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No Same Sex Marriage In World of Warcraft?
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Feb 03, 2006 04:57 PM
from the i-can't-say-anything-because-i-can't-say-anything-nice dept.
from the i-can't-say-anything-because-i-can't-say-anything-nice dept.
Previously, we discussed a World of Warcraft guild representative getting reprimanded for mentioning same-sex relationships while advertising their organization. The subject hasn't been dropped in the intervening days, with GamePolitics providing an update to the community's reaction. Additionally, a Cathode Tan post links to a supposed discussion with a GM that kind of wrecks their whole equal treatment statement. From that post: "[GM] Anyone can report and we will take appropriate action. While it may seem ok because they are truly a heterosexual couple in real life, in game they are two females. Please keep in mind, you need to worry about the other players. While I do understand where you are coming from, there are those who do not have the maturity"
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Gay Guild Recruitment Disallowed From WoW? 514 comments
Fireball394 wrote with a link to an article on the site 'In Newsweekly'. The article, entitled "Blizzard of GLBT gaming policy questions", discusses the application of a harassment warning on a player who was recruiting for a GLBT guild. From the article: "In her follow-up letter to the company, Andrews explained that there was an obvious misunderstanding and that she was not insulting anyone, but merely recruiting for a 'GLBT friendly' guild. The response from Blizzard was, 'While we appreciate and understand your point of view, we do feel that the advertisement of a GLBT friendly guild is very likely to result in harassment for players that may not have existed otherwise. If you will look at our policy, you will notice the suggested penalty for violating the Sexual Orientation Harassment Policy is to be temporarily suspended from the game. However, as there was clearly no malicious intent on your part, this penalty was reduced to a warning.' Blizzard's stance was clear that recruiting for a guild using 'GLBT' was inappropriate as, the company said, it may 'incite certain responses in other players that will allow for discussion that we feel has no place in our game.'"
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Seem kind of odd that they would do that... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Sorry Zonk (Score:5, Funny)
So... You're saying 3-way marriage should be okay too, then?
Parent
Re:Sorry Zonk (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, it's pretty sad that so much brainpower has been wasted through mankind's history on a meme which, almost by definition, can never be connected with any kind of objective reality..
About the only thing that such thought has been good for is occasionally coming up with some simple rules on how people should treat each other to try and improve the human condition, but those rules could have easily been arrived at without the need to invoke anything supernatural as motivation - just plain old common sense and an appreciation for history.
Parent
Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:5, Interesting)
Obplug for my friend's blog, but I think she says it best: [ambernight.org]
"...having spent a little time in World of Warcraft myself, I would have to agree that a large number of WoW players really are poop-flingers who can't even spell tolerance, let alone practice it. But if I were one of the few non-gold-farming players left in WoW, I think I would be insulted by [Blizzards] response, no matter how I felt about GLBT guilds. And what about the Christian WoW guilds? Will Blizzard shut them down too?"
Mox
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:4, Insightful)
The hypocracy here is that men and women who are incapable of producing their own biological offspring are still allowed to get married, even though they are no different (procreatively speaking) from gay couples.
Being a libertarian, of course, I'm all for dropping all those freebies (and slashing everybody's taxes to make up for it) and then letting anybody marry anybody or anything they choose... but alas, libertarian nut-jobs like me never get elected to anything.
Parent
Theyre not freebies (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason you can move your deductions onto your partners return and vice-versa, to get the tax breaks, is because even if there was no law allowing it **you could do it anyway**, because they would never be able to prove whose actual deduction it was in the first place, since you likely have joint accounts etc etc.
Parent
Re:Theyre not freebies (Score:5, Interesting)
The REAL reason for marriage licenses goes back to Miscegenation e.g. racial
mixing. [originalintent.org]
Frankly I have always found it offensive that the state thinks it can force you to get permission and pay them in order to marry someone.
Parent
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:5, Insightful)
So sorry, but your claim is nonsense. Gays want to get married because they want to make the formal commitment that is recognized by society, and "freebies" like right of inheritance, next of kin status for medical issues, etc. that don't cost the rest of us a dime (save possibly in estate taxes.)
* In the mid-90's, I was working a job with no retirement benefits. I could not open a traditional IRA because my wife had retirement benefits from her job. Those benefits were in no way larger because she was married.
A real-world example:
"Roth IRA Income Limits
You can contribute to a Roth IRA if your adjusted gross income is below these limits:
Full $2,000 contribution
Single/Head of household Up to $95,000
Married filing jointly Up to $150,000" -- from quicken.com
Got a couple where one earns $90K, one $80K? Single, they could both do full Roth contributions. Married? $0.
Parent
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:5, Insightful)
I am sorry, but that's just bigotry.
Parent
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:5, Insightful)
This requires that you believe that abstract properties like the sexuality of the partners are more important than the concrete properties of the individuals involved.
This seems to me to be absurd. Two loving, caring parents of the same sex are surely better than two nasty, cruel parents of opposite sexes. I once naively assumed that everyone agrees on this, but I now know for a fact that many Bible-believing Christians do not. Instead, they believe that homosexuality is akin to drug abuse in terms of the harm it does to individuals and their children, although when pressed on the nature of the harm they retreat into abstract, unprovable, or provably false claims.
The very language of the GM reaks of homophobia: "Anyone can report and we will take appropriate action. While it may seem ok because they are truly a heterosexual couple in real life, in game they are two females. Please keep in mind, you need to worry about the other players. While I do understand where you are coming from, there are those who do not have the maturity"
What is "appropriate action"? Sending gifts and good wishes? Isn't that what you do when you hear people are happily married?
What is "ok" about being "a heterosexual couple in real life"? And what is wrong with being two females in-game? Sounds kinda hot to me.
Can someone explain to me in a way that someone who does not believe that the Bible is anything more than a collection of human literature why any of this is a problem? I'm looking for concrete terms that I can understand--if you were to explain why murder was bad it wouldn't be too hard to give concrete details that are true in the case of virtually all murders that I can easily understand are bad because they do concrete, obvious harm to a human being. I just can't see the harm in homosexuality, and despite years of asking no one has ever been able to demonstrate what is harmful without lapsing either into Bible-speak or into claims that are demonstrably false.
And why is it a matter of "maturity" to accept marriage between people who love each other? In my experience homophobia usually hits around adolesence. Small children, who are less mature, don't have anything like the problems with same-sex marriage that many adults do.
Parent
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:5, Insightful)
In particular, same-sex couples who want children would seem the idea group of people to help take up the slack for all those unwanted children that heterosexuals seem to be constantly producing and putting up for adoption. It would seem the Religious Right, who wants to ban abortion and force all pregnancies to come to term and result in children should be pushing FOR gay marriage and gay adoption, to help take care of all those unwanted children that would result.
Parent
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:5, Informative)
I can't get to your linked article, but I'll comment anyway.
Implicit in your argument is the idea that the reason these children are disadvantaged is because they do not have a role model for one sex. That's a massive oversimplification of a complex problem. A parent in a single-parent household will probably be less able to spend as much time with their child, so he will get less parental attention. For that same reason, he might not be able to get as much help with schoolwork, and might not get as good an education. Or, because single parenthood tends to correlate with lower incomes and younger parents, one of these factors might be what's causing the poorer outcome.
Jumping to the conclusion that (e.g.) children in a lesbian household do poorly because they won't have a male role model is a major jump to a conclusion, not a simple extrapolation. All the studies I'm familiar with say that children raised in two-parent, same-sex households do just as well as their heterosexually, two-parented friends.
Parent
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:4, Interesting)
In 1995, 4.1 million women [findarticles.com] in America were "voluntarily childless". Double this to get the total number of people. The trend has been continually rising - almost three times the percentage as in 1982. 18.4% of married childbearing-age women have no children. Where's your self-righteous rage at them?
What percentage of Americans are gay? That number is highly contentuous (and partly depends on definitions), but usually ranges between 1% and 10%, usually around 2% of adults in a same sex relationship at a given point in time. Lets say that 1.5% of Americans are in a long-term (marriage-equivalent) same sex relationship. That's 4.2 million people. Hardly a staggering number compared to the 8.2 people in 1995 (probably near 10 million now) who are voluntarily childless, and the many millions more who are involuntarily childless.
At a more fundamental level, "violating its purpose". So, when your children are raised, is it time for a divorce? No? Then it's not solely about raising children. But even if it was, same sex couples who raise children have the exact same *purpose* as straight couples.
Parent
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:4, Insightful)
So it is a good thing that no one here or anywhere else is advocating "anybody marrying anything." [wikipedia.org]
Marriage as conceived in the modern world is fundamentally about mutual aid. This is a new, radical idea, at most a few hundred years old and probably a good deal less than that. There have been at various times and places in history a huge range of marriage arrangements, from arranged marriages to plural marriages to things that to a modern eye look far more like concubinage than marriage. Yet no where did this diversity wind up with "anybody marrying anything."
Homosexual marriage is based on an even more radical variant of the modern idea of marraige: that it is a relationship of mutual aid between equals. Once this definition of marriage is admited, and to many of us it seems like quite a healthy and positive thing, it is obvious that homosexual marriages ought to have the same status in law as heterosexual ones.
Parent
Re:Nominal libertarian (Score:4, Interesting)
And, moreover, since rich people are taxed much more than poor
Sorry, but that's backwards. Rich people get most of their money from dividends and long-term investments, which are taxed at a lower rate.
Parent
Re:Nominal libertarian (Score:4, Interesting)
Yeah, it's off topic, but I agree with you about the civil liberties...
Ending the downward redistribution of wealth would certainly change how wealth was distributed. Without some sort of constant downward redistribution, those with wealth ought to be able to easily aquire ever more of it unless they are incompetent, which they aren't. I'll stipulate that that might be in some sense a more fair society, but I suggest it may not be a more healthy one. Historically, it appears to me that insufficient wealth redistribution mechanisms will screw up your society just as surely as excessive ones.
Parent
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, if everybody has bread and circuses, it's a pretty good indicator that our system is mostly working. Even 90% of civil liberties issues come about as a result of people being denied equal opportunity to access one or the other.
Which begs the question of what our system is trying to do in the first place - is it intended to placate us enough that we don't notice the small number of people at the top (wherever they are) doing whatever the hell we want and running roughshod over is to get it?
Parent
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Slippery Slope... (Score:5, Funny)
The next thing you know, these same groups will be preaching polygamy. Kalimdor cannot support this! It is a slippery slope!
**disclaimer**
Parent
Re:Slippery Slope... (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Blizzard's got some house-cleaning to do (Score:5, Informative)
Straw man. Blizzard has already said that gay-friendly guilds are fine - it's the advertisement in-game of guilds based around RL controversies like sexual orientation, religion, nationality, etc., that is not. They've also said that if guilds wish to recruit based specifically on these qualities (and can do it without disparaging those of differing qualities), they are welcome to use the official guild recruiting forum on their website (an out-of-game resource) to do so.
Parent
Re:Dude, they got a business to run (Score:5, Insightful)
"And, like it or not, 60-70% of the South Carolina public is against negroes being in the same movie theaters as whites. If allowing negroes in the theaters pisses off more people than it pleases, it'd be a bad business decision. The "Why" of what their movie-watching population doesn't matter to them."
It would undoubtedly go on to argue that imposing restrictions that prevent the majority from being offended (separate theaters) is perfectly reasonable, and that the black patrons can still watch movies and have a good time.
Parent
It's a GAME!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
He's playing a Female character... That's not right!!!
She's playing a Male Orc...
It's a freaking Game. A ROLE playing game. This is insane...
I can't believe this made it onto
Re:It's a GAME!!! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Bestiality, on the other hand... (Score:5, Funny)
As opposed to human females performing unspeakable acts with male gnomes, which is just fine. Date outside your species, just get the sex right.
Reminds me of the old "Finding Nemo" joke.
"Why are the fundies so mad about Finding Nemo?"
"Because Ellen Degeneres is in it!"
"She's a talking blue fish!"
"Yeah, but she's a lesbian talking blue fish!"
Maturity (Score:5, Insightful)
Sanctity (Score:5, Funny)
Maybe they should create a monster named Santorum that will unleash a frothy mixure of lube and fecal matter upon the players that choose to have a gay marriage
Cats and Dogs Living Together (Score:5, Funny)
"Harassment for players"?!? (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA:
So punish the harassers . Blizzard should sprout a pair and teach that intolerance will not be tolerated.
Gay marriage happens all the time in WoW (Score:5, Funny)
What do you mean you're only "ROLE-PLAYING" a female character?!
TO HELL with 'em all! (Score:4, Insightful)
TO HELL with immature intolerant WoW players who can't be bothered to live and let live and allow people to make whatever choices they wish without ridiculing, tormenting, and otherwise being assholes toward people who happen to think or act differently from your perverted view of the normal world.
TO HELL with pathetic lifeless types who have to bring real life into a fantasy game. It's fantasy for a reason - it shouldn't be like real life. Role-playing has its uses and applications, but in the end, it's pretending and doesn't mean anything in the real world. Your avatar in WoW shouldn't be an exact extension of you in an online game anyway - that's what role-playing is: being someone you aren't.
TO HELL with people trying to insert sexuality (hetero, homo, or otherwise) into a situation that has no place for it. Can you give birth to little Taurens/Undeads/Orcs/Trolls/Humans/Dwarves/Gnomes
TO HELL with people forgetting that World of Warcraft is privately owned, privately operated, and they can choose whatever the hell they god damn jolly well please to have going on in their game. If they choose not to allow certain things, they are within their rights to do so. If you have a problem with it, LEAVE! Don't give them your money. But for the love of God, let us other less-finicky souls choose what we will and will not do with our time and money. Consumerism is a choice - take responsibility for your purchases and don't expect the manufacturers to tailor a wide-ranged product to your narrow views.
It's very simple, but not insignificant. (Score:5, Insightful)
But, it's not a race, or a religion, things which were at one time the basis of persecution and by many, thought acceptable. Now people have moved on to hate based on sexual orientation, or any cultural movement perceived by many to be unworthy. Take the emo stereotype as an example. I posted on a forum something that was deeply emotional, and in retrospect I can see how it could be perceived as melodramatic, because as I posted it, I was in a temporary state of depression. Many of the comments called me 'emo' as if it were an insult, and then wished my death. People always search for something to hate and there are justifications for just about anything, whether or not they are reasonable.
Back to the topic. Blizzard is interested in making money, if they were to ban everyone who said 'gay' or 'fag' as a response to any instance of such words used with derogatory intent, they would lose a lot of money. I would predict that if the number of GLBT players deeply offended (and would thus boycott) by Blizzard's current policy was greater than the number that using such hate speech, they would have a different policy. Unfortunately, there's no way to replicate the WoW experience without using illegal player-run servers, which, if they gained popularity (deemed necessary to the success of an MMORPG by most) and cost Blizzard money, they would be shut-down. It is a certified monopoly and thus has power to spare and abuse for one motive: profit.
I think we can all agree that the use of censorship is potentially dangerous, but when there are a large number of minors playing, it's entirely unacceptable to expose them to such hate-speech, or allow them to participate in it, which at the very least forms negative habits. The right solution is to ban those who use hate speech, but nobody who would use the language in a discussion that does not dissolve into harassment.
GLBT is a reality just like any other quality or quantity we can observe, and to shun its existence in any medium it will propagate is an abhorrent abuse of power. To say there would be no homosexuals in a world with 'humans' or other intelligent beings is against the evidence we have today. Thus, it must be accepted and if there are those who would undermine its acceptance without reason, the harm they cause must be prohibited.
To punish those who advertise as GLBT-friendly because of the irrational responses others might have is tantamount to punishing someone for making a mistake in a party raid that causes everyone to lose their temper and succumb to anger and abusive language when a GM gets wind of the chat filter working over-time. With a reasonable GM, I don't see the second scenario ever occuring, but profits motivates the first.
pffft - find something else to whinge about (Score:4, Insightful)
It's "legal" to "kill" people there, unlike in reality, but same sex marriage is not - unlike here.
Don't like it? Don't play.
End of story.
I'm all for equal rights, but this is not reality we're talking about - it's an alternative game world with it's own physics, laws, customs, etc - if you desperately want to be married in game but can't be due to the law or whatever, then *roleplay* that oppressed minority group in game.
smash.
Re:They *are* allowed to recruit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:They *are* allowed to recruit... (Score:5, Insightful)
What a fetid load of dingo's kidneys.
zoophilia: sex with an animal (that can't give consent)
necrophilia: there are public health issues as to what you do with dead bodies, not to mention your going against the wishes of the deceased or their families
group marriages: I have no problem with those whatsoever... if the group is willing to live up to the economic and social responsibilities of marriage, more power to them
cannibalism: you must be a troll
"This is a slippery path on which I wouldn't want to tread."
By your "logic", we can't raise the speed limit by 5 MPH, because then we won't be able to stop until we reach the speed of light.
We have an institution of marriage for a number of reasons. We don't restrict it to only fertile heterosexual couples, or two couples who are or guarantee they will raise children. We open marriage to all heterosexual couples.
Homosexual couples do all, all of the things that heterosexual couples do, including raise children (and bear and raise children in the case of lesbian couples). Why prevent them from marrying as well? There are good reasons for allowing same-sex marriage. If you have equally good arguments for allowing necrophilia, bestiality, cannibalism (I gotta hand it to you... that's a new one), etc., then present them.
The only reason we forbid homosexual couples from marrying is simple knuckle-dragging bigotry, nothing more.
"Making concensual sex legal..."
If this is all you think marriage is, then you are deeply, profoundly ignorant of the matters of which you speak.
"... is fine _as long_ as it doesn't give one extra rights: the right to adopt children, marry and receive tax exemptions."
So, it isn't about marriage after all... just money.
"Otherwise, I demand a tax refund for the time I lived together with several male friends: we didn't have sex with each other, but you can't discriminate against platonic relationships, can you? If the rights you are promoting would be applied, we could have made a fake group marriage"
If you are willing to live up to the legal, economic and social obligations of marriage with your roommate or a group, then get married, with my blessing.
Parent
Re:It's all fine and dandy (Score:5, Insightful)
The rest of your post appears to contradict this statement.
"If gays want to fuck each other in the ass - that's their business."
Sigh... Anal Sex 101: Some heterosexual couples engage in anal sex, and like it. Some same-sex couples don't engage in anal sex, because they don't like it. Marriage is about far more than one's preferred sexual activity.
"My only issue with the whole thing is that I think same sex couples should not be allowed to adopt/raise kids. A kid needs both mother and father, IMO. Otherwise you're just messing him/her up."
All of the research to date directly contradicts your assumptions. From a scientific standpoint, you don't have a leg to stand on.
"Once we close this threshold - I will do whatever I can to help ban gay marriage for this reason alone."
Your reason has just evaporated in a puff of logic. Now what?
Parent
Re:They *are* allowed to recruit... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, and for good reason. The groups you mention both advocate the hurting others. Aryans advocate violence against others based on skin tone or religious affiliation, while "pedo's" prey on children. GLBT would just like to do their thing without being attacked for it. Huge difference.
A more apt analogy would be, "would a 'Christian-friendly' guild be tolerated that actively recruited Christians?"
Parent
Re:They *are* allowed to recruit... (Score:5, Insightful)
However I would support their right to hold their views , so long as they are not forcing their views on others , such as racial intimidation , or grooming children .
The difference between GLBT , Aryan Nations and Pedophiles is simple.
There is no problem with being Gay or Trans-gender .
The other two however are a menace to society who prey on children or try to oppress other people for the way they are born.
Parent
Re:They *are* allowed to recruit... (Score:5, Insightful)
I perfectly accept those views , but GLBT people are just people who either happen to fall in love with those of the same gender , or are people who were unfortunately born into the wrong gender due to some fluke of biology(in the case of the Trans-gender folks) .
The Aryan Nations however espouse violence and hatred , pedophiles whilst not all active are fixated on sexual desire which can never be legal and is very hurtful.
People who look down upon the Pedophiles or the Aryan nations are basing this on solid evidence , as opposed to views on homosexuality which are based on very little.
Parent
Re:They *are* allowed to recruit... (Score:5, Insightful)
Being attracted to children is not a crime. Acting on it is in some countries.
Believing yourself to be superior to others is not a crime. Hurting others in an attempt to express that view or make that view a reality is a crime in some countries.
Being attracted to the same sex is not a crime. Acting on it is in some countries.
Be careful what labels you use. I'm only trying to point out the fact that it is a person's ACTIONS, not their BELIEFS or FEELINGS that are the issue here. However, there are people out there who will attempt to persecute you for your beliefs if they do not agree with them. The belief could be racial superiority, sexual attraction, spiritual, etc.
Parent
Re:There is one simple fair solution (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:This says it all: (Score:5, Insightful)
In some parts of the world, pro-gay propaganda is frowned upon.
The only way to satisfy people globally, is banning such kind of talk -- in a game, it is TOTALLY out-of-character anyway. Thus, while somewhat limitting the freedom of speech, it bans only topics that are not appropiate to the topic of the game. If you want to discuss outside things, nothing can prevent you from using any outside forum.
I used to be a high-ranking but sub-admin coder on a MUD. We enforced PG13 rules (no swearing, etc), and, while allowing OOC talk in general, we stopped (first by a verbal warning, then another one on the record, then a ban from global comm channels, and in egregious cases with a removal of the character) some topics that are grossly out-of-place. Such topics included talks about someone's sexual exploits, racial and sexual harassment, and yeah, pro-gay and anti-gay propaganda.
You are free to talk about any topic you want, but you are not free to talk about them everywhere. On private property (like a game), the game admins have the right to remove you for not complying with the rules.
Parent
Re:This says it all: (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, I have this diner, and we only serve white people. Because since it's private property, we can chose to deny service to anyone we want!
Parent
Re:This says it all: (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:This says it all: (Score:5, Informative)
Like Chicken.
Parent
Re:Well.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Right, and by letting everyone know about what shit Blizzard is doing they will become less profitable. OMFG capitalism might just work!
Parent
Re:My Karma can afford this! (Score:5, Insightful)
So, by the same logic, you must be saying straight people bring their "drama" into everything from dating games on TV to online games, too. You're amazingly blind to how pervasive heterosexism is in your culture if you think gay marriage in an online game is "shoving" an ideology down your throat but that straight marriage in the same environment is a given.
Parent