Quote:
Originally Posted by KSig RC
This seems quite contrary to your previous stance, but I actually somewhat agree.
It means the countries put said law on the books before the good ol' US of A - additionally, there was a subtext that others wish the US would catch up and put a similar law on the books.
In terms of "what does it mean" it means two things, and only two things:
1 - The law is on the books.
2 - It would not be unprecedented for the US to enact national legislation, as other nations already have.
Of course not.
Homosexuality is really the last bastion of legal discrimination left in the United States - that is to say, while discrimination exists for other minorities, legislation to discriminate against one group really only exists for gays and lesbians. For that reason, it's important to remove the legal barriers - that's really a "first" step of sorts.
Until the legal barriers are removed, you're fighting uphill against the mechanism of law - and equality in the eyes of the law is not true equality, but the latter cannot exist without the former. Cannot. By definition.
I think I've addressed this fully (see above), but positive steps are still positive steps, and there appears to be no long-term downside to eliminating anti-gay-marriage legislation.
It's going to take literally thousands of similar small victories, but that doesn't mean each victory isn't important, right?
So rather than assuming everybody is taking down the banners and starting to clean up because, gosh, all the work is done here, maybe you should take the Occam's Razor approach and take the statements as they were explicitly said: other countries got there ahead of us.
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Why should I?
That's why I asked the question. I wanted some responses to gauge why people feel other countries are ahead. Is it because they have it on the book, or do they have other information like political results of gay marriage after the law, social effects after the fact. That's why I said it on the sideline. Just something to throw out there and see what bites. My mistake was jumping on and off the sideline when I should have just came into the game.
Everything you wrote above what I bolded is an answer I would love to hear. Why? Because it gives more insight and information.
I understand why you want to use Occam's razor, but I don't believe law on the books is the simpliest answer, or the answer with the fewest new assumptions considering the history of the world.