive many millions of dollars in federal subsidies (and indeed their industry wouldn't even exist without the feds draining the Everglades for them) and pump millions back into political campaigns, including those of Senator Mario Rubio and Florida governors Jeb Bush, Charlie Crist and Rick Scott, as well as the local cracker legislators who passed SYG. The Fanjuls own Florida Crystals, C&H, and Domino Sugar, and provide all the private brands of the major supermarket chains. They operate their farms using modern-day slavery.

Florida is a shithole.

This should have been done a long time ago.

Oh, Fnarf, you really are hilarious when you start frothing at the mouth. By all means keep it up. You're only ensuring that nobody will take you seriously.

@15 "The purpose of SYG is to permit the casual murder of black males." I agree.

This case crystallized some general thoughts I've had into a realization that the modern "gun rights movement" is really just a "gun rights for white people movement." And I now agree with those who think this is driven not by racism, but by a drive to maintain white supremacy.

@3, 12 -- don't you know that the use of facts, logic, and math is forbidden at the Stranger?

More evidence that SYG doesn't apply to black people: Trevor Dooley. Florida.

http://www.abcactionnews.com/dpp/news/re…

I'm not defending Dooley's actions, but cases like his and Marissa Alexander's makes it clear that black people don't get to stand their ground.

@19, I know it. And you know who else knows it? Black boys and their mothers. They're terrified.

@23

Well, he personally is of course hilarious.

But what he and millions like him represent isn't. Apparently rule of law and presumption of innocence and trial by jury are far less important to him and his drooling ilk than their biases. Apparently they'd like to replace due process with trial by press and armchair ignoramuses like them.

Oh and Mr. Mudede has an out for his disgust with the politics, economics and social structure of the United States. He could go back to Zimbabwe where everything is so much...better.

When, oh when, is one of our resident gun-humpers going to make the argument - entirely consistent with their stated positions - that if Trayvon Martin had been armed, he would be alive today?

Really. If he'd been carrying, like Zimmerman was, then when he was accosted by an armed stranger - and fearing for his life - he wouldn't have been in the difficult position of bringing a fist to a gunfight. He could have pulled his weapon and told Zimmerman to back off. If Zimmerman didn't, then Martin - fearing for his life - could have Stood His Ground and shot Zimmerman dead in the street.

All the gun-humpers would nod approvingly at another successful instance of defensive gun use. Trayvon Martin would have walked away alive and free, no doubt to be invited to the next NRA national convention as a new poster child for gun rights.

Right? Right?

More fun facts about Sanford, Florida, the greatest beacon of freedom in the country:

The Brooklyn Dodgers used to have their spring training there. When Branch Rickey signed Jackie Robinson in 1945 to the farm club the Montreal Royals, and then brought him to their training camp the following March, the good white folks of Sanford took up their pitchforks and marched on the mayor's office, demanding that Robinson be run out of town. He responded by informing the ball club that Robinson could not take the field. Rickey then moved the whole camp to Daytona Beach.

That's the kind of people they grow in Florida. That's the peers of George Zimmerman that sat on his jury.

@31

Really? Because for being old enough to have been registered voters in 1945 those jurors look GOOD!

You might learn what words like 'peer' mean before using them.

Halfwit.

Charles,
I understand your cynicism. But, I believe Roman's analysis misses the point. Richard Cohen of the Washington Post and Jason Riley of the WSJ have valid points:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/article…

and

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424…

There are way too many Trayvon Martins.

For the record, I'm for the repeal of SYG. The margin of error is too great. And, I at least wanted Zimmerman arrested and tried. We must remain calm and abide by the verdict as Pres. Obama himself said.

@30

That how it works?

So I also think the first and fourth amendments mean what they say. Any derogatory comments about Expression Addicts?'

No? Only think second amendment rights make a person suspect?

Got it.

S(O)B is back to his old tricks. So much for "staying above" our level.

Oh Seattleblues? Find any actual evidence to support your assertions regarding the nature of homosexuality as a disease yet?

@20,

Not that this makes it any better, but apparently a lot of what's actually marketed as "sugar" these days is actually from sugar beets, not sugarcane. Of course the undocumented laborers who harvest sugar beets aren't likely doing much better than those laboring under the Fanjuls.

@25 Yeah like you'd recognize facts, logic, and math. Fear is all you ever have to offer it clouds your perceptions and thoughts, drips from you like sweat in a sauna. Fear, fear, fear.

@19 Correct that WA does not have duty to retreat. However, a key difference is that WA does not provide shelter from civil liability. A key part of the FL statutes is that they also shelter people from civil liability, so the Martin family has no recourse.

@34: I made no comment regarding the Second Amendment. I simply ask the question: Will none of the many advocates for gun rights and gun ownership on this forum stand up and say that Trayvon Martin should have been carrying a gun, and that if he had been, and George Zimmerman had ended up dead, that they would have supported Martin?

FNARF WTF - get your ass down to Florida and save all those people of color from the evil white man.....call me when you fix the world to be perfect in your eyes and I'll petition to get you on MT Rushmore

@35

If someone says something stupid and repeats it frequently am I supposed to congratulate their ready wit and keen mind?

Halfwit isn't an insult where Fnarf or Mudede are concerned, it's an accurate assessment of their negligible mental quality.

@39

If something that didn't happen had happened how would one respond? I don't know and if you're honest neither do you. The actual events of the world are enough to cope with without adding hypothetical, for me at least.

@ 41, it wasn't even addressed to you. You picked it up on your own.

Still avoiding the question I posed to you, I see.

@39 Considering that Travon was 17 and thus would not be able to carry a gun legally, the answer to your question is, they will not and would not. Now had he been 18 and had a conceal carry permit as well as a gun, then one could assume that the gun rights advocates would have to support his shooting and killing Zimmerman. However my guess would be that they would not, at best they'd remain silent, at worse they'd find some convoluted argument and conclude that Travon shouldn't have been issued a permit.

Now if Travon had been white, 17, carrying a gun illegally and shot Zimmerman, that'd be different. Clearly the spic would have deserved it, and the gun laws need to be changed to allow 16 year olds to legally conceal carry.

@43

The off topic question?

Okay. If someone insists on walking everywhere on their hands, or attempting to nourish themselves via their nostrils I'd say, and rational people would agree, that they have a problem with understanding biological realities- a mental disorder. If they insist on sexual activity at odds with the nature and function of human sexual biology similarly they're experiencing a disconnect with objective reality.

This of course is apart from higher rates of suicidal tendencies, depression and other issues faced disproportionately by homosexuals compared to their sexually healthier peers. It also doesn't consider higher rates of disease and generally lower life expectancy.

Gee, if you folks celebrate homosexuality you must crack open the champagne when your relatives are diagnosed with cancer or schizophrenia.

@ 45, only off topic because you didn't address it in the relevant thread.

You don't answer it here, either. Unsupported assertions aren't proof.

Where's the supporting facts? The ones observed by trained personnel?

@21: I'm attaching this link to every thread I can find. Some much needed truth and levity:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4EqcPWpN…

@29: Really? Did you just suggest Mudede go back to Africa? Do you have any idea what a parody of yourself you are?

Dawww it is so cute when Danny gets the Daily Show mixed up with The News.

@ 48, it's even more cute when you make shit up, and then post it on the wrong thread.

@49

You are right, I am pretty cute.

@47

That's where he's from. I suggest to him and any other immigrant who finds life here uncongenial that they pursue personal happiness by returning from whence they came.

I realize you think this racist, but you likely think opposition to Obama policies or ordering grits in a restaurant rAcist, so can't say I'm really worried about your views.

@ 51, you found your supporting evidence yet?

@ 50, you'll have to show up to the next Slog Happy and allow yourself to be photographed by The Stranger so they can post your likeness here before I buy that. Maybe you'rr jealous of Dan's good looks?

A key part of the FL statutes is that they also shelter people from civil liability, so the Martin family has no recourse.

Excellent!

@51: 'Go back to wherever you're from' isn't just racist, it's dull and overused and racist. If you're going to be stupid, be entertaining. I don't agree with all of any president's policies, including the only one I share a skin color with. As for ordering grits, my family's from Louisiana. I've ordered plenty of grits. I've even cooked them at home.
You know, just engaging you reads batshit. Look at the preceding paragraph. I'll wrap up by pointing out that the nation was built by and made up of immigrants, and that the questioning and agitation of those immigrants and their descendants fueled things like civil rights and self-sovereignty and basically all the shit people talk about when they invoke American greatness. The racism, hypocrisy, homophobia, and xenophobia that is your stock and trade are what all the good ones in this country are working collectively to move past. Which is why you're mad and making shit up about the opposition, I suppose. It doesn't make you any more persuasive, however. It certainly doesn't make you right.

@54

The difference, with someone like Mudede, is that he hates everything about this nation but his freedom to spew his hatred of this nation.

In a case like this I'd like to say he'd be happier where he came from, but I really don't care about his happiness. Those waiting for a chance to make a life in this great nation deserve it more than someone like Mudede who hates this country and everything it stands for.

@56

You see hatred and racism and hypocrisy and xenophobia from your own imagination. As I've noted homophobia doesn't exist except as a tool of propaganda, so won't bother with that silliness.

Part of what makes this nation what it is indeed is our call to bring me your poor, those yearning to be free. But we're under no obligation to those who bring hatred of us and all we stand for, except to send them home.

My ancestors came from Wales, poor and desperate and seeking a better life. And they found it, after accepting that they owed allegiance to the laws and culture they found here, to the hard work that earned their opportunities. They didn't sit at damned keyboard or in front of a classroom with the immortal nerve to spew their vile hatred of this great nation.

So yeah, Chuck Mudede can trot on back to Zimbabwe or learn a little respect or at the least accept our hospitality with some basic show of decent gratitude.

@58

Know the difference? This is MY country being destroyed by barbarity, by vulgarity, by the slow steady attacks on family, ethics, morality and our core values.

I have yet to back down from a fight in which I was right. I don't propose to start now.

@ 60, it's no more your country than it's Charles'.

How about that supporting evidence I keep asking about? I'll keep it up til you admit that you don't have it.

Hmmm... It occurs to me, SB, that you've backed down from that fight. Why?

For those still making this bullshit point assertion, from The Atlantic:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/arch…

@59: "So yeah, Chuck Mudede can trot on back to Zimbabwe or learn a little respect or at the least accept our hospitality with some basic show of decent gratitude."

So, basically, fuck foreigners and dissent. You are now explicitly anti-American.

@60: "Know the difference? This is MY country being destroyed by barbarity, by vulgarity, by the slow steady attacks on family, ethics, morality and our core values."

Mudede is an American citizen, it's HIS country too. And what was that about propaganda?

Is anyone raising money to send Mudede back to Zimbabwe? I'll contribute!

@53
Dan is a good looking guy, I hope I am in that good a shape at that age.

@66
I will only contribute if the communist ingrate is shipped air freight.

@63, 65

I like that our legislatures are largely made up of centrists rather than far left or far right ideologues. I like that with a few exceptions communist and socialist candidates aren't welcome.

I like, with limited reservations, the legislative environment moderately friendly to businesses that result. I like having to bring my best to clients and the challenges which a competitive if over regulated free market ensures.

I like dealing with men and women who've earned what they've got and hold their heads high, rather than beggars and entitled jerks with a sense of proprietary interest in the contents of my wallet.

I like people proud enough to earn their way but humble enough to thank God for the gifts of talent or health or love in their lives. I like people who appreciate their sexuality without twisting it or making it the focus of their lives. In other words I like living in a Christian nation.

I like working and socializing with people whose minds or talents are what they're proud of rather than skin color or ethnic background. But I love talking to someone with a view of their citizenship informed by a past in Central or South America, Africa, Asia or Europe.

And this is where many of you, Chuck Mudede and the merry band at the Stranger, and I part ways. I love this place, warts and all. You love some illusory future image of what you want it to be rather than what it is here and now.

@68, I'll let that be the last word on the means of Mudede's conveyance. As long as he's out of here and back home, I'm happy. I'm sure he and Mr. Mugabe will get along just fine, especially on the issue of homosexuality.

@ 69, "I like that our legislatures are largely made up of centrists rather than far left or far right ideologues."

Try "centrists AND far right ideologues."

You're still not offering any evidence supporting your notions of gay sex as a mental illness, or any other sort of medical or mental abnormality.

@71

I did, your lack of reading comprehension notwithstanding.

Care to try staying on topic?

@ 72, you're lying. Or else you're severely misinformed about the definition of evidence, which is not the circular, self-referential arguments you gave. No, you need to cite a respected medical or psychological authority. You have not done that.

And as I said, you wouldn't discuss this on the thread where you brought it up. So I have to bring it to you. Nobody else seems to mind. Also, did you notice how my comment began on topic?

This country is changing for the better, and finally living up to the promise of everyone being allowed to pursue happiness. Why do you want to keep that from happening?

@69: Your Christian nation was built on the fundamental principle separation of church and state. I don't remember Jesus having one thing to say about capitalism or homosexuality. And if you don't want to hear about someone's ethnicity or sexual preference, don't fuck with or limit their lives because of those things. And love of country and critical thinking are not mutually exclusive. That is all.

@60, we know all about your civility. Your civility is "let the rich white man have everything". Your civility is leaving people to die in the desert, shooting unarmed boys dead in the street, stripping everything of value from the economy, bombing families out of their homes, setting fire to the civil rights of anyone who isn't exactly like you, deliberately shutting down government and then boasting about it, perverting every value this country has ever embodied into an inane quackery of bogus religiosity and guns.

I know those people from South and Central America, Africa, Asia, and Europe, and they all think you're a laughingstock, with your idiotic Reader's Digest homilies covering up the ugly black oil stain of your bigotry.

One of the things that energized the conservative movement that culminated in Reagan's election in 1980 was that it was rippled through with ideas. Stupid ideas, most of them, but vigorous ones, and alive. That's all gone now; none of you people have any ideas at all. You just have your Little Red Book of empty slogans. Are there there any smart people on the "Christian Nation" anymore? Any fun people? Interesting people? Mindful people? Productive, valuable people? No. Just stupid, dishonest cliches.

People like you have destroyed opportunity in this country. The US is now one of the least socially-mobile developed countries in the world now. Wealth is increasingly being concentrated in the hands not of the "makers" but the idle halfwit children of the makers. And, despite your anodyne version of US history, millions of people HAVE been excluded, and are still being excluded, by people like you who keep the door locked and keep the intellectual energy this country needs from even having a chance.

But you're losing. You've already lost. People like you will be extinct soon. You'll still have your guns, of course, and you'll have the laws for a little longer because you've cheated, but that too will pass. You'll be able to shoot a few more of us. But we will surpass you.

And that's when the civility begins. Gay, black, Latino, immigrant, female, poor: they will be welcome for the first time, and their contributions will come pouring in, and America will continue: a much better America than the hateful, tiny, frightened jail cell you live in.

@Fnarf, don't sleep on your back. You might choke on your vomit.

@76, you don't engage in "critical thinking" in the least. You're just another knee-jerk shithead. You're a liberal bedwetter and Sarah Palin is a wingnut freak, and you're joined at the hip. You wouldn't recognize an intellectual challenge if it snuck up behind you and bit your ass.

@79: Take a nap, baby, you're getting grumpy.

Oh is this where SB scampered off to? He never answered my question either over in the other thread so I'll just repeat it hear:
Seattleblues, has your Pastor read your posting history on Slog?
Yes or No?
And:
If you are reluctant to let your Pastor read your words, why?

@51: Go back 500 years in time and tell that to the immigrants of that day and age. You'll save millions of Native Americans from oppression!
@60: I won't believe it's your country until you show me the deed of ownership. Wait, all this makes sense now! You get super-outraged whenever the government does something you disagree with because you think that this great nation exists only to serve your whims! No wonder you're so unhappy all the time. It ain't all about you, Princess!
@69: I'm afraid if you like living in a Christian nation, you'll need to leave.

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

That's from the Treaty of Tripoli (bolding mine), ratified unanimously by the Senate and signed by President John Adams in 1797. The Founding Fathers say the USA isn't a Christian nation. Get your eurass back to Eurasia if you want a change from that.

@81

How's your sex life? Ever been checked into a psychiatric hospital? What do you and your therapist discuss?

The correct answer is of course mind your own business. We're responsible to each other for our behavior with them, not with regard to other private conversations.

But nothing I wrote yesterday is something I wouldn't show my pastor or my children, if they didn't have to read the foul language from other comments to do so.

Dishonest SB. Lissa asked about your posting history, not merely for one posting day. You know - would you show your pastor (or, now that you brought them up, your kids) your "hey faggots and dykes" posts? Your kinder and gentler schtick wasn't the topic at hand. Just as I asked for supporting proof and didn't get it.

Do you think your pastor would say you answered the question honestly? If the answer is yes, better look for one who actually knows what morality is, because anyone affirming your dishonesty is deficient in that department.

While we're at it, does your pastor know that you denied a lease renewal to lesbian tenants because you were angry about same sex marriage legalization in Washington?

@84: Fuck his pastor, do the lesbian former tenants know what he did?

@83: Answering your questions in order:
Fantastic!
No
My sex life, which is why it's so fantastic now.

So your answer to my question (and thank you for finally answering it by the way) is no, you have not shown your postings to your Pastor, with an added prevarication that you totes would if not for fear of exposing him to us heathen Sloggers.

Well, you are in luck Seattleblues!

All you have to do is click on your name and it will take you to a page showing just your posts and no one else's. That's right! There exists a page cataloging everything you have ever posted on Slog. Every. Single. Word.

So go show your Pastor SB! Ooo! Ooo! Especially the post where you rant about evicting your tenants! I'm sure he'll have something to say about Christian that was!

@Matt

Actually, I answered the question as asked. Try rereading the sequence and you'll see either that or a need to update your glasses prescription.

What originally was done out of anger I stand by. And for some of the same reasons. If one self selected minority wishes to make war on family and marriage I see no reason to provide them a hone or economic base from which to do so. So I did and will continue to conduct my business excluding as many homosexuals or businesses which hire them as practically possible. This includes rentals I own.

As to my conscience it's clean on that score. Obligations of respect and decent treatment of our enemies is a scriptural mandate. Obligations to provide them the weapons for destroying our culture are not.

It's easy to keep a clear conscience if you don't have one to begin with. Tell me one way in which gay marriage has affected yours. Or your family. Or anybody in your life. Now tell me if any of your actions have had a direct negative effect on anybody else (former tenants, perhaps?) Now tell me who's the willfully destructive one here.

@87: How on earth is living in one of your rentals a weapon for destroying our culture?
Kicking out your tenants was an act of pure spite, born of anger at the passage of a law that effects your marriage or my marriage not one tiny bit. You threw a tantrum, and threw them out. There is nothing noble or moral about your actions or your motives, and I'll bet your Pastor would agree with me.
Why don't you ask him?

And I want to remind you that when you first threatened to kick your tenants out, I tried to dissuade you, because I didn't, and don't, think your family should suffer from the consequence of you bad choices should the law catch up with you. You may long for a martyr's crown, but as the self employed sole support of your family, if you get sued, you will take them all down with you, and you will not be remembered as a hero.

George Wallace thought that history would call him brave and principled for his stand at the school house door barring black students from the University of Alabama. That didn't happen. He was on the wrong side of history and so are you. George Wallace eventually realized that, and hopefully you will to.

SB @ 87, there is no need to reread. I comprehended well enough that you cited absolutely no facts or findings to support your position. How could you? Nobody whose profession is in the fields of psychiatry or psychology agrees with you - not anyone licensed or well respected in those fields anyway.

You like to answer questions you wished were asked, not the ones actually asked. Nobody asked if you still stand by what you said; we asked if you have, or would, show your comment history to your pastor or your kids. Nobody asked why you discriminate (illegally) against gays and lesbians; we asked you if you told your pastor and if so, what was his reaction.

I will point out that renting to lesbians cannot be contrued as providing anything but respect and decent treatment (which you make sound as though you can only give that grudgingly, with no love in your heart). A home is no weapon. Lissa has you sussed.

@90: Internet fist bump Matt from Denver.

I like people proud enough to earn their way but humble enough to thank God for the gifts of talent or health or love in their lives.

What if those who have earned their way, however humble, do not believe in deity? Would you accept other expressions of humility or gratitude?

I like people who appreciate their sexuality without twisting it or making it the focus of their lives.

By whose standards should we determine whose sexuality is "twisted," and what are his/her/their qualifications? And how much focus can it receive before it is "the focus of their lives"? Can one not hold pleasure to be a legitimate virtue without holding it to be the sole or paramount virtue?

In other words I like living in a Christian nation.

You should have led with that. Essentially, you like living among those who share your metaphysical, epistemic, and moral presuppositions, or those who at least behave as if they do. That is, you don't really defend their right to free exercise of religion (or free exercise of irreligion, which is necessarily included).

Try rereading the sequence and you'll see either that or a need to update your glasses prescription.

Yes, Matt; surely your optometrist has lenses that allow you penetrate blatant obfuscation.
If one self selected minority wishes to make war on family and marriage I see no reason to provide them a hone or economic base from which to do so.One question you've yet to answer in my years of asking you is how, precisely, family and marriage are affected by offering state marriage licenses--quite separate from any given church's or community's guidelines governing matrimony--to same-sex couples, or why such couples are uniquely threatening to these institutions in ways that other familial arrangements covered by marital law (but not your particular marital morality) are not.

Until you answer that question, your continued statements on the matter are mere propaganda at best. You're making an argument meant to be taken as absolute, but with no factual or empirical basis.

What's more, how are you to know that the homosexuals whose business you are refusing (and whose interests you are actively economically opposing) are actually part of the particular movement which so offends you? I know a good many homosexuals who do not support same-sex marriage, for various reasons (with which I happen to disagree).

So I did and will continue to conduct my business excluding as many homosexuals or businesses which hire them as practically possible. This includes rentals I own.

As to my conscience it's clean on that score.

For that, we can be grateful, particularly if you're as vocal about it in the meat world as you are here. It's best to know who the enemy is.

Obligations of respect and decent treatment of our enemies is a scriptural mandate. Obligations to provide them the weapons for destroying our culture are not.

You obviously have a different notion of respect and decency than I do. Still, the more interesting question--that you haven't answered and probably won't answer (not least because you've largely stopped responding to me at all, either because you cannot address the myriad points you've left dangling over the last few years or, more likely, you cannot maintain dialogue with me for more than a few posts before you're all but obligated to return to the insult, subterfuge, and character assassination that is your modus operandi, which probably goes back to your lack of rational for factual basis for your assertions): On what basis do you see mere recognition of same-sex marriage as a threat to our culture?

As always . . . Please be specific.

Don't worry everybody.

The Christian Nation Seattleblues lives in only exists on the same extra-dimensional plane as his imaginary house in Italy.

Though why the fuck you guys continue to argue with this mentally deficient shut-in lying-sack-of-shit is beyond me.

I, for one, am enjoying tha FUCK outta this thread. Huuuuge props to Lissa, MattfromDenver, thelyambound, and lolorhone for hangin SB out to dry, as the....lets see how did tkc (above) so excellently put it, the "mentally deficient shut-in lying-sack-of-shit".

Seriously though, good for you SB for trying to stop with the name calling of "fag" and "dyke". But! As you so eloquently stated in another thread "All I need to see about homosexuality is on display at any of the disgusting "Pride" parades. Deviants, freaks, perverts and general scum make up a considerable portion of your so called healthy expression of sexuality. " Thats some pretty hateful speech there pal, so your claim of taking the higher ground is, like everything else you claim, a big ol' fat lie. But hey, keep on truckin', you certainly bring the comedy.