BikerBabe

lol, sorry...stomach trumps any sort of political/religious feeling in ALL cases! probably not the best life rule, but hey! i don't care! Bring on that cheeseburger animal style! Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

thanks for the chuckle give it up folks, people like this cannot see the absolute idiocy and contradictions in their statements. Logic holds no weight. just let him be. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

My comments apply to the restaurant industry only... Most servers aren't allowed to say anything if a table doesn't tip. Many places share tips, many don't, that's really a case-by-case basis. What we always did was kept our individual tips, but we were expected to give a portion of our tips to the busboy that was assigned to our room of the restaurant, since they don't receive tips the traditional way. As for the *why* of tipping...In MOST states of the US, it is legal and accepted to only pay servers $2.50-$2.75 per hour. Notice that is way below minimum wage (which is what, almost $7 an hour now?). The reasoning is that over time, their tips will average out to be minimum wage or better. So basically the people who don't tip are saying it's OK for a server to live off of $2.50 an hour. I think perhaps you can understand now why servers might get upset when they don't get tips. Honestly, I was LESS upset if it was someone obviously foreign who probably didn't know than if it was some idealistic jackhole who knows about tipping but chooses not to because "he doesn't get paid extra for doing HIS job". Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

actually, my comments weren't directed at you personally....it's actually one of the things i hate about this board design. I can't just reply to the thread, it has to be to a post. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

why? you use public restrooms ALL THE TIME. and you know what? i'd be willing to bet that at least once in your life, there was a gay guy at the urinal down the way. Did he attack you? Jump you? even look at you? Probably not. Because despite what you may think, gay people are people...with the same or similar standards of public decency, morals, and protocol that straight people have. Why do people automatically assume that gay people are these horny motherfuckers who are going to come in and start hitting on everyone they see? Do you do that to all the women in the military? Do all the women? NO. why would it be any different? Besides, if they did that, then military discipline wouldn't have sunk in very well, eh? why would they not follow the same frat rules that you do? The sheer amount of stereotyping and wrong assumptions surrounding this issue is staggering. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

nope. The US has one of the lowest amounts of vacation time of the "industrialized" countries. makes me jealous :P Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

actually, McDonalds sold off all their "non-McDonalds" brands about a year ago. So no, Chipotle is no longer owned by McDonalds :P And i agree...Chipotle is awesome. yum! Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

well then you've just caught gays in a catch 22 haven't ya? can't get married, can't have sex out of marriage, so it's easy to not condone them, huh? So you essentially want gay people to live their lives like priests. That's a pretty tough standard. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

I think it's gonna be Richardson, personally. But we'll see, i guess. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

oh. my. goodness. perfect example right there. no, you never DID say how you would go about fixing the issue i brought up. because it IS an issue. I think the professor's suggestion is actually a valid one. now where's yours? instead all I see is hedging. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Sorry, but cold harsh reality works both ways doent it. I guess you will have to deal with that huh? That's not really an answer at all. I asked how to do it. Prof. Kallend offered one way. You could have made a helpful suggestion, proposed solutions, but instead you respond with yet another glib one-liner that has nothing to do with the point. You are a slippery fish, aren't ya? That's not a PA, that's a comment on how you always dodge questions. Are you running for office somewhere? Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

how can you say you disagree, yet say you think they should have equal rights? If they are to have equal rights under the law, then the PRACTICAL application of that is to allow them to "marry". look, be idealisticv about "preserving marriage" all you want, but the cold harsh reality is some comapny or lawyer WILL exploit the change in language in the laws to prohibit gays who are "civil unioned" from sharing the same rights as married couples. It will happen. Now that we know it will happen, it's time to move on to practicalities. So disagree all you want, but it's like disagreeing with gravity. Now it's time to deal with it. You want them to have the same rights? then tell us HOW to accomplish that, with many laws on the books only applying to "married" couples. HOW. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Marc, the problem lies not in your belief that they should have the same rights. fine. The problem is a PRACTICAL one. That's it. I'm boiling it down, here. yes, there's the higher issues of discrimination, etc, but so many conservatives hold practicality above many other concerns that i'll lay it out like that. there are several (i've heard the number 20 bandied about, but i haven't had time to research them all myself) laws on the california books that contain the term "marriage" or "married" when referring to legal rights for couples. They do NOT say "civil union", "legal union", "domestic partner" or anything else. they say "married". What is GOING to happen (all hail the almighty dollar) is that some insurance firm is going to attempt to deny a gay partner coverage based on the fact that they aren't "married" in the eyes of the laws that cover non-discrimination for those types of companies and policies. And you know what? under current CA law, and proposition 8, they would be allowed to do that. How many lawsuits are won and lost on the basis of semantics alone? Now tell me, for PRACTICAL reasons, which is less costly, time consuming, and downright easier: Changing, repealing, or rewriting 20 laws, or changing one? All religion and "morality" aside, in a very practical sense, until every single law that uses the term "marriage" is rewritten or repealed, taking away the right of gays to "marry" IS taking away their legal rights to many of the privileges that being "married" affords people. I'd fall over dead the day i see the Mormon church spending $75million to get all those laws changed. Never happen. Because at the core of their support and the support of many of the people who funded prop 8 is the fact that they think gay people are wrong, bad, or unnatural and don't deserve the rights and happiness that "normal" people (meaning, people just ike them) have. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

I prefer this one myself: "Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'(Matthew 22:37-39) how can discrimination, prejudice, elimination of rights...HOW can that be considered loving your neighbor as yourself? How would all those prop 8 voters feel if someone wanted to eliminate their right to marry? Honestly, I'm a christian, but Paul's words that you quoted from Corinthians drives home the point that the bible was written by men, prone to error and contradiction. For doesn't Jesus say in his sermon on the mount: "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you." (Luke 6:37-38) This portion of Paul's letter is pretty contradictory here... If you must quote 1 Corinthians, quote that amazing and heartfelt description that most of us have heard before...because i think it is particularly relevant here: This issue is about love. love for our fellow man. Love for God. Love for ourselves. And 52% of californians voted to take that away. I am ashamed and sad. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

no. i am grammar bitch. Actually, my biggest peeve is the apostrophe. ugh. I see it misused AL. THE. TIME. on signs. on billboards. In formal documents. It's pathetic. Also, people who say "broke" when they mean "broken", as in "that door is broke, use the other one". Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

obviously it does, since no one has really replied. Hard to argue with what he says. It's funny, my church is doing a special series called "40 Days of Love" where the theme is basically the Great Commandment (Love the Lord your God....and love your neighbor as yourself). The emphasis is on the second half, since it is often so hard to do. I know my church had a lot of prop 8 supporters (and a lot who were against it, to be fair). I would LOVE to somehow get them to see this. It basically says exactly what our entire series has been talking about. To me, acting like a Christian means following that commandment. Look, no one is perfect, and God knows it's impossible to do it on my own, but honestly, if every Christian actually DID what Christ said to do, i think there would be a lot less anti-christian sentiment floating around, and a lot fewer stupid ballot measures like prop 8. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Definitely. Sign up. go there. I have personally seen people like you, with NO experience, who came to the team building thing 3-4 years ago, go on to be intermediate class medalists at nationals in a couple of years. It's totally worth it. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

well Jeanne, i am pretty sure i can understand, based on the responses to this thread. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

Sometimes, the fed government has limited choices about what is legal in each state. I remember when they raised the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 years. Colorado was one of the last two states to hold out, and finally the government threatened to take away millions of dollars in highway funds. That kinda made sense, considering drinking and driving among young people was one of the key issues. But I don't know how the Fed could pressure states to change their laws. Taking away highway funding doesn't make sense. I also see the entire issue from a revenue perspective. The states and churches opposed to gay marriage are losing money to be had from gay weddings. The lawyers should've been strongly opposed - think of the money they could be making from gay divorce. Insurance companies would probably do better, since some people would pay slightly more to have both spouses insured - many couples can't afford individual insurance for both parties. The only thing prop 8 does is get gay couples to fly to another state to get married, and lose income for California. Actually, i think it would be very easy in this case for the federal gov't, in the form of the supreme court, to rule that the state amendment is unconstitutional because it violates the 14th amendment to the US constitution. I am no lawyer and i don't really know the process or authority the US SC has over matters of state constitutions, but the 14th clearly says that no state will make a law abridging the rights of citizens. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

My choices stem from the fact that i am a hopelessly romantic idealistic nerd at heart. I read for pleasure, and i love fiction. "A Tale of Two Cities" - Charles Dickens. Yeah yeah, you hated reading it in school. I LOVED it. It has an amazing story, richly-drawn characters, an exciting setting, and one of the most romantic and timeless sacrifices for love ever put into print. *swoon* Lord of the Rings - Tolkien. The man didn't just create fantasy fiction. He created a world, several languages, and left a mark on popular culture that will probably endure for the rest of recorded history. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen. what can i say...i AM a chick, after all :P Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

it's an interesting question. Could lead to all sorts of headaches for the state if they truly are going to enforce the ridiculousness that is prop 8. I have a vision of a "legal" wedding requiring a state-sponsored doctor in attendance to give a checkup prior to the vows. On the other hand, prop 8 could be a HUGE boon to the doctors/clinics who do sex-reassignment operations/therapy. hmmm!! You know, there's just soooooo many things the yes on 8 people very obviously didn't consider. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

100% agree

Oh really? which article would it convolute if the US SC overturned it? this one, perhaps? That's section 1 of the 14th amendment, BTW. You know, of the US constitution. The text of prop 8 made it very clear that its purpose was to eliminate the right of gays to marry. Seems pretty clear cut to me, and i highly doubt that overturning prop 8 would be a "convolution" of the US Constitution, particularly in regards to the 14th. Oh, and for those of you claiming that marriage isn't a right, it's a privilege...well, the 14th covers that, too Honestly, whether the US SC decides to be connstructionist or literalist, would be very challenged to find grounds to allow prop 8 to stand. It's really really tough to take a law that eliminates a right and hold it up to the scrutiny of the 14th, i'd say. I wonder what the vote would have been if the text of the proposition read: "Eliminates the right of inter-racial couples to marry"... Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

In the language of the ballot proposition itself, actually... "Eliminates the right of same-sex couples to marry..." Yes, it actually SAID that on the ballot. And this measure actually passed. Read it again. Makes me sick. Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!

nit picking is what lawyers do. I'm not a lawyer, but you and I both know how it works. And how is it nitpicking in the following scenario? Law says married couples get certain tax benefits. And i mean the law uses the term "married". CA constitution says "marriage is only between a man and a woman". ergo...gay couples in a "civil union" are NOT entitled to the same tax benefit mentioned in that law. It's not nitpicking. it's what this entire damned thread is about! Now that we're clear, how do you propose to allow gay couples who are "civil-unioned" but not married (because the constitution says they can't be) the same rights and privileges as married couples under the law? Never meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with ketchup!