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I'd like to add something here. I wish you non-AA pilots could take a peek at the political threads on our union message board. Seriously, BaseOps is some of the best, most respectful, nuanced dialog I've seen online. If everyone was as curious and calm as the folks here, the US would be in a great spot. Trump wouldn't be president and Biden wouldn't be the (D) candidate. I hope the perspectives shared here are making it into real world conversations

Marriage is a religious institution though. It should have never been recognized by the government to begin with. That's your real issue.

This is an example of why I have a problem with the LGBTQA+ movement. When DOMA was challenged in 2013/2015, we were told that this was about two loving monogamous people just trying to have equal rights under the law IRT marriage. I have said all along that this was not the case. This is not, never was and never will be simply about "rights". It is about taking a wrecking ball to our society and its views on the traditional family and traditional norms. We are seeing it play out every day now with the war on pronouns, the transgender movement, etc. And this all comes after DOMA was ruled unconstitutional. This is why I have a huge issue with the left. The left is never honest about what they are REALLY after. You see it in every movement on the left whether it is gay rights, the climate, gun control, economics, health care, etc. All that to say that I do not personally have a problem with gay people. Our 19 year old daughter is in the process of coming to terms with her sexuality. My wife and I have known since she was probably 10 that this was going to be something she would struggle with. As Christians, we have struggled with navigating this mightily. We support her and love more than anything else in life. Our message and guidance to her has been to not let her sexuality define her. More than anything, I want her to be a honest, productive, educated, hard working member of society who loves who she loves. We don't support things like rainbow stickers, flags or shirts that promote sexuality one way or the other. And she gets it. She doesn't throw anything related to her sexuality around. She just is who she is.

I think you mistake my position. I've never had a problem with gay marriage. I personally don't care. But I am giving you your answer to why this was a moral crises for some in America. The US adopted an institution that was uniquely religious. Even more so, they adopted the Judeo-Christian model of it. This was inherited from Europe. Marriage became important to society as a systematic process to distribute property. Remember Europe didn't begin to separate religion from governance until the discovery of people in the New World, and that transformation wasn't complete until the 20th century. Marriage became an important system for the transition and inheritance of property and culturally developed in most civilizations alongside agriculture when the concept of land and land ownership became extremely important. The Judeo-Christian vision of marriage likely evolved out of this as much of the old testament regards the importance of unadulterated blood lines (where the term adultery actually comes from) and monogamy. When advocacy for gay marriage became a thing, Christian's misread that as an assault on their religion. To a Christian, "marriage" means a very specific thing. Mainstream society tried to change that definition. That's a really big deal. Think about it for a minute, in Catholicism, marriage is a sacrament. Can you imagine the reactions if main stream society tried to alter the criteria behind baptism? What was actually happening though, is society was adopting a secular view of marriage, which in all honesty, is sort of strange. Basically, mainstream society culturally appropriated it because for some reason people are in love with the romance (as in the perceived feeling) associated with monogamy. People find it "noble" or "honorable" and they don't really have a good understanding why. Science tells us "love" is actually a euphoria generated by hormones. Take that for what its worth. Look at it from this perspective. Imagine if you will, the Arapaho Sun Dance, a distinctly native American religious practice. To what extent would we approve of main stream society suddenly adopting this practice, bastardizing it, and then changing specific rules, beliefs, and understandings about the ceremony. Then, to rub the salt in the wound, we tell native cultures not only is this still a valid form of Arapaho Sun Dance, you are required by law to recognize it as such. They are required to make Sun Dance cakes, and administer Sun Dance ceremonies for non-Native people all over who bastardize the tradition and the meaning. That was the conflict with gay marriage in a nut shell.

Disagree. Pushing your particular religious views onto the population as a whole is anathema to American values. No one is forcing Mike Pence to marry a man. No serious person is suggesting that his relIgion should change it’s beliefs. He is free to practice as he sees fit. Actively attempting to deny an entire segment of the population of rights the rest of us enjoy is certainly treating them poorly and is a shitty position to take.

AF One landed ~1850; completely irrelevant to this topic. Why do top brass, regardless of service, feel the need to pound their chests w/ bs like no fatalities for X timeframe? Something to brag about? It’s always only a matter of time before the next mishap, nature of our business. What happened right after former CSAF’s safety video this summer...another damn mishap.

This was the opinion of, like, a loooot of people back in 2000. A lot has changed since then.

Yeah!!!! Take that! Wait.....WTF?

This is actually pretty funny. My five most recent OPRs that met the most recent promo board were all from my time in Hawaii (those were actually my best OPRs in my career too...including a boarded position). Why do they even bother putting guidance like this out? The board never follows it. Looking forward to going back to Hawaii in a few years, after retirement, and getting that sweet GS job and not dealing with this stuff ever again!

Totally agree. They deserve equal rights 100%, but the second they go after religious institutions to force/bend them to their will that doesn't have anything to do with individual rights, especially with religious institutions that aren't trying to shove their beliefs down their throats, I'll help hold the line there. Do me the favor of not reading into other things here. I'm specifically talking about equal rights. After that, we're not on the same page. I have friends in that community, and I don't judge them even if I don't agree with them. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

She is not well regarded in Rescue.

Sure. Another solution would be to get rid of the governmental benefits of marriage for straight people, but I dont see a lot of advocacy for that for some reason. You can’t financially and legally marginalize human beings and say that you aren’t treating them poorly. If the argument was “marriage is a religious ceremony, so we will disband that as a government entity. Everyone is entitled to the governmental benefits of a union so we support the union regardless of your sexuality.” But the right wing would rather further entrench religion into politics. I was fed the same BS and felt similarly to you all on this until my sibling came out as gay. It changes your perspective on what is malicious and what isn’t. I assume you guys aren’t for sharia law (although guardian probably takes offense to me assuming this), but it is a totally reasonable and understood opinion of society for a huge part of the world, so we should respect that amirite?

I agree 100%. We could start a whole thread on how outdated the idea that the government should be incentivizing marriage is.

https://youtu.be/04nqez0IvvY?t=2224 About 2 days old Interview with Rudi Giuliani that describes all of the finding so far of the Biden's crime family. People voting for Biden - watch to see whom you're voting for. (это пропагандистское послание было доставлено вам вашим дружелюбным офицером ГРУ.)

AM (hence the signal reach from AZ 😁)

Grampa, they call it a Spank Bank these days!

Agreed...including your 44th President: Barack Hussein Obama, until Summer 2012, right before his re election. Who was his VP? So please liberals ...spare us the self righteous BS.

Cussing out the waitress is treating people poorly. Kicking a dog is treating animals poorly. Brake checking cars on the highway for fun is treating people poorly. What's next, he's sexist for not having dinner alone with women who aren't his wife? Having a completely mainstream opinion on the nature of marriage (that I personally disagree with) is not the same. This is the *perfect* illustration of why so many conservatives are at odds with the left, and stuck voting for Trump. Run-of-the-mill liberals conflate things like a stance on gay marriage with treating gay people poorly. Being against illegal immigration is xenophobia. Being against abortion is anti-woman. Being against lockdowns is anti-science. The problem is that now the conservatives (voters, not politicians) are adopting the same strategy, all exacerbated by social media bubbles. Not good for anyone.

Have I ever defended Trump as honest or consistent? I think I've been pretty consistent that he's awful. I look at results, because I haven't had faith in the humans that go to Washington for a long time. The presidential results are shockingly good compared to how shockingly bad the actual presidential human is. If I voted on personality I would go for Biden then be shocked (shocked I tell you) that he was making money from his drug addict soon selling their name to the worst countries on Earth. As for Pence, completely disagree. He's boring, but he's also the only one of the four who has any philosophical basis backing his positions, and he's also the only one who is actually a good person. Best case scenario is Trump wins, then steps down on Jan 2nd.

Agree. Best thing I did was move my investments far away from USAA. expense ratio fees for most of their accounts are high. Vanguard is money.

Top moment for Trump was calling out Joe's political answer. Top moment for Biden was talking about being a president for both red and blue states and a united America. Worst part was them accusing each other of corruption for 20 minutes at the start, but it recovered and it's a been much better debate on all sides including moderator.

I appreciate the advice! Thanks for all the help

I always found this argument amazing. My wife and I make restaurant-quality food 5/7 nights a week, and it's usually between $5-10 in ingredients per person. And we only buy meat from whole foods. What are people buying at grocery stores that's more expensive than restaurants? Filet mignon?

Fake news. Huggy has a Jitterbug phone from the back of AARP magazine.

Mecca for ALTRV's is the Central Altitude Reservation Function (CARF) - the gurus who actually do the work. https://www.fly.faa.gov/carf/ Link only has an e-mail and it's been way too long for me to have a phone number for them. Next best bet would be finding the phone number for the National Air Traffic Services Cell (NATSC - a DoD (USAF actually) office co-located in the FAA's ATC Command Center and shares offices with CARF. Sorry, don't have current phone numbers.

Need to be able to refuel gear down around the boat. e.g. The boat is blue water ops (no land divert), you have an emergency or gear problem that forces you to put the gear down, and the deck won't be cleared for recovery before you flame out.

Anecdotal, but this was my Dad's SSD experience. Didn't got to court, but had to get a lawyer involved and it did take over a year. That being said, I just got my 100% disability, which was a shock. I can still walk (kinda), run (kinda) and lift heavy things (not overhead). But I hurt while doing them, and even more when it's done. Plus I'm about 5 years out from back surgery #3. During the VA screening I moved until discomfort, and was honest about how I felt physically. Legit felt a mountain of stress come off when the doc wasn't fighting to give me more Vit M, more PT, another pain pill, etc. Took down my info professionally, gave me some old man advice (always appreciated), and was just chill. After 21 years...I'm just looking for some chill at this point.

Reading comprehension guys. It's important. I cited you because you wouldn't put up with the ridiculously poor and bogus arguments Trump makes. Not because you defended him ever. It was a hypothetical, fake scenario. Agree to disagree. Opinion warning and it probably is controversial in an environment where everyone seems to think this admin is infallible: Pence strikes me as incredibly self-righteous. I don't understand Christians that hate on LGBTQ, or aren't compassionate towards people that suffer oppression at the hands of others. Christ never "hated" on anyone for being different or even doing stuff he said they shouldn't (except the money changers in the temple), but evangelicals can be some pretty hateful people "in the name of Christ" at times. Don't get it. Not trying to convince anyone or change their minds. The above was my opinion only, and what better place to share it than the internet... I'd love for people to change their minds or even just be open to it, but I'm a realist... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk