On the digression, you’re right, the way the tax break is structured now encourages couples to link and breed, not to put any money, time or effort into any individual child. That was a point that I had overlooked.

However, it doesn’t invalidate the idea of having some form of tax break for families based on how much they invested in their kids. You’re absolutely right, we don’t need to encourage random shack-ups or brood-mare behavior. We need to encourage parents to spend more money, time and energy raising each child they do have.

Now, I’m not sure how to do that, and at any rate, we’re digressing. If we keep talking about over-large families, this thread is going to reference the… Let’s not go there.

I personally feel that tax breaks for kids needs to end. We don’t need to encourage a larger populous anymore. We’re overpopulated as it is.

But I digress…

It’s the skill of the leader that permits the flock to move the centroid of their belief system around in belief space. Once the leader begins to understand the power that he wields with the flock he starts to abuse the power for the sake of the power.

We have a guy here in the Cleveland area named Ernest Agely. Watching this guy, I some times get the feeling that when he says the goofy stuff he puts forth for his followers it’s all a test to see just how far the sheep will go for him.

Jim Jones had several mock koolaid drills before the final test that killed everyone in Jones Town. All the while, building the obedience of the flock to his will.

For the leaders, they combine some of that with a lust for the power Steve referenced. The big reason they want it, however, isn’t for personal aggrandizement. They want it to silence any opposition to their line of thought. The aggrandizement just happens to some of them as a side-effect of having that much power and a particular set of personality flaws.

There is actually a fairly quick way to identify if you’re dealing with a Fundie or a garden variety theist. It has to do with that need for absolute perfection of belief. If you hand them a valid argument and they say ‘ok, you’re correct, but I choose to believe anyway’, you’re dealing with a garden variety theist. If instead they lash out, attacking you like you’ve threatened their loved ones, you’ve got a Fundie.

I said it was quick, not safe.

Except in Fundie-Land, where glee is only allowed when thinking of sinners writhing in agony.

This is the single most important thing to remember when dealing with them. It’s who they are.

The gay marriage issue is all about power for the fundies. To disenfranchise a group of people in a public way increases the power of the fundies as a group. It puts other groups on notice that they can and will be next if they don’t cow tow to the fundies.

In addition to power for the fundies as a group, it’s about power for the fundie leaders. It gives their rank and file a focal point, and it give the fundie leadership something to bang the drum about. Be afraid of all those scarie gay people. They want to *fill in the blank* and infringe on your personal rights. Follow me! Together we can stop them.

Don’t sweat the small stuff. At the base of all this discussion is the incontrovertible fact that people have the right to be happy so long as that happiness doesn’t impinge on the rights of others.

If in the process of getting through life 2 (or more people for all I care) find someone that they want to spend the balance of their lives with and maybe raise some kids and do their best at that rather arduous task… power to them. I wish them the world of happiness that they so richly deserve.

If they want to call themselves married: GREAT!

If they want a piece of paper that has the seal of the state on it that says “married”: GREAT! they should be able to get that piece of paper.

In the final analysis all the fundies have ever been after is power. Religion is all about power and imposing your will on others. Gay marriage is all about power. Not just about power over gay people but power exerted by fundie leaders over their flocks. If there wasn’t a focal point for their hate, the leadership would loose power.

That said, I would still vote for it if it were up for a vote, because they’ve got kids. That IS the reason we give married couples a tax break, remember? So they have more money to bring up the next generation? So tax the DINKs, lay off the gay-with-kid couples, and things will be in a much happier state all around. Except in Fundie-Land, where glee is only allowed when thinking of sinners writhing in agony.

I do wish the language weren’t being blurred for the sake of correctness though. Not too long ago, the folks of non-mode persuasion I hung with used ‘gender’ and ‘sex’ interchangably for plumbing, ‘orientation’ for attraction, and ‘identity’ for personal pronoun preference. I preferred that because the usage of each word made sense. Don’t get me wrong – I’m not gonna care of someone fills in blanks two and three with ‘small furry mammals’ and ‘elf’, but blank one is a bio-sciences thing, not a warm-fuzzy feel good thing.

So, am I horribly non-PC? Horribly intolerant? Or just incredibly rude?