Federal judge: Arguments against gay marriage 'are not those of serious people'

[Manic Spinoza]

 

[Aldebaran]

Really? It seems like it would be pretty hard to miss something you deliberately cut out of someone's post. Most people have to read the post to know which portions they don't want to answer and therefore need to quote-mine out.

I was replying to Manic Spinoza's post. I quoted it in its entirety.

 

[Manic Spinoza]

I was replying to Manic Spinoza's post. I quoted it in its entirety.

Do you believe SSM should be legal and why or why not?

 

[Aldebaran]

Do you believe SSM should be legal and why or why not?

If you want to know, just do a search of this thread for the posts I've already done on the subject in replies I've made to other members here when we were still discussing it. If you really want to know the answer, you'll take the time to search and find out.

 

[Manic Spinoza]

If you want to know, just do a search of this thread for the posts I've already done on the subject in replies I've made to other members here when we were still discussing it. If you really want to know the answer, you'll take the time to search and find out.

Do you believe SSM should be legal and why or why not?

 

[Glass*Soul]

I've read through your entire post and checked the link concerning the verse in Leviticus. I'm not an expert or very knowledgable when it comes to translating languages, much of that is over my head. But I think the conclusion of the article starts to split hairs and tries very hard to come to a conclusion other than what seems to me to be obvious. I also think that the other verses in scripture that basically say the same thing in different ways supports the most popular interpretation.

Fair enough. Anyone looking at those links who has the slightest interest in the topic is going to find that one translation seems more obviously correct than the other. The trick, I think, is to hold the possibility of the less seemingly obvious one in some sort of state of equilibrium in one's mind so that it at least has a presence in our consideration of the topic.

What got me onto this jag about canon was your question as to whether I had actually asked the people who are against gay marriage what their reasons are. I have. I get frustrated though, that when I bring up the parts of the Bible that have gone to inform my thoughts on the matter, the ones that I weigh heavily and that are in bold print in my thinking, I tend to get the response that those passages aren't about homosexuality as if the Bible can only approach the question in the form of a starkly stated rule.

That's the thing about Leviticus. It has a list of rules. It's a really easy way of thinking about things, at least apart from questions of translations and dispensations and such.

Lots of the Bible, though, is stories. As a friend of mine used to say, "The truth is in the story." Jesus made a lot of his points in the form of parables, which he acknowledged was a way of telling a truth that both revealed it and hid it. Well, that's hard. It's complicated. If people want rules, a parable is as far from a rule as you can get. Then there are the stories about Jesus which, whether one thinks they are factual or not, contain concepts that may be subtle and seem to hold opposites in tension (such as rules vs. expediency). Again, subtlety is hard compared to rules.

So I get frustrated when I talk about Jesus' comments on eunuchs (...yes I know that they aren't perfect analogous to gay men but still....), or Ruth and Naomi (...no they don't have to be lesbians for my point to be valid...), or the Centurian who sought healing for his special, beloved slave who was different from all the people he had to boss around (...yes, I think it was a gay liaison so sue me...) and get Levitical rules thrown in my face as if they trump everything. Absolutely everything the Bible has to say about the mad variety of sexuality, love and intimacy in the human experience.

In my cloud/canon, the stories, especially the one's about Christ or told by him, the ones that are about people, are HUGE and the rules in Leviticus are tiny. Not non-existent, but tiny. They matter so little in comparison.

So, suddenly here's this whole anti-SSM argument that throws adoptive families and infertile couples under the bus. If they have to do that to make their point they have now officially lost. One does not protect rules by throwing people under the bus. If someone can read the gospels and think that is OK, then they need to pull their ox out of the well, so to speak, and start over at Matt. 1:1.

 

[bhsmte]

If you want to know, just do a search of this thread for the posts I've already done on the subject in replies I've made to other members here when we were still discussing it. If you really want to know the answer, you'll take the time to search and find out.

Come on, it' not that hard. Here are the simple questions. Let's see if you are bold enough to give a simple answer:

Are you for protecting people from being discriminated against?

Do you feel, same sex marriage should be banned?

 

[Manic Spinoza]

The Manic S. post I was referring to was the one where he said, "If you allow SSM marriages Christians will be persecuted because Christians find LGBT people icky."

Do you believe SSM should be legal and why or why not?

 

[Aldebaran]

Come on, it' not that hard. Here are the simple questions. Let's see if you are bold enough to give a simple answer:

Are you for protecting people from being discriminated against?

Do you feel, same sex marriage should be banned?

Alright, let me try to explain my position as best I can. I'm going to be detailed, so I hope you can have the patience to read what I'm about to say. You want answers, so here it is:
Has your three-year-old daughter woken up in the middle of the night – oh, say around 3:45 am – and then come into your room where she attempts to climb into the reclining chair in your room (where she plans on sleeping the rest of the night) only while climbing up onto the chair, she slips and hits the metal table next to the recliner in *just* the wrong place – that sensitive area right under the nose and right above your lip – so she starts crying, but you are a deep sleeper and your wife isn’t really, so you sort of stir but aren’t too worried because you don’t know that she’s hit her face on the metal table and also because, hey, your wife has got this but then you hear your wife say, “She’s bleeding!” and then you’re wide-awake because you are concerned, not only about your daughter’s well-being but because you’re unsure if blood easily comes out of microfiber, so you get up and the bathroom light turns on and your wife is sitting down with your daughter and blood is just pouring out of her little nose, and it’s kind of scary because the washcloth is filling up with blood and there’s blood running down your daughter’s arm, and she’s freaking out because it hurts and your wife is starting to freak out because she doesn’t know how this even happened and it’s an awful lot of blood and in your head you start to think, “Is this a normal amount of blood for a three-year-old to lose from a bloody nose” but then you remember from your 9th grade health class that you have to apply pressure on the nose to get the bleeding to stop, and so you helpfully begin to say, “We should apply pressure” but then your wife looks at you and says, “I’m starting to black out” and you say, “What?” and then she doesn’t respond, so you take your daughter off her lap and grab your wife’s shoulder and arm, and say, again, “What?” but she doesn’t respond and you let go of your wife’s arm and her entire body just goes limp and crashes backwards into the shower door and vanity, not like she’s trying to rest or lean back for support, but like she’s lost consciousness – because she has – and you pull her forward and try to get her off the closed toilet seat, but she’s unconscious and is actually really heavy because it’s dead weight (not because she’s heavy, mind you!) and you drag her out of the bathroom and lie her face down, but she starts twitching and her breathing seems to stop, and she’s only taking erratic, short breaths, and this freaks you out so you think that the best way to stop freaking out is to get your wife to wake up so you start yelling her name because you have a loud voice – probably the loudest voice of anyone you know – so if there’s anyone who can pull someone out of unconsciousness by sheer volume, it’s you, so you start yelling your wife’s name, along with helpful instructions like, “Wake up” but it’s not working, and your daughter is standing there holding a washcloth which is now entirely drenched in blood, and she’s shaking and you start to worry about her now and questions start racing through your head like, “Is she shaking because she’s cold?” and then you think “Or is she shaking because she’s scared?” and then you think “Or is she shaking because she’s lost too much blood and now she’s going to faint, too?” and you feel this wave of something start to come over you and you think “My wife isn’t responding to anything I’m doing and it’s been a few minutes and her breathing is really weird and I can’t get her to wake up and this isn’t normal and I’m actually kind of scared right now” and so you run out into the kitchen and grab your phone and call 9/11 and as it’s connecting you think about a guy from your church that you know pretty well who is a dispatcher for 9/11 and you wonder if you’ll hear his voice, but it’s a woman, and she takes your info, and says the ambulance is on the way and while you’re on the line, she tells you to turn your wife on her back, which you do, but it’s tough because she’s heavy, mainly because it’s dead weight, not – mind you – because she weighs a lot (no!) and in the time it took to simply flip your wife over, you hear the ambulance rumbling outside and you think to yourself, “That was less than a minute,” but your sense of time is all screwed up, so maybe it was 2 minutes, but it sure didn’t seem much more than that, and you run outside and wave your arms like you’re on an island and they’re in a helicopter search and rescue party, which is silly, but you’re not responding super well to the pressure and the guy yells from the ambulance, “We see you” but he says this with just a hint of “so you can stop that now” which sort of hurts your feelings but you don’t have time for that now, so you run back inside and your daughter is kneeling down by her mommy and saying, “I love you so much,” over and over and your wife is still unconscious and you stare at her stomach to make sure it’s moving – and it sort of is – every few seconds, sporadically and then suddenly 6 huge guys with big boots and yellow pants and red suspenders come in and one of them, who is easily 6’5″ starts asking you what’s going on, and his calmness is contagious and you hear the other guys working on your wife as she lays half in the hallway and half in the bathroom and the big tall 6’5″ guy gets down on one knee and starts talking to your daughter, and you’d think she’d be scared, but she laughs at him and say, “You’re nice” and you show the fireman the bloody washcloth and he calmly looks at you and says, “Yeah, noses can bleed a lot” and you say, “This much” and he – again, so calmly – says, “Yes” and suddenly you feel like everything is normal (or will be normal soon) so you turn your attention to the bathroom, where your wife is now hooked up to some machines and these giant men – maybe they seem giant to me because of their boots? – are saying things in firm but kind voices, things like, “We’re trying to help you, ma’am, you need to help us. Now can you sit up?” And one of them says, “Blood pressure is normal” and the other responds to him and your wife sits up a little and says, “Why was she bleeding” and for the first time in 8 minutes, your wife responds in a sentence and you realize she’s regained consciousness and she starts rubbing her eyes and you assure her that your daughter is okay, and then the fireman says, “We need you to stand up, and if you can’t stand up we’re going to have to take you to the hospital” and so your wife slowly stands to her feet, and you see that her pajama top is dotted with little baby girl hand prints of dark red blood, like a macabre pre-school art project and the men check your wife’s vitals again and ask her questions again, and then say something to themselves, and begin packing up their things because everything has stabilized and these are men who deal with emergencies and so they begin to file out of the house back to their giant machines and your wife is now talking normally and asking what happened, and your daughter is changing out of her blood-stained pajamas and washing off her face and as you walk out to your front sidewalk, you yell a thank you to the men, who don’t turn around, because they are men who deal with emergencies, and the super tall 6’5″ fireman – the calm, kind one who calmed you and your daughter down – says, “No problem” and they shut their doors and the machines begin to rumble off and then you walk inside, close the door, and for the first time, you realize you’re sweating and that your heart is still racing, but everything is okay, and your wife and daughter are calming down and getting ready to climb back into bed and you have the fleeting thought you just cost your city and neighbors probably a few thousand dollars and you feel a little guilty about that, but more than anything you feel grateful that everyone is okay and bummed that your son somehow slept through the whole thing because he would have loved seeing the firemen.

I sure hope this answers your questions, because I now have carpal tunnel syndrome! Time to take a break now. I'll be back in maybe a couple hours, if I still have the time.

 

[Queller]

Down boy! No barking, or you'll go in the kennel!
You asked me what Obama ever did that was unconstitutional. Now that you got the answer you didn't expect/want to hear, you're getting mad. Facts are facts, dude!

Please feel free to post where I asked you what Obama did that was unconstitutional. Here's a hint, I didn't.

What I said was;

Feel free to start a thread and give an example of anything unconstitutional the President has done.

In case you aren't familiar with standard English, that is a what is known as an imperative sentence not an interrogative sentence.

Did I mention that the SCOTUS ruling against Obama was 9 to 0? Unanimous! It doesn't get any more clear cut than that. Even his own appointees ruled against him.

That's OK Sir Robin, we understand. You go ahead and scarper off.

Brave Sir Robin Fled - YouTube

 

[bhsmte]

Where's nurse Ratched when you need her?

 

[Cute Tink]

I sure hope this answers your questions, because I now have carpal tunnel syndrome! Time to take a break now. I'll be back in maybe a couple hours, if I still have the time.

Just FYI, maybe it's because I don't understand the point of your story, you could have saved yourself a lot of time (and carpel tunnel) by saying "yes" or "no".

 

[bhsmte]

Just FYI, maybe it's because I don't understand the point of your story, you could have saved yourself a lot of time (and carpel tunnel) by saying "yes" or "no".

That would have been far to risky. Better to evade altogether, sort of like politicians do all the time.

 

[Glass*Soul]

That would have been far to risky. Better to evade altogether, sort of like politicians do all the time.

I took it to be a true story explaining why he is tired and not answering each inquiry in full.

Hopefully he will clarify.

BTW, I can't recall if anyone has linked to the actual ruling we're discussing.

Kentucky Gay Marriage Ruling

The judge really gives the whole procreation argument a good dressing down beginning on page 15. It has the word 'attenuated' in it. In a sentence. I am jealous. I must find an excuse to use the word 'attenuated' in the next few days...

 

[Skaloop]

Alright, let me try to explain my position as best I can. I'm going to be detailed, so I hope you can have the patience to read what I'm about to say. You want answers, so here it is:
Has your three-year-old daughter woken up in the middle of the night – oh, say around 3:45 am – and then come into your room where she attempts to climb into the reclining chair in your room (where she plans on sleeping the rest of the night) only while climbing up onto the chair, she slips and hits the metal table next to the recliner in *just* the wrong place – that sensitive area right under the nose and right above your lip – so she starts crying, but you are a deep sleeper and your wife isn’t really, so you sort of stir but aren’t too worried because you don’t know that she’s hit her face on the metal table and also because, hey, your wife has got this but then you hear your wife say, “She’s bleeding!” and then you’re wide-awake because you are concerned, not only about your daughter’s well-being but because you’re unsure if blood easily comes out of microfiber, so you get up and the bathroom light turns on and your wife is sitting down with your daughter and blood is just pouring out of her little nose, and it’s kind of scary because the washcloth is filling up with blood and there’s blood running down your daughter’s arm, and she’s freaking out because it hurts and your wife is starting to freak out because she doesn’t know how this even happened and it’s an awful lot of blood and in your head you start to think, “Is this a normal amount of blood for a three-year-old to lose from a bloody nose” but then you remember from your 9th grade health class that you have to apply pressure on the nose to get the bleeding to stop, and so you helpfully begin to say, “We should apply pressure” but then your wife looks at you and says, “I’m starting to black out” and you say, “What?” and then she doesn’t respond, so you take your daughter off her lap and grab your wife’s shoulder and arm, and say, again, “What?” but she doesn’t respond and you let go of your wife’s arm and her entire body just goes limp and crashes backwards into the shower door and vanity, not like she’s trying to rest or lean back for support, but like she’s lost consciousness – because she has – and you pull her forward and try to get her off the closed toilet seat, but she’s unconscious and is actually really heavy because it’s dead weight (not because she’s heavy, mind you!) and you drag her out of the bathroom and lie her face down, but she starts twitching and her breathing seems to stop, and she’s only taking erratic, short breaths, and this freaks you out so you think that the best way to stop freaking out is to get your wife to wake up so you start yelling her name because you have a loud voice – probably the loudest voice of anyone you know – so if there’s anyone who can pull someone out of unconsciousness by sheer volume, it’s you, so you start yelling your wife’s name, along with helpful instructions like, “Wake up” but it’s not working, and your daughter is standing there holding a washcloth which is now entirely drenched in blood, and she’s shaking and you start to worry about her now and questions start racing through your head like, “Is she shaking because she’s cold?” and then you think “Or is she shaking because she’s scared?” and then you think “Or is she shaking because she’s lost too much blood and now she’s going to faint, too?” and you feel this wave of something start to come over you and you think “My wife isn’t responding to anything I’m doing and it’s been a few minutes and her breathing is really weird and I can’t get her to wake up and this isn’t normal and I’m actually kind of scared right now” and so you run out into the kitchen and grab your phone and call 9/11 and as it’s connecting you think about a guy from your church that you know pretty well who is a dispatcher for 9/11 and you wonder if you’ll hear his voice, but it’s a woman, and she takes your info, and says the ambulance is on the way and while you’re on the line, she tells you to turn your wife on her back, which you do, but it’s tough because she’s heavy, mainly because it’s dead weight, not – mind you – because she weighs a lot (no!) and in the time it took to simply flip your wife over, you hear the ambulance rumbling outside and you think to yourself, “That was less than a minute,” but your sense of time is all screwed up, so maybe it was 2 minutes, but it sure didn’t seem much more than that, and you run outside and wave your arms like you’re on an island and they’re in a helicopter search and rescue party, which is silly, but you’re not responding super well to the pressure and the guy yells from the ambulance, “We see you” but he says this with just a hint of “so you can stop that now” which sort of hurts your feelings but you don’t have time for that now, so you run back inside and your daughter is kneeling down by her mommy and saying, “I love you so much,” over and over and your wife is still unconscious and you stare at her stomach to make sure it’s moving – and it sort of is – every few seconds, sporadically and then suddenly 6 huge guys with big boots and yellow pants and red suspenders come in and one of them, who is easily 6’5″ starts asking you what’s going on, and his calmness is contagious and you hear the other guys working on your wife as she lays half in the hallway and half in the bathroom and the big tall 6’5″ guy gets down on one knee and starts talking to your daughter, and you’d think she’d be scared, but she laughs at him and say, “You’re nice” and you show the fireman the bloody washcloth and he calmly looks at you and says, “Yeah, noses can bleed a lot” and you say, “This much” and he – again, so calmly – says, “Yes” and suddenly you feel like everything is normal (or will be normal soon) so you turn your attention to the bathroom, where your wife is now hooked up to some machines and these giant men – maybe they seem giant to me because of their boots? – are saying things in firm but kind voices, things like, “We’re trying to help you, ma’am, you need to help us. Now can you sit up?” And one of them says, “Blood pressure is normal” and the other responds to him and your wife sits up a little and says, “Why was she bleeding” and for the first time in 8 minutes, your wife responds in a sentence and you realize she’s regained consciousness and she starts rubbing her eyes and you assure her that your daughter is okay, and then the fireman says, “We need you to stand up, and if you can’t stand up we’re going to have to take you to the hospital” and so your wife slowly stands to her feet, and you see that her pajama top is dotted with little baby girl hand prints of dark red blood, like a macabre pre-school art project and the men check your wife’s vitals again and ask her questions again, and then say something to themselves, and begin packing up their things because everything has stabilized and these are men who deal with emergencies and so they begin to file out of the house back to their giant machines and your wife is now talking normally and asking what happened, and your daughter is changing out of her blood-stained pajamas and washing off her face and as you walk out to your front sidewalk, you yell a thank you to the men, who don’t turn around, because they are men who deal with emergencies, and the super tall 6’5″ fireman – the calm, kind one who calmed you and your daughter down – says, “No problem” and they shut their doors and the machines begin to rumble off and then you walk inside, close the door, and for the first time, you realize you’re sweating and that your heart is still racing, but everything is okay, and your wife and daughter are calming down and getting ready to climb back into bed and you have the fleeting thought you just cost your city and neighbors probably a few thousand dollars and you feel a little guilty about that, but more than anything you feel grateful that everyone is okay and bummed that your son somehow slept through the whole thing because he would have loved seeing the firemen.

No. I don't have a three-year old daughter. See how easy that was; answering a yes or nor question with a yes or no?

Honestly, I don't even see what your little story has to do with anything we're discussing. How does a little kid getting a bloody nose and a woman losing consciousness relate to same-sex marriage?

 

[bhsmte]

I took it to be a true story explaining why he is tired and not answering each inquiry in full.

Hopefully he will clarify.

BTW, I can't recall if anyone has linked to the actual ruling we're discussing.

Kentucky Gay Marriage Ruling

The judge really gives the whole procreation argument a good dressing down beginning on page 15. It has the word 'attenuated' in it. In a sentence. I am jealous. I must find an excuse to use the word 'attenuated' in the next few days...

Clearly, he does not want to answer and dont think being tired has anything to do with it. He has plenty of energy to speak boldly, but none left to answer simple questions?

Give a yes or no or juat say you dont want to answer.

 

[jgarden]

Anti-miscegenation laws repealed 1948–1967

State - law passed/repealed - Races whites were banned from marrying
***************************************************************
Arizona 1865/1962 - Blacks, Asians, Filipinos, [East] Indians, Filipinos ("Malays") and Indians ("Hindus")

California 1850/1948 - Blacks, Asians, Filipinos

Colorado 1864/1957 - Blacks

Idaho 1864/1959 - Blacks, Native Americans, Asians

Indiana 1818/1965 - Blacks

Maryland 1692/1967 - Blacks, Filipinos

Montana 1909/1953 - Blacks, Asians

Nebraska 1855/1963 - Blacks, Asians

Nevada 1861/1959 - Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, Filipinos

North Dakota 1909/1955 - Blacks

Oregon 1862/1951 - Blacks, Native Americans, Asians, Native Hawaiians

South Dakota 1909/1957 - Blacks, Asians, Filipinos

Utah 1852/1963 - Blacks, Asians, Filipinos Wyoming 1913 1965 Blacks, Asians, Filipinos


Anti-miscegenation laws overturned on 12 June 1967 by Loving v. Virginia

State - First law passed - Races whites were banned from marrying
***************************************************************
Alabama 1822 - Blacks (Repealed during Reconstruction, law later reinstated)

Arkansas 1838 - Blacks (Repealed during Reconstruction, law later reinstated)

Delaware 1721 - Blacks

Florida 1832 - Blacks (Repealed during Reconstruction, law later reinstated)

Georgia 1750 - All non-whites

Kentucky 1792 - Blacks

Louisiana 1724 - Blacks (Repealed during Reconstruction, law later reinstated)

Mississippi 1822 - Blacks (Repealed during Reconstruction, law later reinstated)

Missouri 1835 - Blacks, Asians

North Carolina 1715 - Blacks, Native Americans

Oklahoma 1897 - Blacks

South Carolina 1717 - All non-whites (Repealed during Reconstruction, law later reinstated)

Tennessee 1741 - Blacks, Native Americans

Texas 1837 - All non-whites

Virginia 1691 - All non-whites West Virginia 1863 Blacks

June 1967 by Loving v. Virginia: the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that:

"Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.... To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discriminations. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not to marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."

The Supreme Court condemned Virginia's anti-miscegenation law as "designed to maintain White supremacy".

In 1967, 17 Southern states (all the former slave states plus Oklahoma) still enforced laws prohibiting marriage between whites and non-whites. Maryland repealed its law in response to the start of the proceedings at the Supreme Court. After the ruling of the Supreme Court, the remaining laws were no longer in effect. Nonetheless, it took South Carolina until 1998 and Alabama until 2000 to officially amend their states' constitutions to remove language prohibiting miscegenation. In the respective referendums, 62% of voters in South Carolina and 59% of voters in Alabama voted to remove these laws.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-miscegenation_laws_in_the_United_States

Federal judge: Arguments against gay marriage 'are not those of serious people'

It was not that long ago that Southern States had laws banning interracial marriage!

 

[Skaloop]

I took it to be a true story explaining why he is tired and not answering each inquiry in full.

So he can't answer a yes or no question because he's tired, but he he's not so tired that he can't write a long, meandering, and overly verbose post describing why he's tired?

Especially when he says he's about to explain his position, not that he's about to give a reason for not answering.

 

[Manic Spinoza]

He's just proving the judge's point that arguments against gay marriage are not those of serious people.

 

[Queller]

Alright, let me try to explain my position as best I can. I'm going to be detailed, so I hope you can have the patience to read what I'm about to say. You want answers, so here it is:
Has your three-year-old daughter woken up in the middle of the night – oh, say around 3:45 am – and then come into your room where she attempts to climb into the reclining chair in your room (where she plans on sleeping the rest of the night) only while climbing up onto the chair, she slips and hits the metal table next to the recliner in *just* the wrong place – that sensitive area right under the nose and right above your lip – so she starts crying, but you are a deep sleeper and your wife isn’t really, so you sort of stir but aren’t too worried because you don’t know that she’s hit her face on the metal table and also because, hey, your wife has got this but then you hear your wife say, “She’s bleeding!” and then you’re wide-awake because you are concerned, not only about your daughter’s well-being but because you’re unsure if blood easily comes out of microfiber, so you get up and the bathroom light turns on and your wife is sitting down with your daughter and blood is just pouring out of her little nose, and it’s kind of scary because the washcloth is filling up with blood and there’s blood running down your daughter’s arm, and she’s freaking out because it hurts and your wife is starting to freak out because she doesn’t know how this even happened and it’s an awful lot of blood and in your head you start to think, “Is this a normal amount of blood for a three-year-old to lose from a bloody nose” but then you remember from your 9th grade health class that you have to apply pressure on the nose to get the bleeding to stop, and so you helpfully begin to say, “We should apply pressure” but then your wife looks at you and says, “I’m starting to black out” and you say, “What?” and then she doesn’t respond, so you take your daughter off her lap and grab your wife’s shoulder and arm, and say, again, “What?” but she doesn’t respond and you let go of your wife’s arm and her entire body just goes limp and crashes backwards into the shower door and vanity, not like she’s trying to rest or lean back for support, but like she’s lost consciousness – because she has – and you pull her forward and try to get her off the closed toilet seat, but she’s unconscious and is actually really heavy because it’s dead weight (not because she’s heavy, mind you!) and you drag her out of the bathroom and lie her face down, but she starts twitching and her breathing seems to stop, and she’s only taking erratic, short breaths, and this freaks you out so you think that the best way to stop freaking out is to get your wife to wake up so you start yelling her name because you have a loud voice – probably the loudest voice of anyone you know – so if there’s anyone who can pull someone out of unconsciousness by sheer volume, it’s you, so you start yelling your wife’s name, along with helpful instructions like, “Wake up” but it’s not working, and your daughter is standing there holding a washcloth which is now entirely drenched in blood, and she’s shaking and you start to worry about her now and questions start racing through your head like, “Is she shaking because she’s cold?” and then you think “Or is she shaking because she’s scared?” and then you think “Or is she shaking because she’s lost too much blood and now she’s going to faint, too?” and you feel this wave of something start to come over you and you think “My wife isn’t responding to anything I’m doing and it’s been a few minutes and her breathing is really weird and I can’t get her to wake up and this isn’t normal and I’m actually kind of scared right now” and so you run out into the kitchen and grab your phone and call 9/11 and as it’s connecting you think about a guy from your church that you know pretty well who is a dispatcher for 9/11 and you wonder if you’ll hear his voice, but it’s a woman, and she takes your info, and says the ambulance is on the way and while you’re on the line, she tells you to turn your wife on her back, which you do, but it’s tough because she’s heavy, mainly because it’s dead weight, not – mind you – because she weighs a lot (no!) and in the time it took to simply flip your wife over, you hear the ambulance rumbling outside and you think to yourself, “That was less than a minute,” but your sense of time is all screwed up, so maybe it was 2 minutes, but it sure didn’t seem much more than that, and you run outside and wave your arms like you’re on an island and they’re in a helicopter search and rescue party, which is silly, but you’re not responding super well to the pressure and the guy yells from the ambulance, “We see you” but he says this with just a hint of “so you can stop that now” which sort of hurts your feelings but you don’t have time for that now, so you run back inside and your daughter is kneeling down by her mommy and saying, “I love you so much,” over and over and your wife is still unconscious and you stare at her stomach to make sure it’s moving – and it sort of is – every few seconds, sporadically and then suddenly 6 huge guys with big boots and yellow pants and red suspenders come in and one of them, who is easily 6’5″ starts asking you what’s going on, and his calmness is contagious and you hear the other guys working on your wife as she lays half in the hallway and half in the bathroom and the big tall 6’5″ guy gets down on one knee and starts talking to your daughter, and you’d think she’d be scared, but she laughs at him and say, “You’re nice” and you show the fireman the bloody washcloth and he calmly looks at you and says, “Yeah, noses can bleed a lot” and you say, “This much” and he – again, so calmly – says, “Yes” and suddenly you feel like everything is normal (or will be normal soon) so you turn your attention to the bathroom, where your wife is now hooked up to some machines and these giant men – maybe they seem giant to me because of their boots? – are saying things in firm but kind voices, things like, “We’re trying to help you, ma’am, you need to help us. Now can you sit up?” And one of them says, “Blood pressure is normal” and the other responds to him and your wife sits up a little and says, “Why was she bleeding” and for the first time in 8 minutes, your wife responds in a sentence and you realize she’s regained consciousness and she starts rubbing her eyes and you assure her that your daughter is okay, and then the fireman says, “We need you to stand up, and if you can’t stand up we’re going to have to take you to the hospital” and so your wife slowly stands to her feet, and you see that her pajama top is dotted with little baby girl hand prints of dark red blood, like a macabre pre-school art project and the men check your wife’s vitals again and ask her questions again, and then say something to themselves, and begin packing up their things because everything has stabilized and these are men who deal with emergencies and so they begin to file out of the house back to their giant machines and your wife is now talking normally and asking what happened, and your daughter is changing out of her blood-stained pajamas and washing off her face and as you walk out to your front sidewalk, you yell a thank you to the men, who don’t turn around, because they are men who deal with emergencies, and the super tall 6’5″ fireman – the calm, kind one who calmed you and your daughter down – says, “No problem” and they shut their doors and the machines begin to rumble off and then you walk inside, close the door, and for the first time, you realize you’re sweating and that your heart is still racing, but everything is okay, and your wife and daughter are calming down and getting ready to climb back into bed and you have the fleeting thought you just cost your city and neighbors probably a few thousand dollars and you feel a little guilty about that, but more than anything you feel grateful that everyone is okay and bummed that your son somehow slept through the whole thing because he would have loved seeing the firemen.

I sure hope this answers your questions, because I now have carpal tunnel syndrome! Time to take a break now. I'll be back in maybe a couple hours, if I still have the time.

Just a few observations.

1. First off, let’s not pretend that you typed that in the two minutes between your post at 6:05 and when you posted this at 6:07 and that caused carpal tunnel syndrome. If anything all the flexibility you gain from ducking and dodging questions should help prevent carpal tunnel.

2. It is physically impossible to type all that in the time you had and claiming you did it just makes you look silly. The world speed typing record is 212 words per minute and that wall-o-text you posted is 1494 words. Cut-and-paste however is easily doable in that period.

(Fun fact; that record was set on a Dvorak keyboard. I’ve always wanted to try one of those)

3. As I noted, that wall-o-text is 1494 words yet you use a total of only 12 terminal punctuation marks (Terminal punctuation marks are the "." the "?" and the "!".) That means that you had on average 124.5 words per sentence. Astounding!

4. While your words per sentence is impressive, you only average 4.1 characters per word. That means your actual vocabulary isn't very expansive. You might want to invest in a good dictionary and thesaurus. You can learn some better, more expressive words that way.

5. You start out this wall-o-text with the words "Has your". This is normally indicative of an interrogative sentence (that means "a question" in case you were wondering). However, most interrogative sentences end with the terminal punctuation mark known as a "question mark" (--> ?). The problem is that the first question mark does not come until 318 words in and then appears to be part of a question you were asking your wife. That tends to confuse readers who expect question marks to come closer to the end of the question of which they are a part.

6. Paragraphs are your friend, don't be afraid of them.

7. One thing I’m impressed by; the Flesch Reading Score for your wall-o-text was 0 meaning it was “very hard to read” but the Flesch-Kincaid Reading Level score was 145.3 meaning even a six year-old should be able to understand it. Guess that just goes to show that those readability tests aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.

8. That "sensitive area right under the nose and right above your lip" is called the Philtrum.

9. You can use peroxide to get blood out of microfiber. I hear it works pretty well.

10. It’s usually not a good idea to lay an unconscious person on their stomach, it tends to make it difficult for them to breathe. In the same vein, the best way to get someone to breathe is not to yell their name but to turn them over. Remember that for next time so you don’t have to wait on the 911 dispatcher to tell you.

11. Speaking of 911, the number for Emergency Services is 911 not 9/11. 9/11 is shorthand for a date on the Gregorian calendar and it stands for September 11. That is an important date to most Americans. Not to mention that the standard keypad on most phones doesn’t have a “/” symbol. I wouldn’t want you to waste time in an emergency hunting for the “/” so you could call for help.

12. I’m not sure I understand how this story illustrates your beliefs about whether people should be protected from discrimination. Can you clarify?

13. I do believe I see how it relates to your feelings about the same-sex marriage issue however. It is a parable that shows how some people can get completely worked up into panic over something, and yet when people who know better come along and calm them down they realize that they got all upset over something relatively minor. How did I do?