John McCain is ruining the sanctity of marriage, and should be prevented from so doing. In order to protect this holy institution, the argument goes, John McCain must be legally prevented from being married.

McCain left his first wife (the woman who single handedly raised his children, whose tireless activism played a role in obtaining his freedom) after a one night stand with the woman who would become Cindy McCain. John gave the reason that his current wife "got too fat" after almost being killed in a car accident.

Now that John and Cindy are married, he encourages her to join topless beauty pageants to gain votes from (and blind) Hell's Angels. She steals drugs from charities. This is violent to the very notion of family values. Somehow, Republicans seem to be held to a much lower standard when it comes to values.

Many people want to prevent gays from being married because, well, there are a lot of bigots in the world. It's almost always claimed that this is to not blemish the sacred institution of marriage, like, for example, by lying before God when you say "til death do us part".

If anybody has any foolishness about "unnatural", we have to remember how unnatural plastic surgery is.

As a moderator shouldn't you be a-political, neutral? I find your post offensive and quite on honestly, unprofessional. I won't be returning to this forum if I see this crap and it has nothing to do with my political affiliation, which in none. Is this a professional site or a Tabloid Magazine? Highly dissapointed. I can see this coming from non-admin members but moderators?

Is this some kind of preemptive strike thread before anyone piles on about Edwards? I wasn't even going to bring it up.

@ charliehorse -- An admin or moderator can't have an opinion? That's news to me. This forum was created for the more "sensitive" subjects. After all, Voltaire said that he might not agree with what a man said, but would defend to the death his right to say it. Then again, Voltaire was never subjected to Jerry Springer.

tim

Originally Posted by Charliehorse

As a moderator shouldn't you be a-political, neutral? I find your post offensive and quite on honestly, unprofessional. I won't be returning to this forum if I see this crap and it has nothing to do with my political affiliation, which in none. Is this a professional site or a Tabloid Magazine? Highly dissapointed. I can see this coming from non-admin members but moderators?

Charliehorse, this politics and religion forum was created to keep these types of topics out of our general discussions forum. I suggest avoiding this particular forum all together because there can be offensive threads.

I hope you don't decide to leave WT because of the opinions of one or a couple members. While I am no huge McCain (or Obama) fan, my opinion is that he is stretching the truth in some of what he wrote.

It does not mean he isn't a good guy but we would probably just disagree on many political and religious topics. Lots of people do. So, I usually avoid this forum.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but when you run a professional forum, your moderators and admin should always remain professional and devoid of hot topic opinions as it turns many off regardless of what forum it is in. Perhaps, your mods should discuss hot button topics in an alternate screen name? Looks really bad for your forum. On that note, I'll take my business elsewhere but thank you for the fun time I had here prior. I would highly suggest your admin and mods remain neutral. This is just good business practices. You missed my point entirely as well. The content can always be overlooked as immature and ignorant but coming from your business(mods) again, looks really terrible.

You have apparently never heard of an editorial.

tim

Could you imagine Newbie neutral.

I think I speak for a lot of people on this forum when I say that I enjoy the different opinions that not just Newbie but all the mods bring to the table. Newbie is my favorite sparing partner and I have to say if it were not for people like him here to make this place interesting I would probably never return.

Back on topic...

McCain seems fake, why shouldn't his wife be?

Did anyone catch the civic forum last night? GOLD!!!! No Media circus, no gay generals popping out of the woodwork, no loaded media bias. Same set of questions was asked of both candidates in a quiet and civil manor. I'd say the contrast in the answers and how they were provided was very telling.

For the record (and I hope this is obvious) I'm not actually suggesting McCain shouldn't be allowed to marry. Or that McCain shouldn't be allowed to make bad decisions in life - God knows I've made my own stupid choices. A lot of this was tongue in cheek.

What I was hoping to accomplish with this thread was to bring an at least slightly different perspective to a question America has decided is important. Gay marriage rights is often credited with winning George W Bush the White House in 2004, by getting his supporters to the polls with state level initiatives.

This thread was an attempt to wrap some of the abstract (based in principal, maybe more than in specific instances) reasoning behind the current state of affairs, around a very different face. I've found this to be very effective.

Still, Charliehorse, I'm sorry for having offended you.

Not offended by content or author at all, offended that the author is a "moderator" as I feel this is very poor business practices for a forum owner. As previously stated, we are all entitled to our own opinions of course but in general, and on all ideal business models, moderators and moderating should be done with complete neutrality. And on subject, presidential debates as well.

I would like for admin and moderators to look at this with a new, perhaps browsing eye. When you make strong opinions about politics, abortion and other hot button topics, you essentially run the risk of offending at least 50% of your potential customers, either newbies, browsers or regulars. Most customers can overlook content generated by the general public, however, when business owners(forum admin) and their employees(unpaid mods) in this case, make opinion or highlight these polarizing topics, the perception is business wide, not just from a moderator or admin. In other words, what you allow your mods to post reflects either positively or negatively on your entire business as a whole and again, will turn off roughly 50% of your viewing audience, forum guests and registered members. I would strongly suggest that you leave hot topic debate to non-business related individuals, otherwise you run a great risk of losing potential customers and/or not maintaining the customers you already have, as in my case.

Controversial diatribe is important and is the foundation of progress, however, it is not appropriate for moderators to involve themselves when the whole point of moderation is to achieve unbias fairness.

To me, when I see stuff like this it sort of gives me the impression that this forum is run by a bunch of guys just having a good time rather than a professional business.

Thanks a million and to those of you in Florida, I hope you're all doing ok!

Charlie

Always being one to present a different opinion, I've got to chime in here. First off, let me say that Learning Newbie is one of the people who keeps me on this forum, and his viewpoints could not be farther from my own. Perhaps I differ from some or most of the 50% you imply would be offended by his opinions on hot button topics, but as you say, controversial diatribe is a foundation for progress and what good are people who simply agree with you.

Your point about his MOD status may be valid, but in all fairness, I have yet to be penalized unfairly via abuse of that status.(He does abuse the TP system a bit with neg TP for differing opinions but I can get over that).

Regarding the idea of MODs serving as opinionless drones without pay for the greater good of the forum, I could not disagree more, though I think your idea of signing in with a separate non-MOD id may have merit, on the outside chance someone like you is offended. Obviously the business model of a forum is completely different than one of a Starbucks, for example. A forum peddles nothing but conversation vs. a Starbucks where a barista decides to give you his opinion on abortion with your latte. MODs are unpaid, vs paid help for other enterprises. A MOD might be better compared to an unpaid assistant at a skate park who makes sure everyone is wearing a helmet. Obviously, without pay, being able to skate the park is the only benefit of the job. While some may get upset if the guy pulls some sick unsafe air while wearing his "assistant" shirt, in my opinion, if its not against the park rules, there is no reason the unpaid help should be able to play too. In other words, if you don't want people talking about nuking gay baby whales, or running automobiles on the blood of baby harp seals, or whining about the opposing party's wife being to hot in a fake way, then you need to hang a set of rules to tell people what they can and cant talk about and have everyone abide by them. Other than that, mods are people and customers too.

cb. Again, it looks absolutely awful to the public(viewers) when forum admin and mods participate in controversial topics. You cannot get much more polarizing than this! Mods may be "people and customers too" however, they should keep their opinions separate from a mod account so that the perception of a business promoting this hot button becomes less likely and is therefore often intellectually chalked up to an individual member opinion. It's business 101 CB.

Although not a hot button public issue, you're statement "I have yet to be penalized unfairly via abuse of that status.(He does abuse the TP system a bit with neg TP for differing opinions but I can get over that)." is a perfect example why mods should separate person from duty. You shouldn't know "he" for this exact reason. It creates a visual and intellectual sense of distrust and favorism AND perpetuates the public's perception of behind-the-scenes business opinion which may not be accurate in the least.

The whole notion of whether a mod or admin should address controversial topics is a hijack of the OP, and should go in a separate thread if it's going to be explored further. Your opinion on the subject has been made agonizingly clear. My suggestion is that if you don't like a controversial forum is don't come in this one. You're not going to gain much mileage trying to be Ms. Manners for this forum.

tim