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>>73348
If you consider marriage not a human thing, but a holy institution created by the Judeo-Christian and Islamic God, then you need to retake History class.

Marriage, in this country, is a secular institution. It comes with legal rights. It predates Christianity itself, and exists outside of Judeo-Christian and Islamic culture. Hindus have their own form of marriage. Native Americans, you know, the people who owned this land before a bunch of European guys decided to give them smallpox-filled blankets and buttfulls of lead, had same-sex marriage, so precedent is on the side of people who think that it's okay to have two grooms or two brides.

There are also justice-of-the-commons marriages, in which religious authorities have no say. You don't want God's holy marriage defiled by sodomites? Fine then. Don't let them get married in the church of your denomination, and give to Ceaser what belongs to frelling Ceaser.

]]> 73348 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73343.html#73348 >>73343
While it is something I would very much like, I abide by the will of the people, and they do not seem to want it.

>>73345
>Who in their right mind would make it their business and personal mission to define what marriage is for other couples?

I can think of at least two group of people.
First are the law makers, whose job is to govern the legal aspects of marriage and to see that it is used for purposes that it was intended for and not for fraudulent purposes (such as green card marriages).
Second group are people who believe that marriage is a very specific thing that should not and cannot be altered; in most cases those are religious people.
If you consider that marriage is not a human invention, but a holy institution that was created and ordained by God Himself, then you will see any attempts to alter what marriage is as a sin of the highest order; one would be a poor servant of God if one did not respond to such affront to God and his order of things.

Last edited at Sun, May 19th, 2013 21:54


]]> 73347 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73343.html#73347

>>73345
>Who in their right mind would make it their business and personal mission to define what marriage is for other couples?
I honestly cannot think of a way to answer that in a manner that isn't offensive. So I'll just say I'm for it and really don't see the issues. I just want to go up to the courthouse and get the license and have a reception somewhere. I just don't find the paperwork aspect as important as the legal bearings it effects in our lives.

]]> 73346 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73339.html#73346 >>73339
Why not?

]]> 73345 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73343.html#73345

>>73343
>What are your thoughts of it?

I'm not a big supporter of the concept and practice of marriage as it is currently in general, but I have no qualms with what other people do amongst themselves in regards to it, only that they might have unrealistic expectations and that marriages might end up doing a lot of damage in the long run for a number of people.

Who in their right mind would make it their business and personal mission to define what marriage is for other couples?

Last edited at Sun, May 19th, 2013 17:13


]]> 73344 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73343.html#73344 >>73343
1. Yes.

2. Very yes.

3. Are you kidding me?

]]> 73343 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73343.html

#Discussion

What are your thoughts of it?

]]> 73340 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73334.html#73340 >Please support Brony Thank You Fund through goodsearch
Do you know if they have any mechanism in place to prevent people from searching over and over? I mean it shouldn't be too hard to write a script to do that, and I'm sure we'd have a few people willing to contribute their internet connection when they're not using it.

]]> 73339 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73339.html

#Discussion

So I had this Idea the other night when one of my guitar picks snapped in half while playing. I noticed on half had these hook like edges and wonder what it would sound like if I tried playing with it. The sound I got was this twangy, sitar like sound because the edge catches the strings and lifts it up slightly. I was thinking about designing a type of pick that has the same idea. What do you guys think?

]]> 73338 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73299.html#73338

I know what I'm watching this week.

]]> 73337 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73337.html

#Discussion

Hey bronies, whats the best looking pony blog you've seen and why? I'll start: http://www.lospegasustribune.com/

>because it looks better than EQD.

Also, pic related.

]]> 73335 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73334.html#73335
That said, I do think that the core fanbase that originally started the brony movement IS significantly different from every other fanbase, a fanbase of people genuinely interested in social change, and I hope that a lot of those people are still in the fandom and will continue to be once its popularity inevitably starts to fade (years down the line). When I think about what good this fanbase is capable of doing, though, I don't look to the charities that have been created, because that's not what's new or different as a result of the brony fandom. What's different, I think, is how the brony fandom suggests we should treat average people, people we interact with on a day to day basis.

Friendship has been promoted in tons of other media, but there's always been some cynicism to it. Sentimentality is generally missing from friendships; friendships are represented as something you partake in primarily for the purposes of entertainment or for the purposes of accomplishing some goal (e.g. getting advice, taking down the evil villain, etc.), and not for the purposes of emotional support. MLP changed that by making sentimentality a common aspect of the show, having friends frequently showing genuine care and concern for each other, promoting this as the way friends SHOULD treat each other, and doing it in a way that it doesn't seem like an unbelievable or unrealistic thing to do.

Another thing that's different in how MLP poses ideal friendships, and something that's affected me especially, is in how MLP portrays the importance of individuality. Again, this is something common in other forms of media, but they usually portray individuality as something that's in conflict with connecting with other people. Your individuality sets you apart from the average and creates differences between you and others, so that does make a certain amount of sense. However, MLP shows that your individuality can be the very thing that makes you a good friend. All the ponies are different from each other, they come to the group with different perspectives and different skills from each other, and they all use these individual strengths to help each other out in ways that none of them would be able to accomplish by themselves.

These are the two key things that I think make the show have a significant moral message when compared to other shows. It shows not only that it's okay to be emotional and okay to be open about your personal quirks and differences, but that you can be these things and still have genuine connections with others. Actually, it says that being these things will allow you to have MORE genuine connections with others. This is the message that has the capacity for change, for helping people to feel better not only about themselves, but about other people, and for helping them to have healthier relationships with each other. I think it's this same promotion of emotion and individuality that's created as many artists as this fandom has, as well.

The fandom is changing, the show itself may change over time, to the point where these values aren't reflected as much as they used to be. But I feel like the message has already been sent to the people who are willing to hear it, to the people who need to hear it, and major changes have already been made in those people. And I think those people will be able to make more changes of their own in the future as a result of the brony movement, no matter what becomes of the brony movement itself in the future, and that's still important to me.

]]> 73334 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73334.html

#Answer

Yeah, there's lots of disgusting gremplork going on, and lots of melodrama, and many, many fiascos.

Still, there is some serious, socially relevant good in this fandom.

I attended Bronycon last year. One thing I learned from the sociologist is that one of the appeals of the show for this fandom is moral guidance. He said he hasn't seen that in any other fandom.

Is it an appeal for you? Do you think that the moral element is stronger in this fandom than others?

We have generated a lot of fandom-driven philanthropic movements. There's Bronies for Good, we named Tank and Owlowicious as a result of giving lots of money to the wildlife sanctuary Tara Strong promoted, and there's the Brony Thank You Fund, which has now gotten it's 501c3 charity status. (Btw, if you want to support them but don't have enough money to make tax-deductible contributions, try GoodSearching for them. You pay nothing, but a penny of ad revenue from each of your searches will go to BTYF.)

Granted, there are some philanthropy movements in other fandoms, like Dumbledore's Army and Hunger Is Not A Game. Is this a generational thing, brought about by a younger group's interest in non-profit causes and the connectivity of social media? Is the brony philanthropy just the only movement people are curious about enough to study?

What do you, the audience at home, think?
(PS: Please support Brony Thank You Fund through goodsearch, or Fluttershy will cry while Dash will pretend not to be crying)

]]> 73333 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73301.html#73333 >>73301
>Can a work of art be evil in itself, by virtue of the messages it conveys?

I don't think it can be evil by the virtue of the message it conveys alone.

>How do I negotiate the problem of a favorite TV episode with some really chauvinistic humor and disturbing morals?

Can't help you with this one.
In the rare instances where I found a show's chauvinistic humor to go too far for my taste I wasn't particularly fond of the show anyway and I have yet to find a show that I like, but whose morals I find particularly disturbing.

>More importantly, how does one deal with supporting a creator who is morally horrible? Should I skip ads, or just skip the videos altogether, if an online reviewer I enjoy covers up a horrible crime that happened his coworker committed at a con for the sake of his enterprise's reputation?
>What about movies with an actor who has gotten away with loathsome things?

With any product in which the creator is morally problematic I ask myself three questions:
1. Do I actually give a fuck about the immoral act they committed?
2. Will my purchase of the product help them commit further immoral acts, help them profit from the immoral acts or help them impede justice?
3. Is the product something that I can function just fine without?

If the answer to any of these question is 'No.' then I consider myself to be morally in the clear and I can purchase the product guilt free.
If the answer to question 2 or 3 is 'Yes', then I begin looking for alternatives and weighting the guilt I will take on myself by purchasing the product versus the value that product has to me.

]]> 73332 http://www.ponychan.net/chan/dis/res/73049.html#73332 >>73331
The big problem is that they decided to turn her action into a violent criminal offense and try her as an adult.

Rather than dealing with the problem as it existed, the school shifted the responsibility for enforcement onto area police and tried to wash their hands of the whole affair.

Charging a child as an adult for a nonviolent incident as a violent crime is just as much an injustice as imprisoning an innocent for an infraction they didn't commit.

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