Also, there are people who have strong views about gay marriage, not necessarily aligned with yours or The New Yorker's. Just imagine what would happen if these people started forcefully expressing and defending their views on this thread?
The best way to avoid this fate is to flag such articles into oblivion.
"Anything from the New Yorker is basically automatically on topic because of its intellectual weight."
That's the stupidest rationale for a submission I've ever read on HN. What is "on topic" for an HN submission has nothing to do with who wrote it. And no one has automatic "intellectual weight" for anything they write.
The fact that you have to make such a logic free statement indicates that you know you are trolling/ karma whoring.
I guess it is fine to occasionally test the strength of HN's immune system.
you know you are trolling/ karma whoring.
Karma whoring? Trolling? It's been a while since anyone actually accused me of trolling, but this is a meta-discussion worth having.
I think the New Yorker is a well-written, basically authoritative source with regards to journalism. See their excellent article that makes a complete case that Cameron Todd Willingham was an innocent man executed by the USA. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/09/07/090907fa_fact_...
Are there any New Yorker journalism articles that lack sufficient weight to be considered correct? I'm not talking about their movie reviews. What makes this article Hacker News material is that while discussing a mainstream, inflammatory, emotional topic, it is much closer to the truth than anything you are likely to hear on the TV news.
Finally, if people have strong opinions, they should be allowed to express them. Maybe we'll all learn something. The downmodding and moderation system mostly works here.