How a Republican can -easily- win...

[agricola]

I don't know. I'm kind of concerned about his past, abandoning his family and paying no child support. (Not to mention that alleged domestic violence incident.) He may have reformed since then and reached out to his son and daughter, but I'm still a little worried about his sincerity. 

No child support, but no drain on the public treasury either.  Lets also remember his criminal justice policy, which avoided the pitfalls of the soft left and hard right, and instead turned unproductive criminals into artworks fit to hang on even the finest walls.

[makattak]

Hmmm... you're starting to sway me.

I'm still a little concerned that the son he abandoned became a mass-murdering terrorist, though.

But I do like his management style, he definitely understands how to motivate his subordinates. And is willing to promote on the spot.

[MicroBalrog]

It is happening. We are not discussing hypotheticals, we are discussing what is actually happening, right now, in the actual country in which I live. Why do you keep pretending this is some pretend future menace I'm talking about, when it is events that are currently happening?

This not an inevitable consequence. It has been headed off in other nations that have legalized gay marriage, why can America not head it off? There is a difference between something being a potential negative concequence and an inevitable one.

[Nevermind the factual questions of whether these lawsuits went anywhere, how much money the people won, and whether they are isolated incidents or samples of a trend]

[roo_ster]

This not an inevitable consequence. It has been headed off in other nations that have legalized gay marriage, why can America not head it off? There is a difference between something being a potential negative concequence and an inevitable one.

[Nevermind the factual questions of whether these lawsuits went anywhere, how much money the people won, and whether they are isolated incidents or samples of a trend]

It has happened. It is currently happening.  An established fact is about as "inevitable" as it can be.  What Balog wrote is, in the realm of inevitability, roughly equivalent to writing, 'Water is wet," "Space is mostly vacuum," and "No self-respecting man willingly watches Yentl."

Not sure what else folks can do to convince you, if you pull the Adam Savage trick and "reject our reality and replace it with your own."

[Perd Hapley]

There's an easy solution to this. You limit legal marriages to actual marriages. Tell the irrationalists to pound sand.

Problem solved, reason and rights preserved.

[MicroBalrog]

It has happened. It is currently happening.  An established fact is about as "inevitable" as it can be. 

Plural of anecdote. Not data.

[Balog]

Plural of anecdote. Not data.

You're just being wilfully obtuse at this point. You're looking at something that is happening, and claiming it won't happen. It is happening. Fact.

You're also saying that fed.gov could recognize GM while also undoing discrimination laws so as to avoid oppressing those who have an objection to it. That's wildly dishonest. The people making the push for GM are doing so in order to be able to have full access to those laws, in order to force social acceptance. Saying homosexuality is morally wrong is a "hate crime" in the view of many of these folks.

[MicroBalrog]

The people pushing for GM are not a homogenous force.

[Balog]

Sure, plenty of useful idiots for whome the expansion of what is already happening will be a surprise, albeit probably a pleasent one. Just like all the naive kids who voted for Obama but were not actually hardline race baiting socialists.

[roo_ster]

Plural of anecdote. Not data.

Yes, data.

da·ta  (dt, dt, dät)
pl.n. (used with a sing. or pl. verb)
1. Factual information, especially information organized for analysis or used to reason or make decisions.
2. Computer Science Numerical or other information represented in a form suitable for processing by computer.
3. Values derived from scientific experiments.
4. Plural of datum.

My factual (and therefor falsifiable) claim is that acts such as Balog described have already occurred.  Ministers, photographers, and others have already had this occur to them, to be more specific.  More as like, we have already discussed them on APS.

"You are entitled to your own opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts."
----Daniel Patrick Moynihan

[MicroBalrog]

The fact that certain individuals - whose number can apparently be counted on one hand - have been unfairly abused neither means that

1) This abuse is common.

2) This abuse will inevitably occur in the future.

[Balog]

I'm not sure if you're being naive or just blinded by your own ideology here, but it's kind of embarassing to watch.

[AZRedhawk44]

Here ya go, fisty and roo_ster.

http://news.yahoo.com/once-fringe-candidate-paul-shaping-2012-race-205132862.html

"I believe in a very limited role for government. But the prime reason that government exists in a free society is to protect liberty, but also to protect life. And I mean all life," he told a raucous crowd on Saturday.

"You cannot have relative value for life and deal with that. We cannot play God and make those decisions. All life is precious," he said, opening his remarks with an anti-abortion appeal to the social conservatives who have great sway here in Iowa's leadoff caucuses.

Vote for Ron Paul.  He's now made the requisite abortion-noises for your demographic.

[Balog]

Your concern for the lives of the unborn is as touching as your eloquence in delivery is stirring.

[Perd Hapley]

Here ya go, fisty and roo_ster.

http://news.yahoo.com/once-fringe-candidate-paul-shaping-2012-race-205132862.html

Vote for Ron Paul.  He's now made the requisite abortion-noises for your demographic.

What's your point? Are you saying that Ron Paul is trying to make this into the abortion election?

[roo_ster]

Here ya go, fisty and roo_ster.

http://news.yahoo.com/once-fringe-candidate-paul-shaping-2012-race-205132862.html

Vote for Ron Paul.  He's now made the requisite abortion-noises for your demographic.

Already did, in the 2008 GOP primary.

Balog has your number.