Is Asheville really liberal? (Charlotte, Washington: apartment, insurance, motel)

[brightmidnight]

If you're not for gay marriage, you're not for "live and let live."

I don't get why such a debate is made of gay marriage.

If you're religious, why do you even care that the state sanctifies marriage at all? All that should matter is whether the church (and more especially, God, does). Adam and Eve didn't have a ceremony and didn't have to apply for a marriage license. If the church doesn't want to recognize gay marriage, that's fine. If the state wants to, that's fair and churches can do their own thing.

[OREGONRAIN]

I have been around 57 years, I seriously doubt the debate is over just gay marriage, that is the heading of a topic, it is not the actual debate, what is actually wanted is too not have a gay person share anything that is supposedly sacred to a heterosexual person, it would put the gay person on the same level as them sharing the ceremony of marriage, to them it is between men and woman and would be insulting to them, if gays shared the same institution as they do. As far as Asheville and liberal, One has to identify what liberal means to them, and may find liberal is a not across the board same feelings about everything. Asheville is on the New Age type of liberal, its a beautiful area, but alot of that so called liberal is in the downtown region, and will not be so apparent within a few miles of that area. The ones I see here in Portland that seem to want to move there, seem to be more the hippy type, I haven't been to Asheville in several years, so I am not completely sure, what it is like population wise now, it is just something I noticed from those that move from Oregon.

[jayhawks]

I don't get why such a debate is made of gay marriage.

Maybe this will be helpful in understanding the debate from a conservative's point of view. This forum is not about debate but since you asked...this is why it is important to us.


Marriage Is Always About the Next Generation
A loving and compassionate society always comes to the aid of motherless and fatherless families.

A loving and compassionate society never intentionally creates motherless or fatherless families, which is exactly what every same-sex home does.
The same-sex family is not driven by the needs of children, but rather by the radical wishes of a small group of adults.

No child development theory says children need two parents of the same gender, but rather that children need their mothers and fathers.

A Vast Social Experiment Inflicted on Children
No society, at any time, has ever raised a generation of children in same-sex families.
Same-sex “marriage” will subject generations of children to the status of lab rats in vast, untested social experiment.
But we know how the experiment will turn out:
America has raised millions of children in fatherless families for three decades and that experiment was a stunning failure by every measure! We know how damaging it is to raise children in intentionally fatherless families. Let’s not create more child-suffering to satisfy adult desire.

Thousands of published social science, psychological and medical studies show that children living in fatherless families, on average, suffer dramatically in every important measure of well-being. These children suffer from much higher levels of physical and mental illness, educational failure, poverty, substance abuse, criminal behavior, loneliness, as well as physical and sexual abuse.
1 Children living apart from both biological parents are eight times more likely to die of maltreatment than children living with their mother and father.
2
Lessons From the World's Most Famous Lesbian Mom
Rosie O’Donnell shared this story in an ABC Primetime Live interview with Diane Sawyer:
Six-year-old Parker asks his mother, Rosie: “Mommy, why can’t I have a daddy?” Rosie answers: “Because I’m the kind of mommy who wants another mommy.”3
The two most dangerous words for a parent to utter together: “I” and “want.”
Parker has never asked, “Momma, why can’t we have all the rights and protections of marriage?” You see, such things only matter to adults. But he has said, “Momma, why can’t I have a daddy?”
What matters for children in marriage is whether their mothers are married to their fathers.

How Your Same-sex Family Will Harm My Family
If this were just about your family,(if no children) there would be no real danger. But same-sex “marriage” advocates are not seeking marriage for you alone, but rather demanding me — and all of us — to radically change our understanding of family. And that will do great damage.
Your same-sex family will teach my little boys and girls that husband/wife and mother/father are merely optional for the family and therefore, meaningless.
And I will never allow my (grand) children to be taught that their gender doesn’t matter for the family. Their masculinity and femininity matter far too much, as does everyone’s.

Full Acceptance Will Be Mandatory
My civil rights to object to homosexuality as an idea will be gone.
Same-sex relationships and homes are tolerated in society today. Our nation has no existing problem where same-sex couples are evicted from their neighborhoods because of how they live. Americans tolerate such relationships.
But this is not about mere tolerance. Instead it is about forcing everyone to fully accept these unnatural families.
Only months after legalizing same-sex “marriage” in Canada, activists there successfully passed C-250, a bill criminalizing public statements against homosexuality, punishable by up to two years in prison! Say the wrong thing; go to jail. The same will happen here.
Every public school in the nation would be forced to teach that same-sex “marriage” and homosexuality are perfectly normal –- Heather has Two Mommies in K-12. Pictures in text books will be changed to show same-sex couples as normal.
Your church will be legally pressured to perform same-sex weddings. When courts — as happened in Massachusetts — find same-sex “marriage” to be a constitutional and fundamental human right, the ACLU will successfully argue that the government is underwriting discrimination by offering tax exemptions to churches and synagogues that only honor natural marriage.
Gay and lesbian people have a right to form meaningful relationships. They don’t have a right to redefine marriage for all of us.


David Popenoe, Life Without Father: Compelling Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensible for the Good of Children, (New York, The Free Press, 1997); Glenn T. Stanton, Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society, (Colorado Springs, Pinon Press, 1997); Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994); Deborah Dawson, “Family Structure and Children’s Health and Well-Being: Data from the 1988 National Health Interview Survey on Child Health,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (1991): 573-584; Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi, A General Theory of Crime (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 103; Richard Koestner, et al., “The Family Origins of Empathic Concern: A Twenty-Six Year Longitudinal Study,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58 (1990): 709-717;E. Mavis Hetherington, “Effects of Father Absence on Personality Development in Adolescent Daughters,” Developmental Psychology 7 (1972): 313 –326; Irwin Garfinkel and Sara McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children: A New American Dilemma (Washington D.C.: The Urban Institute Press, 1986), pp. 30-31; David Ellwood, Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family (New York: Basic Books, 1988), p. 46; Ronald J. Angel and Jacqueline Worobey, “Single Motherhood and Children’s Health,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29 (1988): 38-52; L. Remez, "Children Who Don't Live with Both Parents Face Behavioral Problems," Family Planning Perspectives, January/February 1992; Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee, Second Chances: Men and Woman a Decade After Divorce, (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1990); Judith Wallerstein, et al., The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study, (New York: Hyperion, 2000); Nicholas Zill, Donna Morrison, and Mary Jo Coiro, "Long-Term Effects of Parental Divorce on Parent-Child Relationships, Adjustment, and Achievement in Young Adulthood," Journal of Family Psychology, 7 (1993):91-103.

2 Michael Stiffman, et al., “Household Composition and Risk of Fatal Child Maltreatment,” Pediatrics, 109 (2002), 615-621.
3 Diane Sawyer (Anchor), “Rosie’s Story: For the Sake of the Children: Rosie O’Donnell’s Crusade on Behalf of Gay Parents Seeking to Adopt Children,” ABC News: Primetime, (March

[cooperwx]

Originally Posted by OREGONRAIN

Asheville is on the New Age type of liberal, its a beautiful area, but alot of that so called liberal is in the downtown region, and will not be so apparent within a few miles of that area. The ones I see here in Portland that seem to want to move there, seem to be more the hippy type, I haven't been to Asheville in several years, so I am not completely sure, what it is like population wise now, it is just something I noticed from those that move from Oregon.

Great post summarizing Asheville. Incidentally, from what I've heard of Portland, I think I'd love living there! Similar idea on "what's best for the community."

What's strange about Asheville is that there are so many people that live 10-20 miles outside of town that NEVER go to downtown. Thus they don't contribute to the overall flavor of the city and aren't seen by visitors. It is these folks who have more conservative views. And then there are the retirees and part-time residents, who just came here because it's pretty...

[mm34b]

Originally Posted by cooperwx

What's strange about Asheville is that there are so many people that live 10-20 miles outside of town that NEVER go to downtown. Thus they don't contribute to the overall flavor of the city and aren't seen by visitors. It is these folks who have more conservative views. And then there are the retirees and part-time residents, who just came here because it's pretty...

Absolutely. City-Data posters tend to use the term "Asheville" when describing both the city and the metropolitan area (Henderson, Madison, Haywood, Buncombe Counties) interchangeably. The City of Asheville has little in common with the Asheville Area when discussing demographic, economic, social or political ideologies.

[OREGONRAIN]

Originally Posted by cooperwx

Great post summarizing Asheville. Incidentally, from what I've heard of Portland, I think I'd love living there! Similar idea on "what's best for the community."

What's strange about Asheville is that there are so many people that live 10-20 miles outside of town that NEVER go to downtown. Thus they don't contribute to the overall flavor of the city and aren't seen by visitors. It is these folks who have more conservative views. And then there are the retirees and part-time residents, who just came here because it's pretty...

If you ever relocated to Portland, I always tell people, this, you really have to and I can't stress enough, it is not just the long long months of rain here, it is the darkness, remember the closer you get to Alaska in winter, the less daylight you get.

[tkhk3746]

In a word.Yes! Very much so!...Oh wait! that's 4 words!

[vandemusser]

Originally Posted by jayhawks

Maybe this will be helpful in understanding the debate from a conservative's point of view. This forum is not about debate but since you asked...this is why it is important to us.


Marriage Is Always About the Next Generation
A loving and compassionate society always comes to the aid of motherless and fatherless families.

A loving and compassionate society never intentionally creates motherless or fatherless families, which is exactly what every same-sex home does.
The same-sex family is not driven by the needs of children, but rather by the radical wishes of a small group of adults.

No child development theory says children need two parents of the same gender, but rather that children need their mothers and fathers.

A Vast Social Experiment Inflicted on Children
No society, at any time, has ever raised a generation of children in same-sex families.
Same-sex “marriage” will subject generations of children to the status of lab rats in vast, untested social experiment.
But we know how the experiment will turn out:
America has raised millions of children in fatherless families for three decades and that experiment was a stunning failure by every measure! We know how damaging it is to raise children in intentionally fatherless families. Let’s not create more child-suffering to satisfy adult desire.

Thousands of published social science, psychological and medical studies show that children living in fatherless families, on average, suffer dramatically in every important measure of well-being. These children suffer from much higher levels of physical and mental illness, educational failure, poverty, substance abuse, criminal behavior, loneliness, as well as physical and sexual abuse.
1 Children living apart from both biological parents are eight times more likely to die of maltreatment than children living with their mother and father.
2
Lessons From the World's Most Famous Lesbian Mom
Rosie O’Donnell shared this story in an ABC Primetime Live interview with Diane Sawyer:
Six-year-old Parker asks his mother, Rosie: “Mommy, why can’t I have a daddy?” Rosie answers: “Because I’m the kind of mommy who wants another mommy.”3
The two most dangerous words for a parent to utter together: “I” and “want.”
Parker has never asked, “Momma, why can’t we have all the rights and protections of marriage?” You see, such things only matter to adults. But he has said, “Momma, why can’t I have a daddy?”
What matters for children in marriage is whether their mothers are married to their fathers.

How Your Same-sex Family Will Harm My Family
If this were just about your family,(if no children) there would be no real danger. But same-sex “marriage” advocates are not seeking marriage for you alone, but rather demanding me — and all of us — to radically change our understanding of family. And that will do great damage.
Your same-sex family will teach my little boys and girls that husband/wife and mother/father are merely optional for the family and therefore, meaningless.
And I will never allow my (grand) children to be taught that their gender doesn’t matter for the family. Their masculinity and femininity matter far too much, as does everyone’s.

Full Acceptance Will Be Mandatory
My civil rights to object to homosexuality as an idea will be gone.
Same-sex relationships and homes are tolerated in society today. Our nation has no existing problem where same-sex couples are evicted from their neighborhoods because of how they live. Americans tolerate such relationships.
But this is not about mere tolerance. Instead it is about forcing everyone to fully accept these unnatural families.
Only months after legalizing same-sex “marriage” in Canada, activists there successfully passed C-250, a bill criminalizing public statements against homosexuality, punishable by up to two years in prison! Say the wrong thing; go to jail. The same will happen here.
Every public school in the nation would be forced to teach that same-sex “marriage” and homosexuality are perfectly normal –- Heather has Two Mommies in K-12. Pictures in text books will be changed to show same-sex couples as normal.
Your church will be legally pressured to perform same-sex weddings. When courts — as happened in Massachusetts — find same-sex “marriage” to be a constitutional and fundamental human right, the ACLU will successfully argue that the government is underwriting discrimination by offering tax exemptions to churches and synagogues that only honor natural marriage.
Gay and lesbian people have a right to form meaningful relationships. They don’t have a right to redefine marriage for all of us.


David Popenoe, Life Without Father: Compelling Evidence that Fatherhood and Marriage Are Indispensible for the Good of Children, (New York, The Free Press, 1997); Glenn T. Stanton, Why Marriage Matters: Reasons to Believe in Marriage in Postmodern Society, (Colorado Springs, Pinon Press, 1997); Sara McLanahan and Gary Sandefur, Growing Up with a Single Parent: What Hurts, What Helps, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994); Deborah Dawson, “Family Structure and Children’s Health and Well-Being: Data from the 1988 National Health Interview Survey on Child Health,” Journal of Marriage and the Family 53 (1991): 573-584; Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi, A General Theory of Crime (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1990), p. 103; Richard Koestner, et al., “The Family Origins of Empathic Concern: A Twenty-Six Year Longitudinal Study,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 58 (1990): 709-717;E. Mavis Hetherington, “Effects of Father Absence on Personality Development in Adolescent Daughters,” Developmental Psychology 7 (1972): 313 –326; Irwin Garfinkel and Sara McLanahan, Single Mothers and Their Children: A New American Dilemma (Washington D.C.: The Urban Institute Press, 1986), pp. 30-31; David Ellwood, Poor Support: Poverty in the American Family (New York: Basic Books, 1988), p. 46; Ronald J. Angel and Jacqueline Worobey, “Single Motherhood and Children’s Health,” Journal of Health and Social Behavior 29 (1988): 38-52; L. Remez, "Children Who Don't Live with Both Parents Face Behavioral Problems," Family Planning Perspectives, January/February 1992; Judith Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee, Second Chances: Men and Woman a Decade After Divorce, (New York: Ticknor & Fields, 1990); Judith Wallerstein, et al., The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce: A 25 Year Landmark Study, (New York: Hyperion, 2000); Nicholas Zill, Donna Morrison, and Mary Jo Coiro, "Long-Term Effects of Parental Divorce on Parent-Child Relationships, Adjustment, and Achievement in Young Adulthood," Journal of Family Psychology, 7 (1993):91-103.

2 Michael Stiffman, et al., “Household Composition and Risk of Fatal Child Maltreatment,” Pediatrics, 109 (2002), 615-621.
3 Diane Sawyer (Anchor), “Rosie’s Story: For the Sake of the Children: Rosie O’Donnell’s Crusade on Behalf of Gay Parents Seeking to Adopt Children,” ABC News: Primetime, (March

Flawed generalities, mixed with a liberal heaping of ultra-conservatism, then add a pinch of twisted numerical data. Mix together and you get...

Creepy.

Seriously.

[atlantic001]

On the homeless issue: I'd like to compare the two cities of Asheville and Charlotte. Two NC cities about 2 hours apart or "world's apart". Asheville - an obviously liberal, artsy city with a growing new age scene. Charlotte - the second largest banking center in the US (second to NYC), a downtown filled with business tycoons that shuts down on bank holidays. I've lived in both cities. After doing a study, I feel one would find that the number of homeless in Asheville (per capita), greatly outways the number in Charlotte (per capita).

Think about it: if you were homeless would you choose to either: (A) live in a city with a bunch of stingy banking execs that wonder if a mortgage could be placed on a cardboard box (home) or (B) live in a city with a bunch of libbies that feel sorry for them and are willing to empty their pockets. The ultimate answer is B. Of course.

Now, Asheville wants to offer government housing to the homeless. I ask you, is there a clause in that bill that requires a particular homeless person to have lived in Asheville before receiving benefits. If there is not, watch out. The homeless of Charlotte will undoubtedly flock to Asheville. It's just simple logic. If Asheville passed this plan (bill), they will be doing Charlotte the favor, not theirselves.

[Loves mountains]

It's a touchy subject to be sure - this country needs to find a way to embrace our differences - it's one of the things that makes us a great nation.