You are certainly correct that the cheater tag serves to humiliate the user. That's the whole point. When you have a community of actors, sometimes you need to make these things called "rules", to ensure that everyone behaves themselves. And then, and I know this will come as a shock to you, sometimes people break those rules! Whaaaaaa? So then, you have to have some situation of consequences in place for that, to both punish the person for breaking the rules (we call this the "punitive" function) and to say to everyone else, "here's what happens when you break the rules" (we call this part the "preventative" function). Xbox Live has decided to use a system which sociologists (those are scientists that study how societies, or "groups of people", function) call "shaming". In this case, it takes the form of labeling the player publicly as a cheater. Shaming serves both the punitive, and preventative, functions of justice and is therefore theoretically what we like to call "effective". It's not disproportionately strict (i.e., the kid can still play games, which are apparently everything he lives for etc. etc.), but it still exists in the public forum, to be seen by all other gamers, who may then decide that they want to stay on the straight and narrow instead of cheating and being labeled as such.

Interesting, but parents disadvantage their children in many ways. Your same argument would apply to Black couples, or poor couples. Yet we "encourage" those people to get married, yes?

Right, but my question is still why you take single parent homes as your analogue? I don't dispute that a child raised by a same-sex couple might face some unique challenges. But I think they would be unique ones, not those analogous with single parent families. Is your argument that same sex couples have a greater rate of parental absenteeism for some reason? I'm not trying to tell you anything, I'm curious what your reasoning is.

On the larger issue, I agree with your philosophy, but a lack of equal application of the law still exists in the status quo, no? If we're going to accept that this thing called "marriage" exists and grants certain legal benefits to people who are "married", then those benefits ought to be applied evenly across society, not limited without compelling reason. When the day comes to remove marriage recognition across the board, I'll be shoulder to shoulder with you, but until then I don't see a compelling reason to arbitrarily limit the definition of "marriage".

I don't agree with what you say AND I don't defend your right to say it anonymously.

I for one would enjoy seeing the empirical evidence that "many of the same issues that plague children that grow up in single parent households, will also plague those that are raised by same-sex couples." But fair enough, let's apply it equally. Given that approximately 34% of marriages end in divorce (thereby potentially leaving a child in a single parent home), let's arbitrarily deny recognition by the state for 34% of all marriages that occur. That should solve that problem, right? And I'm all for parental fitness being a pre-requisite for marriage. I know plenty of straight couples that have done a terrible job raising children.

I don't think that there's conclusive proof that the channels are broken. If the student had left as asked, without being "wronged", there would be no reason to even need a channel. He broke the clearly posted rules, and should have left as a result, even if it was just to return to his dorm room to get his ID card. He was not being asked to leave as some sort of extension of the Patriot Act which he raves about in the cell phone video, or because of his race, age, gender, sexual orientation, shoe size, or Mac/PC preference. It was because it was late at night, he was being belligerent, and he couldn't prove he was a student. Certainly, in this case the officers' behavior at the end was unacceptable and indefensible. So a wrong was in fact committed. But I would hold off judgement on whether those channels work or not until after the university finishes its investigation of the incident. I suspect that some fairly harsh disciplinary action will be taken against the officers for their actions, and a balance will be struck again.

And, whether Darby thinks it's bullshit or not, the reality is that following the rule of law is what makes us citizens. The very word comes to the English language from the French "citeain" which means something like "of the city". I believe that supporting order and a rule of law is at the very least implicit in that definition, if not explicit.