Xiphias
You can't tell but she responds by ending the interview :D

Xiphias
Turns out they knew he'd say it:

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2010/11/23/in-defens e-of-cnn

dancingshadow
"We've come so far... gay marriage went to the supreme court"...

meanwhile in Canada with hardly a raised voice it simply becomes federal law.

Meerkat
There were plenty of raised voices. Mostly bitter, vindictive old fuckwads. And the pope.

Once it became law and the world didn't come to an end and people didn't start divorcing their wives because gay people could get married, then it stopped being a big deal.

If the conservatives tried to repeal it they would be cutting their own throats and they knew it, so all the noise they made pre-election about repealing it kind of faded into "yeah well we could have done that but uh oh I think my cake is ready..."

Meerkat
Also to clarify: the provinces began allowing same sex marriages because the gay people kept taking them to court and winning.

Either the provinces could allow same sex marriages or they could keep losing law suits, or they could invoke the notwithstanding clause to allow discrimination against gays (which is against our constitution).

So most provinces simply chose to allow same sex marriages.

In an unsurprising Dick Move, Alberta tried to invoke the notwithstanding clause and were slapped down by the supreme court of Canada because marriage is not a provincial matter. Marriage is a federal matter.

The federal government read the writing on the wall and made same sex marriages the law of the land.

So no, it wasn't a matter of it simply becoming federal law.

Toenails
It really depends on your opinion on whether or not other forms of hate speech should be censored and where.

Dan does have a point in the fact that there are some issues, especially in the field of civil rights, that no longer are appropriate for debate. I'm not going to go and state an opinion that interracial marriage is bad for the country because that's totally an unacceptable position to take, and I should be called out as a racist for stating it.

The gay rights community also have CRYSTAL CLEAR reasons to be treated like equals in the society at large and people who oppose this oppose it out of ignorance and fear. Or better yet, they're just terrible people to begin with. They should be censured. And they should be shouted down for their bigoted beliefs based on their poor upbringing.

But to address your question. As I look at this play out (and how much I root for family members that I love with all my heart), I still don't think censorship on the "gay agenda" (this is how the fundamentalists frame it) is quite appropriate yet. They still need to spew their idiotic opinions that I can laugh at. And when the final word on it has been caste, I can look back and gloat how stupid my gay phobic pals really were.

CornOnTheCabre
It's even more "uhhhhhhhhhhhhh" once you take into consideration the totally unapologetic vitriol he's directed at the Catholic Church time and time again.

I love Dan Savage, but he is the king of the double standard.

pastorofmuppets
The problem isn't that they speak, it's that they can trot out bronze age sound bites in the service of irrational hatred, yet even that is considered one half of a legitimate political(!) debate.

But let's not give the media too much credit. They want controversy, not debate. Dan's being *nice* by not mentioning that the point of having such people on is to boost ratings.

Anyway, "we can't make gays equal citizens because it might piss off a bunch of old people with sexual hang-ups" should get you laughed out of the studio before they start taping. Censorship isn't necessary if this comes from the marketplace: ideally people would hear demagogy and just change the channel.

FeeFiFoFoTheFifeFifeBrown
Not inviting bigots onto tv talk shows is not censorship by any sane definition of the term.

Xiphias
Is it really censorship for a private corporation to choose not to empower hate groups?

You will note they did not bring the KKK to discuss Rand Paul's statements about the civil rights bill. Is that censorship?

CornOnTheCabre
pretending that an unsavory perspective doesn't exist isn't disempowerment. it's just bias.

CharlesSmith
There are too many hate groups and assorted insane people to give them all equal time on every issue just because they're the only opposition.

woodenbandman
No he's talking about changing perspective. He is saying that the idea that gays aren't allowed to marry needs to become as laughably stupid as the idea that blacks aren't allowed to vote. He's talking cultural shift, not CNN's interview policies.