necoandjeff wrote:

> "Kevin Gowen" <kgowenNOSPAM@myfastmail.com> wrote in message
> news:2pufauFns2kdU7@uni-berlin.de...
> 
>>necoandjeff wrote:
>>>nor will it.
>>
>>"Never" is a very long time, counselor. I suspect when the 14th
>>Amendment was ratified in 1868 to guarantee the rights and freedom of
>>former slaves, if I* were to conjecture that the amendment would result
>>in a mandate of the sale of contraceptives to unwed minors, a mandate of
>>crosstown busing to integrate schools, and a mandate for partial-birth
>>abortion, I suspect that I would have received a response identical in
>>sentiment to "Nor will it". Well, look at what has happened in the past
>>136 years.
>>
>>I don't see how you can say that incestuous marriage will never be
>>granted cert when it only took 105 years to find a right to suck a baby
>>down a sink. It's quite naive, but that's what I like about you.
> 
> 
> Sure, nothing is impossible. But I'm talking about it coming before the
> supreme court under current equal protection law, which is fairly well
> developed. Someone would have to propose an entirely new class to even
> initiate a challenge to the state's prohibition against incestuous
> relationships. Yeah, call my a wild gambler, but I don't see it happening in
> our lifetimes.

What new class would that be? Setting genetics aside, if SCOTUS
determines same-sex marriage to be a constitutional mandate, it is going
to have to gymnastics on par with Carly Patterson if it wants to decline
extending EP to other marriages such as incestuous and polygamous ones.
Scalia's dissent spoke directly to this point:
"State laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest,
prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and
obscenity are likewise sustainable only in light of Bowers’ validation
of laws based on moral choices. Every single one of these laws is called
into question by today’s decision; the Court makes no effort to cabin
the scope of its decision to exclude them from its holding."

The prohibition against incestuous marriages is based on social mores,
nothing more. The old "deformed offspring" chestnut is a post hoc
pseudoscientific rationalization for people who want to tell themselves
that their liberated minds are far above morals-based laws. As you have
admitted, marriage has nothing to do with children, so why would
offspring matter at all?

I might be able to understand your anti-incest bigotry if you could
explain the purpose of the state's issuance of marriage licenses. I've
always considered marriage to be a social and religious exercise, so I
don't particularly see why the state needs to get involved.

> Would
> 
>>>you care to distinguish between the court's differing treatment of
>>>discrimination based on race and discrimination based on sex then, since
>>>both are based on genetics?
>>
>>You think that race is based on genetics? ホホホ. Race, unlike sex, is a
>>social construct. Most biologists reject the idea of races with Homo
>>sapiens and classify us as monotypic, although about 70 years ago some
>>government scientists in Europe had some ideas about biological races
>>within Homo sapiens. The idea of dividing human beings into races based
>>on morphological differences is quite a recent concept. Sex is not a
>>construct
> 
> 
> Do you really have trouble distinguishing between the dangerous and
> ridiculous ideas that German scientists held 70 years ago and the notion
> that the physical features that people generally use to determine one's race
> have a basis in one's genes? 

Saying "Genetics determine the color of one's eyes" and "Genetics
determines one's race". I notice that you have been very careful to talk
about genetically determined morphological differences rather than race
itself as being genetically determined. This is smart of you. However,
as a scientific wunderkind, you should know that morphological
differences are not the sole determinant as to whether or not a species
is polytypic. If it were, every species would be polytypic and the term
would be meaningless. This is why biologists and anthropologists today
reject the notion of biological race within Homo sapiens. It is a social
construct.

> How often have you seen a Caucasian couple
> spontaneously pop out a baby with African or Asian features? 

I don't know. First I would need to know the biological definitions of
the Caucasian, African, and Asian races. Do Asians tend to look more
like Vladimir Putin, Mohandas Gandhi, or Koizumi Jun'ichiro? Is George
W. Bush the same race as Usama bin Laden?

> Of course I do
> not subscribe to the notion that there is any substantive genetic difference
> between the races, nor do you have to subscribe to such beliefs to
> understand that one's physical features (which, for better or for worse,
> have historically been used as a basis for classifying people into various
> races) are determined by one's genetics. And even if you are inclined to
> toss out this notion, you still have people classifying people into races
> based on the race of their parents, so we're back to genetics (with no less
> tenuous of a basis in genetics than your claim that prohibition of
> incestuous marriages is a genetic issue.) I do not advocate separating
> people into races for any reason, but the reality is that many people do,
> and some of those people use the classification of race as a basis for
> discrimination, which means that whether you will be subject to such
> discrimination is largely determined by your appearance, or who your parents
> are, and hence by your genes.

That's all well and good, but biologically and genetically speaking,
race does not exist in Homo sapiens. We are monotypic. We can point to
the chromosome that determines sex. Can you point to the chromosome(s)
that determine race? The U.S. Human Genome Project was not successful in
doing so.

>>I must say, your pronouncement about the genetic basis of race made me
>>remember reading the old 1950s World Book Encyclopedia in my
>>grandmother's house, which listed the three biological races of
>>Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid. It's very quaint. I don't keep up
>>with California trends so maybe there is a Gobineau revival of sorts,
>>Mr. Mond?
>>
>>As I have said before, if you were inclined towards science, you would
>>have gone to medical school. There is a very good reason why mathematics
>>and science are not tested on the LSAT.
> 
> 
> I hope you don't jump to conclusions that have no basis in fact like that in
> your practice of the law, counselor. 

Well, I only intend to practice law if I can't make more money doing
something else. That having been said, your performance so far has not
betrayed a penchant for left-brained matters.

> I've scored far higher in math and
> science than any other subject ever since I took my first standarized test
> back in junior high school. I started undergrad as a biology major and
> switched to political science at the last minute (about the same time I
> decided not to go to medical school, only because I didn't want a life of
> the kind of stress I was exposed to working part time in a nursing home:
> seeing people die and not being able to do anything about it.) 

Where, in some backwater like Kentucky? Is that where you got that
corker about incestuous breeding causing horribly deformed offspring?

> I generally
> don't read fiction or literature, and other than a lot of books on Japanese
> history (the only "humanities" subject I have any interest in), my bookshelf
> is overwhelmingly filled with books on mathematics (recursive functions,
> strange attractors, etc. were a pet subject about 10 years ago) and science
> (cognitive science and books about complex adaptive systems are two favorite
> subjects, and my favorite authors include Stuart Kauffman, Douglas
> Hofstadter and Daniel Dennett.) Admittedly I have been reading primarily
> legal stuff and Japanese history for the past 6 years or so, but if you
> think science and mathematics aren't my strong points, guess again.

Then where did your linguistic howlers about what determines the
meanings of words come from? Or, is linguistics a "humanity"?

>>>Trying to expand equal protection to incestuous
>>>relationships because it is "genetic" is rather absurd logic don't you
>>>think?
>>
>>Not at all. What's absurd about it?
> 
> 
> Because genetics have never been a basis for equal protection challenges.

Yes, they haven't. However, I don't see the leap between lack of
precedent to "absurd". There is a first time for every matter that comes
before a court.

Seriously, I do think that genetic EP, although most probably not on
this issue, will and should come before SCOTUS soon. Procedures such as
IVF and PGD, the second of which I find to be absolutely ghoulish, are
routine. American parents are practicing eugenics today, so I think the
application of EP to genetics should be explored lest we risk some sort
of genetic caste system, soft or otherwise.

> The factors that have traditionally been considered are things like how much
> political power the proposed class has, whether their characteristics are
> immutable, whether there is a history of discrimination against them, etc.
> In other words, equal protection is a legal protection that protects certain
> people from the harmful effects of the imperfect and rather nonscientific
> reasons people have typically used to single people out for unfair
> treatment.

Yes, that is what the factors have traditionally been. So, what are the
rather scientific reasons for the unfair treatment of relatives who wish
  a marriage license from the state?

As parents continue to give birth to designer babies, I wonder what sort
of discrimination would develop? But, I guess that wouldn't be
discrimination based on "rather unscientific reasons," would it?

>>All this talk about science doesn't seem to be your strong suit. Maybe
>>we should go back to talking about naked parades?
> 
> 
> Don't confuse your arrogance for someone else's naivete.

Well, then I guess my plans to run as a Democrat to challenge George W.
Bush have been dashed.

- Kevin