TORONTO - The Canadian prime minister said he will file a bill to permit same-sex marriages, a change that would make Canada only the third country where such homosexual couples can legally wed.
The bill will be drafted within weeks and submitted to the Supreme Court for review, Prime Minister Jean Chretien said Tuesday. Chretien's Liberal Party has a majority in the legislature, though the issue has caused division in the party.
Currently, only Belgium and The Netherlands recognize same-sex marriages.
Recent court rulings have declared Canada's definition of marriage as unconstitutional because it specified it as the union of a man and a woman.
An Ontario appeals court last week declared the wording invalid, changing it to a union between two people.
Dozens of homosexual couples have obtained marriage licenses since the court ruling, with at least one wedding taking place.
"There is an evolution of society," Chretien said in making the announcement after a Cabinet meeting. He said the law would allow religions the right to decide what marriages should be sanctified.
An Anglican diocese in Vancouver has approved a blessing for same-sex unions, which it says is separate from marriage. The blessing ceremony, performed once so far, caused a split in the diocese with some churches dissociating themselves.
Opinion polls indicate a slight majority of Canadians favor legalizing same-sex marriages. After the Ontario appeals court ruling and similar previous ones by courts in British Columbia and Quebec, the government was under pressure to change the law or file appeals that would have left the issue unsettled.
Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said Tuesday it was time for change.
"We have decided not to appeal those rulings ... and proceeded with draft legislation that will be ready shortly ," he said. The new law would redefine marriage as called for by the courts while protecting religious freedoms, according to Cauchon.
"We're talking about essential freedoms here," he said.
Svend Robinson, a Parliament member for the leftist New Democratic Party who has pushed for same-sex marriages in Canada, praised Chretien's government for showing leadership. He rejected opposition by conservative political groups, who argue that changing the definition of marriage uproots a fundamental tenet of Canadian society.
In the United States, homosexual marriage lacks full legal recognition in all 50 states. Vermont recognizes civil unions that give homosexual couples the full benefits and responsibilities of marriage but are separate from legal marriage.
"Americans now have the chance to see a society can treat gay people with respect," said Evan Wolfson, executive director of the New York-based Freedom to Marry organization promoting homosexual marriage. "Families are helped, and no one is hurt."
It isn't so much the legal reasoning as it is the law. I know this sounds like a contradiction, but I don't think it is.
The real question (and maybe that is what Rob meant) is what is the rationale for enacting a law?
I don't know. For some reason, owing NOTHING to my religious upbringing, I am in favor of the defense of marriage act.
I am not at peace with my position on this though. For every reason I offer for support of it, I can easily refute myself.
I am not really down on homosexuality. I wish the GOP (to which I belong) would not focus on the gay issue so much. Sodomy laws are not a really critical issue and I wish the 'Pubs wouldn't expend political capital to hound the gays.
But in the end (no pun intended...ok maybe a little), the only real reason I can use to justify the DOMA here in the US is that "that's the way it has always been." I just don't know if that is good enough.
But as far as legal reasoning, I don't read anything in the Const. that prevents Congress from enacting legislation preventing same sex marriage.
If you look past his ridiculous comments, this is what Santorum was talking about. Unfortunately, a valid point soon gave way to talks on beastiality.
Nothing clouds an issue more than talk of a man lovin' a pig.
8 Reasons used in court and legislative bodies to justify the ban on same-sex marriages:
Procreation argument:
The purpose of marriage is to procreate; making babies requires a heterosexual couple. However, nobody appears to take this argument to its logical conclusion and terminate or ban all marriages where one partner is impotent, infertile, elderly, or has decided to not have children. In addition, lesbian couples can and do have children; all they need is artificial insemination, just like many heterosexual couples in which the husband is infertile.
Determining who is the legal parent:
Lord Mansfield's rule presumes that children born to a married woman are a product of the husband and the wife. Some have expressed concern over how to establish the parenthood within a homosexual marriage. This is does not seem to be a problem: the spouse bringing children into the marriage would be the parent; the other spouse could try to adopt if they wished
both lesbian spouses could be considered parents of any child born into their marriage.
both gay spouses could adopt any children brought into their family
Argument from historical tradition:
We have not allowed homosexuals in the past to marry. That is true, but until a few decades ago, we did not allow people of different races to marry. Before that, in some states, we did not allow Afro-American slaves to marry. The institution of marriage has been in a continual state of flux for centuries.
The Defense of Marriage Act:
Many states have passed DOMA laws which they believe will excuse them from recognizing gay or lesbian marriages performed in other states. But some constitutional experts feel that the "full faith and credit" clause of the U.S. Constitution makes such laws unconstitutional. Also, if same-sex couples cannot have the same rights in one state as they do in another, then their ability to travel within the U.S. would be restricted. And the right to travel has been well established by the courts. Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a recent Colorado voter initiative case that a law which is designed to reduce the civil and human rights of a specific minority is unconstitutional. What is a more fundamental human right than the right to marry?
No compelling state interest:
Legislation must fulfill a compelling state interest in order to be constitutional. Some feel that there is no need to extend equal rights to gays and lesbians. But public opinion polls consistently indicate that the vast majority of homosexuals feel that the right to marry is very important - to them. Also, married people tend to be more monogamous than singles; monogamy lessens the frequency of transmission of AIDS and other STDs.
It would cost too much:
This is a valid point. Giving gays and lesbian couples the same rights as heterosexual couples would indeed increase the tax burden. Married couples pick up over 1,000 responsibilities, benefits and rights from the federal government and hundreds from their state government. So, it is cheaper for governments to deny homosexuals the right to marry. Companies would have to extend dental, medical and other employee benefits to homosexual spouses. But think of how much more money could be saved if the government cut off all benefits for red-heads, or Afro-Americans, or people over 6' tall...or from any other minority. Fairness requires that people be treated equally.
Gay marriages threatens the institution of marriage:
This is presented as a self-evident fact by man theologians, legislators, judges, etc. But we have not been able to find out why they feel that way. The author personally would not feel that his (heterosexual) marriage was threatened if a gay or lesbian couple down the street suddenly was given a marriage license to put on their wall, dental and medical benefits, survivor pension benefits, etc.
Most people are against gay marriages: This is also true. Males and older people in particular oppose same-sex marriages. But then, most people in racially segregated areas were opposed to integration during the 1960's. Most people in those states which prohibited mixed race marriages were opposed to the legalization of those marriages when the U.S. Supreme Court declared the state laws to be unconstitutional. Making some people feel more relaxed is not a sufficient reason to deny others equal rights under law.
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I trust the stuff above is what you wanted to know, Rob. There's a very long history behind legislation and the prohibition of same-sex marriages within the U.S., but that would be a whole other post in itself.
great answer, wednesday. most of it makes "sense" (if y'know what i mean).
i guess i just dont get it.
the procreation concept would null and void tom cruise and nicole kidman's marriage. silly.
the parental argument, i guess, has some merit. but, my girlfriend's father is an ass and hasn't been involved with her family in some 15 years. her and her sister were raised by their mom and their grandparents. many kids have two adopted (hetero) parents. many live with just an aunt and uncle. and dont all permission slips need to be signed by a "parent or legal guardian"? seems to me if a grammar school field trip could handle this problem, the gubment could, too.
the historical idea, as you pointed out, is equally silly.
state interest... hmm... i guess this is a tricky point. i guess it requires a broader definition of the term "compelling." is that 100 people? 1,000,000 people?
i never thought of the cost factor, or tax / insurance coverage factor. an interesting argument. but, i think a similar counter point as the parental argument could be made for most topics in this one.
the "institution of marriage" is something based completely upon the two being wed. if you want that to be sacred, go for it. if not, thats yer call. there are swingers all over the place. how many rock stars or rappers are married for 2 or 3 days? i can "understand" why a certain religion might want to exclude the concept of a homosexual marriage, but i guess thats ok because they're private entities. they're allowed such luxuries. they're also "in control" of how the concept of marriage is perceived. but the government? no way. vegas chapels abound.
As an uncomfortable supporter of DOMA, I will comment on each of these points.
Procreation argument: ...
The response to this is perfectly valid. Procreation is not an issue.
Determining who is the legal parent:
I think that if they are married, Lord Mannie's rule should apply just the same. Any child born into a marriage is presumed to be the child of the person conceiving and the spouse. The only complication is, what are the rights of the father? I guess if the lesbian couple aren't careful enough to execute a termination of parental rights along with the conception, then it would be more difficult. I guess then, the biological father, if so inclined, could overcome the presumption and establish paternity. With adoption, there is NO confusion as the adoption of a person automatically terminates the parental rights of the replaced parent.
Argument from historical tradition:
See, this was my qualification. I agree with all of your points and analogies, but something about it sticks in my crawl.
The Defense of Marriage Act:
quote: Many states have passed DOMA laws which they believe will excuse them from recognizing gay or lesbian marriages performed in other states. But some constitutional experts feel that the "full faith and credit" clause of the U.S. Constitution makes such laws unconstitutional. Also, if same-sex couples cannot have the same rights in one state as they do in another, then their ability to travel within the U.S. would be restricted. And the right to travel has been well established by the courts. Finally, the U.S. Supreme Court decided in a recent Colorado voter initiative case that a law which is designed to reduce the civil and human rights of a specific minority is unconstitutional. What is a more fundamental human right than the right to marry?
Fundamental human rights and fundamental CONSTITUTIONAL rights are two seperate issues. Plus, much of this passage is made moot by the passage of the FEDERAL DOMA which prohibits states from allowing gay marriage. Also, do you have a cite on that SCOTUS case from Colorado?
No compelling state interest:
quote: Legislation must fulfill a compelling state interest in order to be constitutional. Some feel that there is no need to extend equal rights to gays and lesbians. But public opinion polls consistently indicate that the vast majority of homosexuals feel that the right to marry is very important - to them. Also, married people tend to be more monogamous than singles; monogamy lessens the frequency of transmission of AIDS and other STDs.
This information is innacurate. Only if the right is deemed to be a fundamental right, does it receive the strict scrutiny (compelling or overriding govt. interest) review. Same sex marriage has never been granted such status. In fact, a case, not dealing with same sex marriage of course, has ruled that there is no basic right to lead a certain lifestyle (Kelley v. Johnson, 425 US 238 (1976). Not exactly on point, but I promise you it would be cited by the side who opposed same sex.
Thus, until gay marriage is afforded such status, it falls into the rational basis standard. This means that if there is any rational reason why the govt. passed such a law, then is upheld.
The ones you cite could be used as rational basis for such a law (as well as the bold heading that follows).
Now, the gay community could (and probably HAS) try to say that though it is not a fundamental right, they are a suspect class. This requires that they are historically discriminated against but also that the characteristic that makes them suspect be also immutable (meaning incapable of change). I don't need to tell you where THAT factor leads this debate....
It would cost too much:
This ISN'T a good point. If the people should be afforded such rights, they should be given them regardless of cost. Cost should not be an issue if such rights are in fact owed. The question to me is whether such rights are owed. I also don't think the comparison to racial equality is such a given in many people's minds. Is this wrong? I don't know.
Gay marriages threatens the institution of marriage:
I think this is very similar to historical tradition and wouldn't count it as a seperate reason.
On another point you made, the question of whether or not homosexuals are a suspect class WAS brought up during Romer. Since the Court held that Amendment 2 did not survive rational basis review, however, the decision was made that there was no reason for the Court to address the question at that time.
On a side note: in the 1990 case, High Tech Gays v. Defense Industrial Security Clearance Office, 895 F.2d 563 (I'm not making that up) the district court held that “gay people are, in fact, a "quasi-suspect class’ entitled to heightened scrutiny.” The Ninth Circuit Court reversed, though.
A tough issue, but a very interesting one once you get your feet dirty.
Thank You for making me aware of that case. I had heard of the Colorado Case, but never really looked into it.
The Amendment in question:
"No Protected Status Based on Homosexual, Lesbian, or Bisexual Orientation. Neither the State of Colorado, through any of its branches or departments, nor any of its agencies, political subdivisions, municipalities or school districts, shall enact, adopt or enforce any statute, regulation, ordinance or policy whereby homosexual, lesbian or bisexual orientation, conduct, practices or relationships shall constitute or otherwise be the basis of or entitle any person or class of persons to have or claim any minority status, quota preferences, protected status or claim of discrimination. This Section of the Constitution shall be in all respects self executing."
Truly sickening. PROHIBITING people from passing laws to help gays. Too far.
The case is interesting. It was written by my favorite Justice, Anthony Kennedy. A compassionate conservative indeed.
I don't have time to read the case, but I am looking at the Key Notes on Westlaw, and even in that case, they only required a rational basis (not the compelling interest standard) test.
The thing about that case was that the facts of the case were SO tilted against what the govt. was trying to do, further analysis was not required. I get the impression that was a famous S.Ct sidestep. COWARDS!
In that case, there was an Amendment to the Colorado Const. that "prohibits all legislative, executive, or judicial action at any level of state or local government designed to protect homosexual persons from discrimination."
But the case DID note that the "14th Amendment's promise that no person shall be denied equal protection of the laws must coexist with practical necessity that most legislation classifies for one purpose or another with resulting disadvatage to various groups or persons."
"Equal Protection of the laws is not achieved through indiscriminate imposition of inequalities" and "central to both the idea of rule of law and the the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection is the principle that government and each of its parts remain open on impartial terms to all who seek its assistence."
Also, "A law declaring that in general it shall be more difficult for one group of citizens than for all others to seek aid from government is itself a denial of equal protection of the laws in the most literal sense."
But the most stark distinction between this case and a potential case involving same sex marriages is that "a bare desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest."
So this case really provides firepower for both sides.
It suggests that the EP doesn't allow every group to say that THEY are being violated just because a law applies directly to them and if you want to target a specific class, you better have a stronger reason than you just want to discriminate.
The really interesting development in this field will be when the court rules on Lawrence v. Texas.
Expect that case to cite this one heavily.
The ruling in that case will be VERY important to developments in gay rights.
However that case goes, so goes the gay rights movement.
But, if O'Connor is replaced by a right ideologue, then the issue makes Kennedy a swing voter once again.
This opinion shows he will defend gay rights, but also suggests they may not worthy of strict scrutiny.
My momma used to warn me that them gay rays will getcha from behind if ya ain't careful .
Anywho, I wonder if this whole Canada thing will start a mass exodus across the border when it passes. Hundreds of pink buses (with fashionably decorated interiors, of course) headin' North, aye?
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday: 'Bout time, IMHO.
I think you summed it up for me. Some story about them busting a gay couple in Texas (where technically they can be charged with a crime). Can't remember the link though. Not my choice of lifestyle, but its two conscenting adults in the privacy of their own home.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: I don't hate anyone. I don't hate homosexuals.
But I don't approve of their actions.
And my conscience would not permit me not to oppose laws sanctioning such actions.
But that's just me.
I don't approve of people voting for Democrats, but I don't think it should be illegal.
I don't understand why you would care if they do it to the point you would want a law disallowing it.
quote:Originally posted by Cowgirl Jack:
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday: 'Bout time, IMHO.
I think you summed it up for me. Some story about them busting a gay couple in Texas (where technically they can be charged with a crime). Can't remember the link though. Not my choice of lifestyle, but its two conscenting adults in the privacy of their own home.
It is the case we were talking about that has been argued before the court but not decided, Lawrence v. Texas.
Now, while I believe it should NOT be prohibited, I also DON'T feel it is a Constitutionally protected right.
Now, while I believe it should NOT be prohibited, I also DON'T feel it is a Constitutionally protected right.
It should be.
The Constitution is based on the idea that all men are created equal. IMHO, that precludes the selective bestowment of rights without reason. Since there is no sound reason to withhold the right to same-sex marriages, the right should protected.
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday: It should be.
I imagine that is why you vote the way you do and I vote the way I do!
quote: The Constitution is based on the idea that all men are created equal. IMHO, that precludes the selective bestowment of rights without reason. Since there is no sound reason to withhold the right to same-sex marriages, the right should protected.
Soundness is a VERY subjective beast. While I agree with you on the facts, I disagree with your legal analysis.
I view the Const. fundamentally protecting rights as enumerated. Congress also has the power to enact laws for the general welfare of the nation. As long as these laws do not directly contradict something EXPRESSLY in the constitution, I believe they should be allowed to stand.
I don't believe in implied fundamental rights. I don't believe in penumbras.
The only extensions I believe in are the ones that, without which, the right itself would have no value (surprisingly, I am a conservative who believes in the exclusionary rule).
But again, that is because I am a conservative.
I see no fundamental right to marry in the Constitution. I believe Congress should allow it from a legal standpoint. But I do not believe it is appropriate for the courts to demand it.
It just doesn't say it in the constitution from my reading.
Now, I will say I see possible grounds on the 14th Amendment EP right for Lawrence to go against the state (We'll ignore for a second that it was written expressly for black americans).
Loosely enforcing the 14th really does create a slippery slope where anyone can do anything they want. (enter Santorum's rant)
In all of this, I thought of an observation I made a few weeks back.
Wed., as an intelligent student of the law, if you will be my "guinea pig", I'd like to conduct an experiment in political/legal reasoning.
Please give me your thoughts on what rights the 2nd Amendment provides.
In order to keep this thread on topic, I'll post my remarks on the Second Amendment here. I figure I might as well post my thoughts where they will fit best.
I must say...This is a very fascinating thread. You guys are a lot more open minded than I'd previously given you credit for.
But in all honesty, I think the whole gay marriage thing is such an overzealous waste of public attention. I'm a card carryinng friend of Dorothy, but I really don't get exited by our impending 'equal rights' here in Canada. I don't see it as being a workable situation in today's society. As enlightened as we've become in modern society, I would still not want to have my 'marriage' be immediate information in assorted situations (a job application being the first example that springs to mind). There is still more than enough ignorance going around (ex: Captain Sammich here) to make a marriage an unnecessary burden. It's sad but true.
I know that as much as I love my boyfriend (of 3 1/2 years), I have no intention of making him my husband. This isn't a statment of shame, as I'd never think of hiding denying my homosexuality...But at the same time, it's not the first thing that anyone I've just encountered needs to know about me.
I think the subject should be reveiwed again in the future...But right now, society just isn't ready to handle this.
I think the subject should be reveiwed again in the future...But right now, society just isn't ready to handle this.
Society wasn't ready for the Civil Rights Movement either. Sometimes you've got to push an issue. And sometimes, you have to strap a high-octane rocket on its back, point her in the right direction, light her up, and hope for a low crash ratio.
Don't know what happened to Rob's board (or maybe it was just me), but I lost a huge post on the Second Amendment a few minutes ago . Still, we seem to be operating at full capacity, so I'll give it a second, abbreviated try:
My thoughts on the Second Amendment (truncated for your pleasure):
I personally believe, as most gun-controlists do, that the Second Amendment was written solely for the intent of maintaining and armed militia for the purpose of state defense. I would also add that I see no personal right given, under the Second Amendment, to own or to use a gun.
To my knowledge, U.S. v. Miller is the only modern case in which the Supreme Court has addressed this issue. A unanimous Court ruled that the Second Amendment must be interpreted as intending to guarantee the states' rights to maintain and train a militia. I agree wholeheartedly.
On a side-note, American society has changed to the point that it is too dangerous for this right to continue as originally written. I do believe, however, in very stringent gun-control. A quote by Cesare Beccaria is responsible for my current view on gun control.
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms...disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes...Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."
Interesting. Here's my theory (and don't take this as a trap or an attack. I appreciate the discussion and respect your positions):
People who are willing to ignore the intent of the 14th Amendment to favor their cause (regardless of the drafter's intent to use at as a vehicle to protect blacks as they moved from slavery), are apt to hone in on what they believe the framer's intent to be when applying the second amendment. In other words, broad on what they want, narrow on what they don't.
But so you see I am not left bashing, my theory also applies to the right. Many people seem to be textualists when holding a right ideology until it comes time to review the 14th Amendment or the 1st Amendment. It says expressly, you have the right to free speech. Simply looking at the text, obscenity would be protected, yes?
Do we all do this? Do we all put on different judicial theories hats to meet our underlying beliefs?
Are we truly legally disciplined or in the end are we all just "end result" interpreters?
I worry at times that I am guilty of this.
(For the record, I disagree with your position on the 2nd Amendment, but that wasn't the point of my experiment. Nor, was the purpose to "trip you up" or insult you in any way. I hope you take in the nature it was intended: intellectual curiosity).
And I agree that we're all "end-result" interpreters. In this respect, the Constitution is no different than the Bible. A set of prescribed laws we all view in ways to fit our own personal beliefs.
That's why I do my best to avoid saying that any law (biblical or otherwise) means this or that, without first being clear that my words are based on my beliefs.
For the record, I think the Constitutional laws are purposely vague. The Constitution was made to bend (slightly, mind you) and grow with the times.
quote:Originally posted by klinton: There is still more than enough ignorance going around (ex: Captain Sammich here) to make a marriage an unnecessary burden. It's sad but true.
Yeah, that's cute. I'm ignorant for not approving of stuff you do. Not agreeing with you doesn't automatically make me wrong. Don't interpret my lack of approval for a lifestyle as a lack of respect for an individual - I don't throw stones or thump Bibles at people for doing something I don't see as right. However, it seems that you are unwilling to extend a similar courtesy to me, finding me 'ignorant' and unworthy of your respect simply because I stated my personal beliefs - without even stating an intention to interfere with yours!
Observe that I am not launching ad hominem attacks against you or others with similar beliefs, yet you find it necessary to berate me (probably without reading anything else I've said) for simply holding a different opinion. Either you're trying to start something so you can duck behind the almighty shield of political correctness and throw your dogmatic pebbles with impunity, or you simply misinterpreted my statement and/or my intentions.
I am willing to conclude that you misinterpreted me, rather than start a pointless argument that will accomplish absolutely nothing toward an understanding of this issue. Whether you are going to address my statements directly or make offhand references to them, I would appreciate a less judgmental tone from you, regardless of how vindicated it may make you feel. I am attempting to observe common rules of etiquette here, although I may sometimes make humorous statements that may be interpreted otherwise. Similar etiquette would greatly aid the presentation of your argument. It would also prevent things from becoming rather unpleasant for all parties concerned.
I'll let that remark of yours slide for now. Future character attacks and undeserved rudeness, however, will not help your cause very much. I've got a good deal more tolerance for differing viewpoints than for mindless backlashing.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: But I don't approve of their actions.
And my conscience would not permit me not to oppose laws sanctioning such actions.
But that's just me.
I think you've misunderstood your own statement on this one Capt. What you are saying is you are willing to prevent a homosexual couple from enjoying the same rights, freedoms, and resposibilities of a heterosexual couple. That you would deny them their right to the pursuit of happiness, in a basically private area of their lives that wouldn't interfere with your rights. Imagine if people were wanting to ban hetero marriage. How would you react to that?
It appears that you are indeed willing, or trying, to interfere with others personal belifs.
I most emphatically do not, however, think you are ignorant. The overall content of your posts belie that notion.
I'm not a big fan of marriage in any instance. I think it's just a vestige of our past that serves no real purpose in the modern world. But, if two strights can matrry, I see no reason two gays or lesbians can't.
Don't know if it matters, but if it does, I myself am straight, so I don't have a dog in this fight.
It requires a rethink of marriage in general to say that homosexual and heterosexual couples should have the same marital rights and responsibilities. The practices of marriage as they are commonly understood in Western society today stem largely from Judeo-Christian practices based upon Judeo-Christian scriptures - which do not condone homosexuality. All I'm saying is that you can't extend the concept of marriage as we know it now to fit something contrary to the precepts upon which that concept is built and by which it has been defined for most of our society's history. You can't change such an entrenched aspect of society without having to re-write many other precepts as well - after which you're not left with much to go on anyway. If you're that intent on making homosexual and heterosexual couples equal, you may as well throw out the marriage idea entirely. At least that's my perspective.
To me, the idea of legitimizing homosexual marriages may not directly interfere with my personal life, but the impact I feel it would have on society would ultimately affect everyone. That may not be terribly politically correct or tolerant of me, but I'm sure there are more horrible things I could be guilty of. Nothing personal, really. Like I said, I don't hate anybody. I'm just not willing to condone through silence any actions I don't approve of.
I commend you for voicing your opinion despite the fact that it was an un-PC one. However,
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch:
...based upon Judeo-Christian scriptures - which do not condone homosexuality...
is a whole other can of worms. First, the issue of Church and state comes into play. Can state or federal law be based on the scriptures of any religion? That's a huge question.
Also, the idea that true Judeo-Christian scriptures disapproves of homosexuality can be challenged, believe me. If you'd care to cite your sources, I'd love to play devil's advocate (get it?).
Cap't, you seem to be confusing religious ceremony and the civil contract that the state grants. The religious ceremony has no standing in American law, the civil contract is all that counts. And I really don't see what political correctnes has to do with it. It's simply a matter of two human beings who are in love and desire some kind of societal acknowledgement of their bond. We recognise plenty of marriages that aren't based on J-C tradition. The Asian-based religions and Native Americans, would be a couple examples. What if two atheists want to get married?
quote:Originally posted by Rob Kamphausen: what is the legal reasoning why gay people can not be married in the US?
Marriage is something that is in the Bible, beginning with Genesis. It is the union of one man and one woman, in a ceremony before God.
If you allow gay marriage, then you pervert the meaning of Judao-Christian teachings, which are, if you believe (and I do), "God-breathed" scripture, inspired by God Himself.
Gays do NOT have the right to change/pervert the meaning of marriage. They can live together. They can have some secular recognition of health and life insurance benefits. (Although with the extremely high incidence of AIDS/HIV among gay men, I sure wouldn't be eager to offer health or death benefits, if I was an insurance company). The problem is, if Gay Marriage is recognized in courts, it is forced on the mainstream of American culture, including the majority of America which, when polled, calls itself Christian.
Gays have no right to change the meaning of marriage for the rest of society.
Marriage is a Judao-Christian practice. And homosexuality sure as hell isn't a Judao-Christian practice.
Dave the Wonder Boy was a little less subtle than I would have been, but a lot of people agree with that perspective. Call it whatever you want, but it's well within their constitutional rights, and a lot less incendiary than many perspectives I've heard on either side.
Wingnut, I am impressed by your depth of thought on this matter. I am puzzled, however, as to the importance of the 'social acknowledgement' you mentioned when so many homosexuals keep insisting that they don't care what society thinks of them. Exactly what would a homosexual couple want others to acknowledge publicly in a union of theirs? That it's no different from a heterosexual marriage? Good luck convincing anyone with functional eyesight of that.
Why would someone be interested in the legal contract of marriage if they're not concerned with its cultural or religious significance? Maybe they're after domestic-joint-income tax breaks? Maybe they want to be able to adopt children (now there's a topic we could spend a while on )? Maybe they just want to dilute another aspect of tradition and rub it in Righty's face? Or do they need it to ease their consciences?
I honestly don't know. But maybe people should stop to think about just what they hope to gain from something so controversial before going to the mat and raising an uproar. It might make it easier for them to make their case, and it might dispel others' suppositions that they're just looking for a fight.
Because honestly, the whole homosexual marriage issue doesn't strike a lot of people as much more than another front to wage war against the more conservative and traditional elements of society.
And if that's true, gay-rights activists might discover that they're merely being used as pawns in the endless conservative-versus-liberal, Republican-versus-Democrat tug-of-war over the votes of people they'll probably forget within weeks of elections anyway.
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday: First, the issue of Church and state comes into play. Can state or federal law be based on the scriptures of any religion? That's a huge question.
Also, the idea that true Judeo-Christian scriptures disapproves of homosexuality can be challenged, believe me. If you'd care to cite your sources, I'd love to play devil's advocate (get it?).
Separation of church and state and the stance of Judeo-Christian scriptures on homosexuality are topics that would require (and probably already have) their own threads. I'm not interested in debating the legitimacy of homosexuality in this particular discussion - a debate on that wouldn't change anyone's mind anyway. I'm more concerned with the supposition that the most fundamental definition of marriage should be summarily dismissed, thus building up to a comprehensive rethink of the underpinnings of our society.
This issue may seem small to some people, but its social and practical implications are staggering. Whether you want to look at it as the first step toward an enlightened new world free from the trappings of religion and ethics or as another milestone in the moral decay of society, this issue is just one little domino in a long chain of dominoes that lead ultimately to a society completely different from the one we know now. Should personal convictions play a role in your position on this issue? Only if you value playing a part in determining the course of your world over simply telling people what they want to hear and won't get indignant over.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: .......Why would someone be interested in the legal contract of marriage if they're not concerned with its cultural or religious significance? ..........
Because that's what all the rights flow from in our society. All the spousal rights a hetero couple has. Health insurance coverage. As you said, gays are already treated with a lot of condescention and ostracism, if not outright hostility. The legal gives them a entrance into the larger society.
I'm just a live & let live type, long as you pull your weight to the best of your ability, I'm cool. I may berate you (not you personally, man) for viewpoints i disagree with, but I envision a world of reasonable equality and cooperation. We may not ever get there, but it's a good goal. So, if it makes gays happy, go for it. It doesn't affect me.
How can having the same legal rights as hererosexual couples be considered "special rights"?
Yes, another one of my virulent "anti-conservative" liberal sites that will undoubtedly be derided and laughed at when not attacked for destroying America.
You are using a faith that is historicaly noted for causing wars, burning witches, and attempting mass genocide to justify the 'evils' homosexuality will wreak on society? And that's not ignorance in it's most blatant form?
I really have nothing against you mate, but please recall that you started this. If the statement that you would actually oppose me, and my freedoms is not a bigger slap than simply referring to you as ignorant...Well you let your christian concience weigh that one out.
And last, before you start singling out homosexuality as the supreme evil in the world, please re-read your bible...as last time I checked, things as common as looking at another woman with desire, having sex before marriage, and judging your fellow man were held on par as 'sins' just as 'evil' and worthy of God's wrath.
quote:Originally posted by whomod: How can having the same legal rights as hererosexual couples be considered "special rights"?
I didn't go to your site (I rarely do, old buddy!), WMod, but I will say something that I do with great difficulty.....ahem.....I agree with Whomod!(I need to take a shower now!
If it is the same right, it isn't a special right.
I agree.
I'd also like to take up the point that J-C ethics shouldn't be used when determining law for the sake of Seperation of Church and State.
While, I agree C/S should be fully seperated (I'll teach my son about Christianity myself, thank you very much!), you can't remove you value systems when deciding what the law should be in a set of circumstances.
Here is my theory: J/C ethics, in some form or another, account for a majority of American's moral code. Because of those teachings, many people have established a particular view of the world. Now, however they came to it, it is how they view the world. Now their views, in a democracy, should not be discounted simply because they are religious in nature. It is the same as if they had used any other philosopher (Aristotle?) to define their views on the issues.
The trick is, "because it says so in the Bible" is not an appropriate justification. But I do believe that "because it is immoral" and "because it undermines the very nature of the definition of marriage" ARE legitimate positions....even if they come DIRECTLY from one's reading of the Bible.
People get their ethics from whatever source they choose. They can't turn it off when it comes time to opine on the most important issues of the day.
I don't view it as a C/S issue at all. I view it as a moral code issue, which is how the laws are always made. I just enjoy that One Degree of Kevin Bacon in there to keep the issue from getting murkey.
quote:Originally posted by klinton: You are using a faith that is historicaly noted for causing wars, burning witches, and attempting mass genocide to justify the 'evils' homosexuality will wreak on society? And that's not ignorance in it's most blatant form?
I really have nothing against you mate, but please recall that you started this. If the statement that you would actually oppose me, and my freedoms is not a bigger slap than simply referring to you as ignorant...Well you let your christian concience weigh that one out.
And last, before you start singling out homosexuality as the supreme evil in the world, please re-read your bible...as last time I checked, things as common as looking at another woman with desire, having sex before marriage, and judging your fellow man were held on par as 'sins' just as 'evil' and worthy of God's wrath.
Ok, first thing...
ig-no-rant:adj. 1. Without education or knowledge. 2. Exhibiting lack of education or knowledge. 3. Unaware or uninformed. (Houghton Mifflin American Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition)
Hmmmmmm. Interesting. Without education or knowledge. I have listened to your arguments and the arguments of others with the same beliefs, and I am well-acquainted with your side of the issue. To call me ignorant just because I don't agree with what you say - well, that just doesn't show much maturity at all.
I should feel guilty for 'opposing you and your freedom'? Well, damn! I had no idea you were magically protected from disagreement! Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from opposition. You can make yourself out to be some kind of victim all you want, but the number of ad hominem attacks and insults to my intelligence you've made might diminish the amount of sympathy you get.
Singling out homosexuality as the supreme evil? Wait a minute, I'll go check... Hmmm... it would appear I never made any such statements! In fact, I repeatedly stated that "I'm no better than anyone else", "Homosexuals aren't any worse than anyone else", and other such statements as well. The Bible does say that all sins are equal, which is precisely why I said those things. The difference is that you're basically expecting me to approve of legislation that attempts to make one of those sins legally legitimate. I'm simply maintaining that my conscience wouldn't permit me not to say anything about it. If you have a problem with that, then you're the one who's insulting what I believe, which might make your 'I'm the victim' approach a bit less defensible.
And then there's that whole evils of Christianity argument. Now that's scraping the bottom of the barrel. I love it when people search endlessly until they find people who are even remotely associated with a religion - even if their actual practices are completely against that religion's principles - and use things they did decades or centuries ago to instantly discredit any argument based on the sacred texts of that religion. If that's not religious prejudice, I don't know what is.
I can't stand that 'you must hate me because you won't let me have my way' mentality. It's like dealing with a four-year-old kid! It is entirely possible for me to respect you as a person without agreeing with every single thing you say. I have been extremely patient and understanding throughout the course of this thread. I'm getting tired of hearing the same tired whining that I'm some sort of Nazi out to deny you your very existence. I didn't come in here saying we should outlaw homosexuality or send gays to concentration camps or anything of the sort. In fact, I said several times that I have respect for homosexuals and would like to help them. But it appears you won't be satisfied until everyone approves of your agenda, and until then, you feel the need to keep discrediting them with your personal attacks on their character, beliefs, whatever, all the while making yourself out to be the victim of bigotry and persecution. A little hypocritical, I feel.
Alright, I'll let your comments stand as is. I cannot do a better job af arguing against your stance than you have yourself. And really, I've realized that people like you cannot be reasoned with. You know what's right and wrong, and damn anyone who doesn't fit your defenition.
Like I said, I had no intention of starting an argument in Wednesday's thread here, and I have no issues with you outside of this. So, we'll just let this go now, eh? Let's go fight about comic book continuity glitches, it's more fun and much less likely to spark an emotional response from either side.
I actually thought Capt. Sammitch's post (the one prior to the video game post!) was quite interesting.
It was a pretty well reasoned post.
Though I don't agree, I recognize the anti-homosexuality (or even Capt.'s more moderate stance, anti-gay marriage) as a legitimate political opinion.
I think there are many who simply hate gays, but I think there are people who legitimately think it is immoral and wish the laws to reflect the morals to which they subscribe.
Right or wrong is subjective. But I feel it is legitimate.
It's not about "hating gays". I think my opinion is a bit more strident than Capt. Sammitch's. But even I advocate basic rights for gays as people. I just draw the line at a point where legal precedent does not undermine the rights of Christians and other non-gays, and pervert Christian traditions out from under them.
It's a balance between the rights of gays -vs- the rights of Christians.
The name-calling and comparison of any non-gay views as ignorant, Nazis, witch-hunters, etc., is completely hyperbolic, antagonistic and groundless. Please show me here where anyone has advocated the extermination of gays in a witch-hunt/Nazi fashion. In a democratic society, gays have the right to exist, live together, and practice their lifestyle.
Gays do not have the right to force their beliefs and ideology on the mainstream by manipulation of the legal system. They do have a right to live with basic freedoms, like everyone else.
Marriage in the Judao-Christian tradition is, again, one man, one woman, and a ceremony before God. It is a religious practice. gays do NOT have a right to pervert the definition of marriage, and arbitrarily change a standard that has existed for at least 6,000 years. Gays have the right to live together, and possibly create their own traditions and ceremony for long-term commitment. They DON'T have the right to change and undermine others' tradition and beliefs. And "gay marriage" changes the definition of marriage, and infringes on the rights and traditions of non-gays.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Please show me here where anyone has advocated the extermination of gays in a witch-hunt/Nazi fashion.
Reverend Jesse Phelps comes to mind off the top of my head. And wether or not you wish to literaly 'exterminate' a group of people or deny them basic human liberties that everyone else takes for granted, the ideology is the same.
Imagine for just a moment that the situation were reversed, and you had to live as a second class citizen. You were allowed to date your girlfriend, and hell, even let her move in. But those tax benefits, powers of attorney and rights to inheritence inheritence were denied you. Is that moral?
I want you to go to the video store and rent a film "If These Walls Could Talk 2". If the story of the widowed lesbian in her old age does not get you to see the point, then you are a cold, empty person indeed.
Klinton, I won't respond to your posts from this point forward. Your words are hyperbolic, insulting, and deliberately misrepresentative.
I can go anywhere in this country and find gay clubs, gay organizations, gay newspapers, and gay couples. I could, if interested, go into any video store and rent gay porn.
Your "persecution" is a lie.
And Reverend Jesse Phelps (whoever the heck that is) is not anyone posting to this topic. No one here within this discussion has denied providing gays basic benefits. I clearly stated I advocate basic domestic benefits TWICE in my posts above. Your attempt to say otherwise is deliberate misrepresentation.
I truly think gays only want to have Gay Marriage to undermine and harass the Christian community. Much like the guy who tried to take "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance.
You tell that to my father, who's last exchange with me was that he wished I was dead. you tell that to my freind who had to have reconstructive surgery after being shown the error of his ways by well meaning chiristians. You tell that to the kids who can't take it and end their own life.
You have a right to live your life your own way. You don't have a right to expect others to accept it.
The same is true if someone chooses to be a Christian, a stripper, a smoker, a drug or alcohol user, a pedophile, a communist, or a thief.
I can cite many people who are gay or lesbian, who have families that accept them despite their gay lifestyle and their discomfort with it. Two are members of my own family, and no one in my family (myself included) has shunned them because of it.
As for the violence you mention, there are idiots everywhere. People can be attacked for being gay, having long hair, being women, being black, being asian, or being white. Being gay doesn't put one in a category that is solely exposed to harassment and violence.
Which brings us back to my original statment in this thread. Wednesday....as has been clearly demonstrated in here, yes I agree that this somthing society needs to move towards. But in this day and age, people are just not ready to handle it. Give it a couple generations, and possibly.
I'm sure nobody arguing against me in here is an overall bad person...But when it comes to overlooking religious bias (and it always seems to boil down to that) and treating a gay or lesbian as an equal human being, a legal declaration of one's sexuality is like painting a giant target on your forhead.
Imagine if I was looking for employment from these individuals and the subject of my marital status came up. Do you think I'd get the job?
Do you truly believe, klinton, that society will ever be ready? Not to sound pessimistic, but it has been my experience and learning that bias and prejudice has and always will exist.
quote:Originally posted by klinton: I'm sure nobody arguing against me in here is an overall bad person...But when it comes to overlooking religious bias (and it always seems to boil down to that) and treating a gay or lesbian as an equal human being, a legal declaration of one's sexuality is like painting a giant target on your forhead.
Imagine if I was looking for employment from these individuals and the subject of my marital status came up. Do you think I'd get the job?
At every job I've worked for the last 10 years, I've worked with co-workers who were openly gay.
Again, the gay persecution is an invention that doesn't gel with my own reality.
And you ignore that "gay" is a religion of sorts as well. ( i.e., a belief system, with a dogmatic ideology, primarily of which is the belief that homosexuality is not an abberant desire like pedophilism or smoking, but is instead an inborn genetic trait, that rationalizes the lifestyle. And rationalizes legally forcing recognition of gayness as if it were a protected minority, like blacks, whites, asians and hispanics. Whereas others, like myself, believe that "gay" is a behavior, a habit, a lifestyle choice, not subject to special minority status. Many have left the gay lifestyle, taken wives and become Christians. )
Yup. I do. This is something we've moved away from, not a new concept we need to establish. Looking at homosexuality as a deviant and immoral lifestyle choice is the product of religious bias. History is littered with cultures that accepted it as the norm and even held it in esteem.
Society existed before the church and all of it's trappings, and will continue to when it's gone.
And Dave, I thought you said that you didn't want to discuss this anymore. We're not gonna agree here, and as I said to Sammich, I really have no interest in butting heads over this. I'd rather ahare a few laughs over stupid comic book ideas than try and justify my existence to you.
DtWB, do you believe that federal and state laws should reflect today's Judeo-Christian beliefs? Not and attack; just a question to help me get a better handle on where you're coming from.
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday: Do you truly believe, klinton, that society will ever be ready? Not to sound pessimistic, but it has been my experience and learning that bias and prejudice has and always will exist.
"Bias and prejudice".
Or "moral standards".
It depends on your point of view.
Block labelling someone as having "bias and prejudice" for being true to their Christian teachings is rather biased and prejudiced as well. It shows favoritism to the gay belief system, over that of the Christian belief system.
And under the law, we all have rights to our own beliefs and practices, where they do not infringe on the rights and lives of others.
Again, I think gay marriage infringes on the rights and beliefs of Christians, because it changes the tradition that has existed for 6,000 years as defined in the Christian Bible, and in millenia of human law (which is based on the Bible, especially American law)
Gays have a right to create their own spousal traditions. They DON'T have the right to change the definition of marriage.
Which is, again: one man, one woman, in ceremony before God. The Bible clearly has a different opinion of homosexuality.
Befoe we go any further with the whole "marriage is a Christian institution" I think you need to read up on just what marriage currently is, and has been throughout history. It is an evolving institution that has taken many forms and served many ends...and has been integral to other ideologies besides Christianity. You and your church do not hold a patent on it.
DtWB, when I spoke about bias and prejudice, I was not referring to you, but the people of society who are biased and prejudiced. Many people simply hate homosexuals "because" and feel that it's "just not right" without any knowledge to defend their views. These are the people who I fear will never be changed, simply because they can not be reasoned with.
In fact, when I made that post I had only read klinton's last post, the one addressed to me. I did not read anything you wrote until later.
For the record, I suspect you may be as informed as I am. We simply have views 180 from each other.
The Bible clearly has a different opinion of homosexuality.
As does millenia of human law.
The second statement is incorrect, plain and simple. If you read the original article that started all this, you'll see that other countries in the world have legalized same-sex marriage.
J/C does not equal human. Not by a long shot.
I'll take Sammitch's advice, and refrain from commenting on the first statement...in this thread.
I think klinton made an unfair debating move here. I think he took positions to which Dave does not subscribe and forced him to defend them.
Yes. I felt obligated to respond to what I see as fallacies and misrepresentations raised as fact. They are common misrepresentations, so I gave an obligatory response.
quote:Originally posted by BigOl'Willie:
But now to turn the tables on Dave:
How does legal recognition of these marriages infringe upon the rights of Christians (a distinction I myself hold)?
Because it forces Christians to accept a standard of "marriage" that goes against 6,000 years of tradition and Judao-Christian biblical teachings. And forces Christians to accept a legal standard that is in polar opposition to what Christianity teaaches marriage to be.
quote:Originally posted by BigOl'Willie:
Couldn't the government allow legal marriages without endorsing them as J-C marriages (which with a seperation of C/S shouldn't be specifically J-C)?
That is precisely the point. It forces Christians to accept a standard that undermines and contradicts Christian teachings. Under secular law, absent of a Gay Marriage precedent, you can argue that it doesn't undermine Christian teachings or infringe on their rights.
But with a Gay Marriage legal precedent, then Christians are forced to accept the same standard as gays. Which clearly undermines Christain culture, and forces Christians (and others who don't believe in gay marriage) to accept something that is clearly decadent according to their beliefs.
quote:Originally posted by BigOl'Willie:
So, then couldn't the churches, as they ARE private organizations, fail to recognize such marriages and STILL allow legal recognition?
No, because the new legal standard would undermine Christian religious freedom.
Christian businesses, for example, would be forced to pay spousal benefits to gay spouses, which is in clear contradiction of Christian beliefs. Which would be a travesty.
I truly think gays only want to have Gay Marriage to undermine and harass the Christian community. Much like the guy who tried to take "under God" out of the Pledge of Allegiance.
Those blasted high tech gays and their quasi-future gay beams! They're at it again!
That's the thing though Wednesday...Everyone tries to pussyfoot around the religion issue, but that's where the roadblock exists. That is the underlying argument whenever someone argues against gay and lesbian rights...so how can it go unaddressed?
It's all fine and good for someone to state that it's 'fine that you're gay, but I don't have to accept or let it infringe on my rights'...but why is it unnaceptable to them to turn it around and say 'it's fine that you're christian but I don't have to accept it or infringe on my rights'?
The Bible clearly has a different opinion of homosexuality.
As does millenia of human law.
The second statement is incorrect, plain and simple. If you read the original article that started all this, you'll see that other countries in the world have legalized same-sex marriage.
J/C does not equal human. Not by a long shot.
I'll take Sammitch's advice, and refrain from commenting on the first statement...in this thread.
Respectfully, Wednesday, I firmly dispute this. The tradition of marriage goes back 6,000 years at least, in both Biblical law and broader human law, across many cultures.
Yes, other nations (Belgium and the Netherlands, and now Canada) have legalized gay marriage, but that has only been in recent decades, and I would wager that in the populations of these countries, an overwhelming majority would say that despite this being the LEGAL standard for marriage, that REAL marriage is a man and a woman, and that gay marriage sure as hell doesn't fit THEIR OWN standard.
Technically , yes, you're right, other states have accepted gay marriage, very recently. But that is a manipulation of human law, that a majority of humans do not, and never will, accept.
As I said, gays have a right to their lifestyle choice. But they do NOT have a right to change the well-established millenia-long definition of marriage.
Because it forces Christians to accept a standard of "marriage" that goes against 6,000 years of tradition and Judao-Christian biblical teachings. And forces Christians to accept a legal standard that is in polar opposition to what Christianity teaaches marriage to be.
J/C beliefs about marriage do not go back that far. They are much younger than that.
Also, again, law can not be written to reflect one religion's belief system, even if this is a "Judeo-Christian country."
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
But with a Gay Marriage legal precedent, then Christians are forced to accept the same standard as gays. Which clearly undermines Christain culture, and forces Christians (and others who don't believe in gay marriage) to accept something that is clearly decadent according to their beliefs.
I feel I may need to bring it to your attention that not all Christians feel the same way that you do on the matter. There is quite a split, in fact, with more people on the side of beliefs opposing yours than you might think.
I also would like to add that, for the reason stated above, I don't feel you should be attacking the religion itself, klinton. It's all about how things are interpreted.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
Christian businesses, for example, would be forced to pay spousal benefits to gay spouses, which is in clear contradiction of Christian beliefs. Which would be a travesty. [/QB]
Not true, since they would not be married in the Church.
Wednesday, you're right. I guess my anger fudged my presentation....I do believe in the basic principles that Jesus laid out for his diciples. It is the path that the church took in his abscence that I disagree with. I cannot accet the judgmental institution that we see today as something that he would have endorsed, and take solace in the fact that I will be judged by his hand, and not the church.
I'm sorry if I have offended anyone previously, I never meant any disrespect to Christ himself and wouldn't dream of attacking him.
No offense taken (by myself, at least). I'd say more than its fair share of this last page and a half has been emotionally over-charged. Nothing to be taken to heart.
Because it forces Christians to accept a standard of "marriage" that goes against 6,000 years of tradition and Judao-Christian biblical teachings. And forces Christians to accept a legal standard that is in polar opposition to what Christianity teaaches marriage to be.
J/C beliefs about marriage do not go back that far. They are much younger than that.
Also, again, law can not be written to reflect one religion's belief system, even if this is a "Judeo-Christian country."
WRITTEN Judao-Christian tradition does not go back that far. The Bible (in the form of the Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) goes back to about 1400 B.C. That was the point where written language began. But the Judao-Christian tradition goes back much further, to Adam and Eve, to the birth of civilization.
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday:
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
But with a Gay Marriage legal precedent, then Christians are forced to accept the same standard as gays. Which clearly undermines Christain culture, and forces Christians (and others who don't believe in gay marriage) to accept something that is clearly decadent according to their beliefs.
I feel I may need to bring it to your attention that not all Christians feel the same way that you do on the matter. There is quite a split, in fact, with more people on the side of beliefs opposing yours than you might think.
I also would like to add that, for the reason stated above, I don't feel you should be attacking the religion itself, klinton. It's all about how things are interpreted.
Those "Christians" who say that are doing so in blatant rejection of Biblical teachings. If your standard for creating religious thought is something other than the Bible, then one is, by definition, NOT a Christian, or representative of Christianity.
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday:
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
Christian businesses, for example, would be forced to pay spousal benefits to gay spouses, which is in clear contradiction of Christian beliefs. Which would be a travesty.
Not true, since they would not be married in the Church. [/QB]
It forces acceptance of something "detestable" to God (Leviticus 20, verse 13, among others), and falsely presents it as a "marriage" endorsed by God. And forces Christians (and other non-gays) to accept this standard.
It forces Christians to condone, employ, provide benefits for, and accept a lifestyle that in every way corrupts and distorts Christian teachings. That is most certainly a travesty.
Klinton, I'm sorry about all the stuff people did to you or your friends in the name of Christianity. Believe it or not, that angers me as much as it probably angers you. Jesus never threw stones at people who did things He didn't like. He didn't excuse their behavior, but He didn't hate them for it, and He certainly didn't visit physical violence on them.
Still, the messenger is not the message. I sincerely doubt that the individuals you have mentioned speak for the whole of Christianity. I myself have been on several service projects to help the gay community, whether it's helping them find food and clothes (there are lots of homosexuals on the streets too, guys), bringing food and medicine to shut-in gays who are now terminal AIDS patients (and that was an eye-opener), or any number of other things.
Clearly, I do not see homosexuals as second-class citizens, nor do my actions suggest that I do. But that still doesn't mean I approve of or agree with the things they do. And that's why I am opposed to laws that would keep them doing the same things or cause others to slip into that lifestyle. I don't see my faith as something that compels me to persecute gays. But I'm not willing to go against my principles just so I can rubber-stamp something I don't believe in for the sake of avoiding controversy.
Okay, now I'm done. Please, nobody drag me back into this - I haven't even looked at the other forums yet!
quote:Originally posted by BigOl'Willie: Do marriages under Islam or Hindu faiths offend the nature of J-C or are they acceptable as long as they comply with J-C standards?
Willie, I cannot make the corruptive nature of forcing Christians to accept homosexuality more clear.
Homosexuality is a belief system in total opposition to Biblical teachings, that would be legally forced on Christians through American law, if enacted into law. That clearly infringes on the freedom of Christians (and others who reject gay marriage) to practice their religion and what they believe.
Islamic marriage (which is arguably an offshoot of Judao-Christian teachings, and largely recognizes the Bible, although with some clear distortions), Hindu marriage, and secular marriage, are ALL still within the common definition of one man and one woman.
Being one-man/one-woman in their standard as well, these other religious cultures are therefore compatible with Christian marriage, within the law.
Because it forces Christians to accept a standard of "marriage" that goes against 6,000 years of tradition and Judao-Christian biblical teachings. And forces Christians to accept a legal standard that is in polar opposition to what Christianity teaaches marriage to be.
J/C beliefs about marriage do not go back that far. They are much younger than that.
Also, again, law can not be written to reflect one religion's belief system, even if this is a "Judeo-Christian country."
WRITTEN Judao-Christian tradition does not go back that far. The Bible (in the form of the Pentateuch: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) goes back to about 1400 B.C. That was the point where written language began. But the Judao-Christian tradition goes back much further, to Adam and Eve, to the birth of civilization.
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday:
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
But with a Gay Marriage legal precedent, then Christians are forced to accept the same standard as gays. Which clearly undermines Christain culture, and forces Christians (and others who don't believe in gay marriage) to accept something that is clearly decadent according to their beliefs.
I feel I may need to bring it to your attention that not all Christians feel the same way that you do on the matter. There is quite a split, in fact, with more people on the side of beliefs opposing yours than you might think.
I also would like to add that, for the reason stated above, I don't feel you should be attacking the religion itself, klinton. It's all about how things are interpreted.
Those "Christians" who say that are doing so in blatant rejection of Biblical teachings. If your standard for creating religious thought is something other than the Bible, then one is, by definition, NOT a Christian, or representative of Christianity.
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday:
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
Christian businesses, for example, would be forced to pay spousal benefits to gay spouses, which is in clear contradiction of Christian beliefs. Which would be a travesty.
Not true, since they would not be married in the Church.
It forces acceptance of something "detestable" to God, as a "marriage" endorsed by God. And forces Christians (and other non-gays) to accept this standard.
It forces Christians to employ, provide benefits for, and accept a lifestyle that in every way corrupts and distorts Christian teachings. That is most certainly a travesty. [/QB]
The Bible has be translated several times since it was first written. The current Bible is not a verbatim transcription of the original text. But this is besides the point since whether or not homosexuality is "detestable to God" is an separate issue, as Sammitch pointed out.
Legalizing marriage does not force any religion to take any stance or accept anything. Separation of Church and State works both ways.
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday: The Bible has been translated several times since it was first written. The current Bible is not a verbatim transcription of the original text. But this is besides the point since whether or not homosexuality is "detestable to God" is an separate issue, as Sammitch pointed out.
Legalizing marriage does not force any religion to take any stance or accept anything. Separation of Church and State works both ways.
Wednesday, After you've spent so much time arguing the legal side of gay marriage, I find it difficult to believe you don't see the legal ramifications of legally recognizing gay rights in American law, and the way it would impose polar contradictions about gays and marriage on Christians.
I've spent extensive time clarifying this in my posts above. If you choose not to accept or understand the logic of what I'm saying, so be it, but I cannot make it more clear.
~
I guess the only way to clarify is to show you specific Bible verses about Christianity. And demonstrate the clear contradiction these verses present to the concept of gay marriage.
I find it useful to post the origin of marriage as described in the Bible.
quote:Genesis 2: verses 22-24
22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman, ' for she was taken out of man."
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.
The standard has been such for 6,000 years or so, and I see no reason to change that standard for marriage, when it has been clearly defined and established for so long.
Gays can live together, if they choose to, but I fail to see why it is necessary to change (or pervert) the meaning of one of the Bible's most sacred institutions.
Marriage is a man and a woman united for life, witnessed with the approval of God.
Two men or two women do not fit that description, and are elsewhere described as a union "detestable" to God.
There is no margin for misunderstanding of what scripture says about marriage or what it says about homosexuality. the two are not compatible, without perversion of their true definitions.
~
Here's a sampling of what the Old Testament and New Testament have to say on the subject of homosexuality.
...so everything God the Father said in the Old Testament is what Jesus teaches also. The two (God the Father, and Jesus) are different manifestations of the same person.
~
Some (not all) Old Testament verses about homosexuality (i.e., God's condemnation of it):
GENESIS chapter 18, verse 1, through chapter 19, verse 29 (Sodom and Gomorrah)
Jesus teaches that sin is forgiven through faith in Jesus as the Messiah/savior, because Jesus' life is the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Forgiven, if they are past sexual acts that do not continue. But homosexuality is still a sin. As are other types of sexual immorality.
~
Here are some counterpoints I answered on a previous DC topic:
quote:Question previously asked by a gay poster: So everything that God decreed in the Old Testament, Jesus upholds in his teachings?
So for instance, in Exodus 35:2 states that anyone working on the Sabbath should be put to death? So, I assume Jesus would condone the death of anyone working on sundays?
Or, according to Leviticus 11:10 eating shellfish is an abomination. Are those prone to surf and turf at red lobster going to hell on Jesus' watch?? and finally (for now)
Leviticus 11: 6 - 8 tells me that the touch of dead pig skin will make one unclean, does this mean Jesus will condemn all NFL players who are not in the habit of wearing gloves to eternal damnation?
( My response: )
The verse you refer to in LEVITICUS chapter 11, verses 1-46. http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=LEV+11&language=english&version=NIV It refers to Jews keeping a diet that sets them apart from neighboring peoples and religions. It is a diet commanded to remain ceremonially clean, and at worst renders them ceremonially unclean until evening, if disobeyed.
John the Baptist (MATTHEW 3:4) ate Locust --a food that clearly is not ceremonially clean-- to show that despite his not comforming to Jewish dietary laws, he was spiritually clean, although not ceremonially clean. And Jesus clearly approved of John the Baptist. http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=MATT+3&language=english&version=NIV
In contrast to homosexuality, where when practiced widely by a civilization, it is considered, Biblically, the mark of a civilization that has so displeased God, that God has ceased to provide any protection of that culture, and has abandoned it to its own self-destruction. See again:
quote: ROMANS 1, verses 18-32:
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20 For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen. 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. 28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
As you can see, homosexuality is clearly defined Biblically as one of the most corruptive and decadent practices in human culture. I don't see that in any way compatible with the concept of "gay marriage", in a Christian setting.
Gays don't have to believe what I believe.
But they likewise cannot enact laws that infringe on MY beliefs, or my right to reject their lifestyle as something I don't wish to endorse. Changing the legal definition of marriage does precisely that, and has all kinds of ramifications on Christian beliefs of family, sanctity, employment, and the ability to even teach in church that homosexuality is decadent. (Which the Bible clearly defines above.)
Okay, if any of my religious or legal logic is contradicting anything major, let me know. I am no lawyer and no priestess.
There are two types of marriages you can have in the US. A legal marriage and relegious marriage. Legal on is basically you sign a paper along with your spouse and you now are a legally recognized married couple with all the benefits and costs.
Then there is the religious marriage. I know in the Catholic faith, one must enter a six-month program before the wedding so the couple can make sure everything will work out -- they need to be able to solve difference etc etc etc since divorce is still shunned. I am not familiar with other demoninations.
Now, the government cannot say what defines a religious marriage. That is up to each denomination. If a certian church decides to allow a homosexual marriage, then that is up to them and not the governmant.
Likewise, none of the churches can stop a legal definition of marriage. They do not have to recognize a marriage outside of their own church. But I see no reason why a same-sex marriage in the legal sense can be a problem.
I understand completely. Same-sex marriages oppose conservative Christian views, I agree. I simply do not believe that homosexuals should be denied the right to LEGAL marriage based on RELIGIOUS belief.
I could turn the metaphorical table and say that marriage in itself should be made illegal because it opposes the beliefs of those who are morally opposed to the idea of the union of two people. The truth, however, is that American laws can not be made to suit the moral views of everyone, they can only be made to protect the liberties of the American people, homosexuals included.
Sorry about removing this post a few minutes ago. I have reposted my words, even though I believe my argument (in this post) is unsound.
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday: I understand completely. Same-sex marriages oppose conservative Christian views, I agree. I simply do not believe that homosexuals should be denied the right to LEGAL marriage based on RELIGIOUS belief.
Gays have a right to some form of legal union, and call it something OTHER than marriage, so as not to change and undermine a long-established secular and religious definition of marriage.
I simply believe that marriage is not just a Christian thing, since it predates Christianity and is practiced by members of many other religions. To steal from klinton, no religion has a patent on the word or its meaning. It is because of this (and reasons stated previously) that I believe homosexuals should be given the right to legal "marriage."
But that point is trivial.
Truth is, I don't care what it is called. When same-sex partners can be given legal union WITH all the benefits and responsibilities of married heterosexual couples, I'll be one step closer to happy.
And for klinton, just because you have the right to marry does not mean you have to exercise that right. You are more than welcome (by me anyways) to stay in a non-marital relationship with your partner. I can definitely understand your reasons for doing so.
quote:The assertion that "all men are created equal" was of no practical use in effecting our separation from Great Britain and it was placed in the Declaration not for that, but for future use.-- Abraham Lincoln
I ask this as a serious exercise in allegory to gay rights:
If I want to marry a gerbil, or a horse, or my right fist, do I have a constitutional right to that, and my freedoms are restricted if I'm not granted this right?
Or would such a legal union be a parody and an insult to true marriage, warping the definition of marriage beyond what is consistent and reasonable?
I could as easily argue that I should be able to marry a 12 year old girl, or a 10 year old girl, because it has previously been done, when human life expectancy averaged about 35 years (for most of human history), and therefore things like childhood and adolescence had to be skipped, in order to get on with the shorter business of life at that time.
quote:Originally posted by Cowgirl Jack: Some more two cents lol...
Now, the government cannot say what defines a religious marriage. That is up to each denomination. If a certain church decides to allow a homosexual marriage, then that is up to them and not the governmant.
Likewise, none of the churches can stop a legal definition of marriage. They do not have to recognize a marriage outside of their own church. But I see no reason why a same-sex marriage in the legal sense can be a problem.
For openers, run this train of thought by a Mormon, and you'll find yourself quickly corrected. The government has shut down polygamous marriages.
As I've said repeatedly, if the government legalizes gay marriage, then it recognizes gays as a legitimate minority. Which has a whole onslaught of ramifications.
Not the least of which would be possibly preventing Christians (and other Bible-based religious faiths) from publicly reading from the Bible the above scriptures I quoted. Which would clearly legislate how Christianity is to be practiced. And corrupt it.
In addition, what I already said about forcing Christian owned companies to provide gay spousal benefits and other benefits to gay employees.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: I ask this as a serious exercise in allegory to gay rights:
If I want to marry a gerbil, or a horse, or my right fist, do I have a constitutional right to that, and my freedoms are restricted if I'm not granted this right?
Or would such a legal union be a parody and an insult to true marriage, warping the definition of marriage beyond what is consistent and reasonable?
I could as easily argue that I should be able to marry a 12 year old girl, or a 10 year old girl, because it has previously been done, when human life expectancy averaged about 35 years (for most of human history), and therefore things like childhood and adolescence had to be skipped, in order to get on with the shorter business of life at that time.
I can't beleive you posted this....You can spout disgusting, hateful shit like this (above and beyond any previous statements) and yet I live an immoral life? This is your idea of christian behavior? I stand by the "cold and empty" statment.
I just can't believe you belive this. I'm actually hurt, and offended at this point.
I ask this as a serious exercise in allegory to gay rights:
If I want to marry a gerbil, or a horse, or my right fist, do I have a constitutional right to that, and my freedoms are restricted if I'm not granted this right?
Yes, they would be restricting your right to marry a gerbil, horse, or your right fist. However, since none of these things can consent to marrying you, it would be hard to hold a strong case in opposition. Takes two to tango.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
Or would such a legal union be a parody and an insult to true marriage, warping the definition of marriage beyond what is consistent and reasonable?
Depends on your intent, but I think it would be safe to label it a parody. Laws are not made to prevent people from being insulted, however.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
I could as easily argue that I should be able to marry a 12 year old girl, or a 10 year old girl, because it has previously been done, when human life expectancy averaged about 35 years (for most of human history), and therefore things like childhood and adolescence had to be skipped, in order to get on with the shorter business of life at that time.
Well, as you said, life expectancy was shorter back then.
Now, the legal minimum is what it is (it varies from state to state) because our governing bodies believe that people below the legal age limit do not generally have the maturity required to make this decision. Sexual orientation has no bearing on maturity, however, so we're talking apples and oranges.
For openers, run this train of thought by a Mormon, and you'll find yourself quickly corrected. The government has shut down polygamous marriages.
This proves her point. The state will not recognize a polygamous marriage as a legally binding marriage, but it DOES NOT restrict someone from being in a polygamous RELIGIOUS marriage. It simply can't. Again, seperation of Church and State.
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday: This proves her point. The state will not recognize a polygamous marriage as a legally binding marriage, but it DOES NOT restrict someone from being in a polygamous RELIGIOUS marriage. It simply can't. Again, seperation of Church and State.
I don't think it proves her point (asserting that gay marriage would NOT restrict and warp the practice of Christianity, and the practice of others who recognize only traditional marriage between a man and a woman.) And I don't think it's true that there is not a restriction on religious polygamous marriage. To my knowledge, polygamy, despite whatever justification, is a jailable offense.
Thanks for your answers to the other questions I raised as well, Wednesday. Your answers are logical, although not 100% aligned with my own perspective.
My point is that, however absurd my examples are, the notion of gay marriage is equally absurd to what the established definition of marriage is, in Christian scripture, as well as human law as it has existed for virtually all of the last 6,000 years, until recent times. It's similar to having cats for the last 6,000 years, and then suddenly saying that dogs are cats too. No, they're not. Dogs are dogs, and cats are cats.
And my point again is that changing the established definition is not going to sit well with a vast percentage of the population, and that a separate term for gay union should be coined, so as not to contradict the traditional definition of marriage.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: I ask this as a serious exercise in allegory to gay rights:
If I want to marry a gerbil, or a horse, or my right fist, do I have a constitutional right to that, and my freedoms are restricted if I'm not granted this right?
Or would such a legal union be a parody and an insult to true marriage, warping the definition of marriage beyond what is consistent and reasonable?
I could as easily argue that I should be able to marry a 12 year old girl, or a 10 year old girl, because it has previously been done, when human life expectancy averaged about 35 years (for most of human history), and therefore things like childhood and adolescence had to be skipped, in order to get on with the shorter business of life at that time.
I can't beleive you posted this....You can spout disgusting, hateful shit like this (above and beyond any previous statements) and yet I live an immoral life? This is your idea of christian behavior? I stand by the "cold and empty" statment.
I just can't believe you believe this. I'm actually hurt, and offended at this point.
You know, klinton, I really don't want to offend you, but I really don't know how else to make my point, than to cite through parallel examples how absurd the concept of gay marriage is in a Christian setting.
I understand the desire to have a life partner and make a commitment, whether heterosexual or homosexual.
But I don't understand the need to establish a gay marriage, when the Bible is so crystal clear in its stance on homosexuality. Why do gays seek to re-write Christianity, rather than simply ignore Christianity ? The re-writing of Christianity to endorse homosexuality cuts to the core of my objection to gay marriage, and its corruptive influence, in re-writing the Bible.
The allegation has been made (by Wednesday, if I recall, and also Cowgirl Jack) that Christianity doesn't have exclusive domain on the concept of marriage.
But as I said, Christianity, and its earlier form Judaism (and Islam as well, that at least partly recognizes the Old Testament up until the sons of Abraham) does not begin in recent history, BUT GOES BACK TO THE BIRTH OF HUMAN CIVILIZATION, TO ADAM AND EVE. The WRITTEN history goes back to 1400 B.C., beginning with Genesis, when written language began, but the so-called "oral tradition" of Judao-Christian faith goes back millenia before that. And arguably established the original, and enduring, concept of marriage.
Other religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and others, do not establish themselves as a monotheistic "one true faith" as Judaism and Chtistianity do. And since, to my knowledge, Hindu and Buddhist weddings are likewise between one man and one woman (I've never met a far eastern couple that was OTHER than a man and a woman), they are, as I said, functionally compatible with Western/Christian marriage traditions, despite worshipping a different God (or pantheon of gods).
The Bible (in the examples I gave in my post at the top of this page) makes clear that homosexuality is in contradiction with the Biblical concept of marriage, as described by God himself. My example was to emphasize that a marriage between two men, or two women, is as much of an outrage to conventional marriage as marrying a gerbil, a horse or my fist. All have about as much Biblical and historical precedent. All fly about equally in the face of the traditions that most recognize marriage to be, Christian or not.
My last reply to this subject is to once again ask (and I don't want an answer, just answer this to your own conscience) why is it you can sit there and tell me that "it's ok for you to to be gay, as long as it doesn't affect my life" but if I say " it's ok for you to be a christian as long as it doesn't affect mine" why are my needs and rights as a human being less important than your own? Who are you to judge the value of my rights?
Jesus Christ himself never once declared my life and it's course invalid. Not once. In fact, the most violent condemnations he uttered were against the religious leaders of his time who attempted to declare thier will as the word of God and judge others by thier own warped interpretation of scripture. If the son of God, HIM personified, turned his anger toward people like you, without ever once even commenting on people like me, can you at least open your mind to the idea that maybe you might be wrong on this one?
I'm just going to address a couple things I read on this thread tonight.
Wednesday, you said the Bible wasn't translated correctly throughout the years, or whatever your exact words were. Well according to one of the pastors at my church, yes it was. He's basing this on cold hard facts. It has been proven the current translation versus the old transaltion and it is word for word, with very few mistakes. I don't remember the exact number off hand, but he said this on May 14th actually. Unfortunatly, they don't have the weekday messages online yet, but they do have them on tape and cd, so I could go back any time I want and get that information, or better yet, I could send the guy and email and ask for his notes.
Now for the second thing I wanted to address...
klinton, you said at one point that gays are persecuted. Well from the way you go on about it, you make it sound like gays are the only ones persecuted. Well I have news for you, they're not. There are plenty of instances where Christians are killed simply because of their beliefe. You want to talk persecution, well you've come to the right person. No one knows it better than a Middle Easterner and that's just what I am. I can go on and on about how women are persecuted in the Middle East. Or how Christians have to hide their faith or risk being killed. In fact, I know I guy that went on a missions trip to the Middle East and his life was in danger the whole time he was there, simply because he's a Christian.
Course I could turn that around and point out all the violence towards Muslims and Middle Easterners in general after 9/11. Heck, look at Afghanistan before we went in there. Look at the way women were being persecuted, and yes they were being persecuted. I've heard plenty of stories of how women were walking down the street, and were beaten to death just because you could see their pants from underneath their burcas.
Or how about the time when Michael Tait, a well known (black) Christian artist, 1/3 of DC Talk and founding member of the E.R.A.C.E. Foundation was in a town in the South one day with some friends of his, all of whom were white, and they were joking about how it was a real redneck part of the south, the part that still treats blacks like they used to, and they joked about how they'd protect him if anyone hassled them or whatever. Well, they walked into a store, and the owner/manager/whatever told them to leave, that Mike wasn't welcome in there. This happened in the last couple years!
Batwoman...I never implied that gays and lesbians were the only persecuted group, or that they have the worst lot in life. Not once. My point at that time was that they have been, and still are. And if you really want to argue that being a christian in America is a harder than being a gay man, and filled with more daily affronts to human rights, than I'd love to hear your take on that.
I did't say anything about Christians in America being persecuted, I was saying in certain parts of the world they are. I also pointed out a very true and sad, in that I can't believe this crap still goes on way, story of a black Christian man who is a successful musician who was treated like the civil rights movement never happened, just recently.
No, I agree. In all honesty, I do feel that racism and sexism are the two most vile forms of persecution that exist in American society...I mean, how daft do people have to be to feel that these are criteria for judging a person's worth. The saddest thing about racism in particular is that the people who tend to express it the loudest are usualy far from shining examples of successful human beings.
First, let me say I'm a very horrible Christian..I'm not good at it but I try. This is where my opinions are coming from...
While, I understand the words seperation of church and state have become a cliche in our culture that has been falsely propagated...I also know that our country is a secular one at heart and always has been. Yes, we have practiced various religions, mostly christian, from the onset and were basically created out of Christian ideals. We still do not, and have never had a state sponsored religion. Our leaders have always been vague about GOD, and what GOD they were talking about. They never mentioned Jesus in the Constitution, nor did they mention Jahweh. They couldn't because there is a thing called freedom of religion. That also falls to people who are agnostic or atheistic or satanist.
Many states have sodomy laws, prostitution laws, and age consent laws...but mostly they are state laws..not federal laws. I do not believe or agree with the practice of homosexuality, but that is my belief and opinion, and I believe one shared by my Bible and God. That said, there are many other practices that my bible does not agree with as well. And I'm sure these practices are looked upon just as sharply. After all, even if you like calling homosexuality an abomination or a desolation or whatever...It's still a sin. And I can only remember 1 unforgivable sin..that's calling a work of the devil a work of god, and debatably suicide.
A sin is a sin folks. And most people here are probably all sinners with a capital S. Do you honestly believe God sits upstairs and thinks... " AAh, those two guys can't ever get into Heaven because they had sex with each other."?? No, only if they never repent of it. And that's strictly from a judeo-christian viewpoint. I'm sure God looks on 98% just as disdainfully...Those of us who are always watching R rated movies, watching porn, lusting after women, drinking beer, having sex freely, commiting adultery, stealing, envying, being back-stabbers, gambling, wasting money, not tithing properly, lacking faith, being mean-spritted, etc, etc, etc, etc...... Let him/her who is without sin cast the first stone... yes, God hates homosexuality, but he hates almost everything else about western lifestyles as well... Sins aren't weighted..you're forgiven or you aren't. Any pastor, rabbi, clergyman, or reverand worth his salt would never marry 2 homosexual men or women...so can there ever truly be a godly sponsored wedding..no, because the person performing the ceremony couldn't really be a Christian.
I don't like the idea of same sex partners being able to get married, but this is 21st century secular America. A place where all traditional "christian" values have become distorted and ramrodded. The thing I find most shocking is that after all the desensitizations we have endured is that people actually seem to be shocked by the idea of same sex marriage. I for one am the last person to sit here and say exactly what 2 free adult citizens can do and what rights the state affords them. I wish Christians would worry more about telling and showing homosexual people how they should live rather than demanding it of them. I wish people would quite thinking of the Bible as hate literature, because basically it disdains us all- not exclusively homosexuals. We cannot change what is wrong or evil in the eyes of God to suit our own wishes. We have to recognize the wrong we are commiting and ask forgiveness for it.
Never forget that we are indeed living in a secular nation as much as christians want to claim it is a christian one. So we should try to live a holy life and live by example. After all, if we can't be responsible for ourselves how can we help to be instruments to help others? Gay marriage in the US will happen and it will happen sooner rather than later. So be responsible for yourself and your family. And try to be a positive example and influence for everyone else and help when you can. Yes, a person can oppose this and oppose that and try to ban this or ban that, but most laws don't modify behavior..they may limit it, but they don't stop it.
Quite honestly, the only thing I am concerned about is that Pedophiles are always riding on the coat tails of the homosexual movement...as they are doing marvelously at in Canada. I'm fearful that the legitimaztion and recognition of homosexual marriage will lead to the recognition of pedophiles as a legitimate group as well. You think it won't happen.You might laugh at me now, but wait 8-10 years and you'll see the cultural changes and the lawyers, psychiatrists, lobbyists and politicians all seeking to protect this "misunderstood" group. So my advice is to take the energy you have against homosexual marriage and start early on the pedophilia movement and age of consent laws. There you may be able to make a difference, and protect something that the "christian" God holds so dear..namely children.
Klinton and anyone else. I have several homosexual acquantances and often hang out with them and have an interesting time. While I won't lie and say they are my best friends I do like them and am glad to know them. So I hope that makes me just a little less of a Bastard...
LOL..I loved your closing statment, and no you're not a bastard. I tried to express earlier in this oh-so-fun thread that I realize that none of these people are evil people (and yes, Dave that includes yourself). This is a polar topic, that not unless it's happening to you it seems hard for people to 'get'. My parents, for all the hatred between us today, are not bad people...I mean, I have them to thank for so many things in my life (including that life itself).
In fact, Piggy, I wish that everyone saw things the way you do. If you want to look at my life as a sinful existence, fine....but do not deny that in the eyes of god you are no better than me, that your own sins are just as great. The people who bemoan homosexuality the loudest have taken it upon themselves to judge me as only Jesus is entitled, a practice I cannot imagine how they justify in thier hearts. This alone, despite any other lavasciousness they might engender puts them on par with my 'sins' in His eyes.
The one thing I want to take you to task about here is the statments that come dangerously close to equating pedophelia with homosexuality. I know that you never actually draw a comparison, and throw the blame on the fuckers themselves for attempting to manipulate a situation for thier own ends...But that link alone disturbs me.
Do you really feel that by allowing two adults, who love and care for eachother with the same emotions that you employ in your relationships can ever be compared to such depravity? To link the two is like saying that because you're entiled to have sex with your girlfriend, the law will eventually come to terms with the fact that raping her is accepable, regardless of her desires...This is to say that there is no possible link bettween somone who would hurt a child and somone who just wants to love another grown man or woman. I think people are smart enought to realize the distinction here, don't you?
quote:Originally posted by klinton: Jesus Christ himself never once declared my life and it's course invalid. Not once. In fact, the most violent condemnations he uttered were against the religious leaders of his time who attempted to declare thier will as the word of God and judge others by thier own warped interpretation of scripture. If the son of God, HIM personified, turned his anger toward people like you, without ever once even commenting on people like me, can you at least open your mind to the idea that maybe you might be wrong on this one?
Once again, you have distorted the meaning of the Bible to serve your own ends. The Bible is in absolute incontrovertible opposition to what you just said. As I said in my opening post (the first post of page 4, just in case this jumps to a 5th page), with detailed quotes from Genesis, Leviticus, John, Romans and elsewhere in the Bible, Jesus and God the Father Himself ("I and the Father are one...") condemn homosexuality directly, What you've said about your homosexuality not being condemned by the Bible, is a blatant lie, and perversion of scripture.
I haven't personally judged your homosexual lifestyle. I've only clarified what the Biblical standard is (which you've clearly and deliberately warped to rationalize and attempt to legitimize your own actions.)
I never said that the bible doesn't frown on homosexuality, I said none of Jesus words in all of the gospels even address it.
Yes I know that the bible contains passages that out and out condemn homosexuality...right alongside ones that advocate slavery and the execution of petulant children, as well as the ownership of one's wife. These are all statndards that you don't seem to live by, so why single out homosexuality?
It seems to me that this bias against gay marriages is just another, in a long line of, example of the followers of christian mythology persecuting those they disagree with. The christian war on homosexuals is just this generation's version of burn the witches. Will you never learn.
Lots of thoughtful, intelligent debate from both sides here. Can't say I really can offer much to further that. However, it would be nice to marry to marry my lover of 13 yrs. The arguments against gay marriages really boil down to "my rights & beliefs are more important than yours" & to me that really goes against what America is about. You have the right to believe homosexuality is wrong but the government shouldn't. It's flawed & just doesn't square with this countrys ideals.
quote:Originally posted by klinton: I never said that the bible doesn't frown on homosexuality, I said none of Jesus words in all of the gospels even address it.
You constantly bring up potential abstractions and technicalities, and ignore the major thrust of the Bible.
Because Jesus didn't say it directly is a diversionary tactic, that circumvents around the fact that every word of the Bible is inspired by God. And that God the Father speaks with the same voice as Jesus.
Homosexuality again and again is described in the Bible as the ultimate downturn of a society, the point at which God abandons a society to its own self-destruction, where a culture becomes so hardened to God that they are beyond redemption, and God leaves them to their fate. While there is a chance of repentance, God keeps protection over a person for their repentance.
quote:Originally posted by klinton: Yes I know that the bible contains passages that out and out condemn homosexuality...right alongside ones that advocate slavery and the execution of petulant children, as well as the ownership of one's wife. These are all statndards that you don't seem to live by, so why single out homosexuality?
Because homosexuality, unlike any of these other things, has an ideology that attempts to warp scripture, and to thus pervert the Bible and Christianity from its true meaning.
As I've already said (with scripture to back it up, at the top of Page 4 of this topic).
Slavery is not an issue in modern society. And in any case, the Bible does NOT endorse it. It was, again, opportunistically misinterpeted by those who advocated slavery. But the message of the Bible is the equality and brotherhood of all men in the eyes of God. All are equal before God. Equally sinful, equally loved, equally desired to be redeemed.
I think you misinterpret the issue about "owning" your wife. Men and women are linked in marriage and have responsibility to each other. Women are to submit to the needs of their husband, and husbands to those of their wife, in respect for each other's needs.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: Lots of thoughtful, intelligent debate from both sides here. Can't say I really can offer much to further that. However, it would be nice to marry to marry my lover of 13 yrs. The arguments against gay marriages really boil down to "my rights & beliefs are more important than yours" & to me that really goes against what America is about. You have the right to believe homosexuality is wrong but the government shouldn't. It's flawed & just doesn't square with this countrys ideals.
Again, it's about maintaining a balance.
Once again, I have no problem with a person's choice to be gay, so long as laws are not passed that infringe on and pervert the meaning of the Bible and Christianity. Which I've made very clear, chapter and verse, is being attempted.
I again support a free country, where gays and Christians have a right to choose and practice their individual beliefs. But my problem is with the fact that gays (or at least a large portion of the gay community) is not satisfied with that, and not only want to practice their lifestyle, but to force Christians (against scripture) to say that homosexuality is morally right in the eyes of God, and in all law.
quote:Originally posted by Wingnut-EL: It seems to me that this bias against gay marriages is just another, in a long line of, example of the followers of christian mythology persecuting those they disagree with. The christian war on homosexuals is just this generation's version of burn the witches. Will you never learn.
It seems to me that YOU'RE the one resorting to sweeping generalizations and stereotypes.
I've backed up what I had to say with scripture. And made it clear that I support the right for gays to practice their lifestyle, so long as it doesn't interfere with my rights and freedoms as a Christian, and as long as laws are not passed that will pervert the meaning and practice of Christianity itself. As usual, more slanderous innuendo on your part.
It's not a diversionary tactic, Dave. Christ out and out said that he came to replace the Law Covanent, and adressed all sorts of evils to be condemned (again, the most distastful to him were the missuses of scripture by the rabinical class). If he came to do away with the Law Covanent, then how can you go about quoting it's passages as a means to judge me?
quote:Originally posted by Wingnut-EL: It seems to me that this bias against gay marriages is just another, in a long line of, example of the followers of christian mythology persecuting those they disagree with. The christian war on homosexuals is just this generation's version of burn the witches. Will you never learn.
Excuse me, but I was acting as reasonably as possible. I do not persecute anyone, I follow the examples of the martyrs that came before me. Oh yeah, they were persecuted. I know I am not the world's greatest example of a Christian, but I am trying my best and I am also trying my best to be an American, where I have to respect the law and the rights of others. I understand that according to my Church, being a homosexual is not a sin, but the actual acts are sinful. Well duh, they say the same thing about any pre-marital couple. Now granted, a legal marriage, or 'union' if that's a better word, would not be legitimate to an established religion, but that is enough for some people. My sis is legally married and is not married by any church -- it's not a problem for us. Beardguy57 said it best: 'I do NOT want " Special Rights". I DO want the same rights as heterosexuals.' And it is not impossible for a homosexual to believe in God in some form.
Thats life in this country though Dave. It's part of living in a multi cultural society. I don't need the government to wave the rainbow flag for me. Forcing you to say something you don't believe goes against the principle of what I want. You already have to teach your kids that people of different faiths are going to hell even though they are treated equally under the law so it shouldn't be a problem adding homosexuallity to the list. I don't see the problem here.
Pig Iron, I've been struggling, in the number of points tossed out here to answer, to get back to your post.
As usual, you are the model of non-inflammatory moderation, that reaches out to both sides, that makes me (for one) want to be conciliatory.
Your point is well taken, that all sin is equal in the eyes of God. I'm no more pure than a gay man, or anyone else. We've all fallen short of the perfect standard, in one way or another. Myself included. So we're all subject to the same judgement.
I haven't personally condemned homosexuality, only the homosexual movement's anti-Biblical attempt to cloak itself in religious/moral purity, by instituting the concept of gay marriage, and attempting to force the rest of us to accept this clearly non-Biblical standard as somehow legitimate.
I've only focused on homosexuality because it is the subject of this discussion.
But I've also frequently railed on many other destructive elements in our culture. Particularly the decadence of popular culture, that promotes instant gratification and cynicism through virtually every source of entertainment and information: movies, television, cable, music lyrics, music video, network news, celebrity news, video games, and even comic books.
One part of what you said that I particularly appreciated:
quote:Originally posted by Pig Iron (on Page 4): I wish people would quit thinking of the Bible as hate literature, because basically it [ the Bible ] disdains us all- not exclusively homosexuals. We cannot change what is wrong or evil in the eyes of God to suit our own wishes. We have to recognize the wrong we are commiting and ask forgiveness for it.
I couldn't agree more.
Being a Christian is a daily exercise in humility, because ALL have fallen short of the standard of God.
quote:Ephesians 2:verses 8 and 9: "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith --and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God-- not by works, so that no one can boast."
I don't personally condemn homosexuality, I only point out what the Bible says on the subject, so there can be no misinterpretation of what the Biblical stance is on homosexuality.
And in this exposure of actual scripture, there can be no mistake where the line is drawn, and how enacting laws endorsing homosexuality would negatively impact Biblical teachings.
quote:Originally posted by klinton: It's not a diversionary tactic, Dave. Christ out and out said that he came to replace the Law Covanent, and adressed all sorts of evils to be condemned (again, the most distastful to him were the missuses of scripture by the rabinical class). If he came to do away with the Law Covanent, then how can you go about quoting it's passages as a means to judge me?
For the 50th time, I'm NOT judging you. I'm only pointing out the Biblical standard, so you can decide on your own behavior in an informed fashion.
And you could not possibly have butchered the words of Jesus Christ Himself more than you did in your last statement.
Borrowing from the Gospel of Matthew:
quote: Matthew 5, verses 17-19: 17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
The teachings of Jesus are polar opposite what you allege. I believe the corrupt interpretation is clear.
And verse 18, by the way, is a command not to change or re-write the Bible in any way, but to preserve it as written.
Howard Dean, liberal candidate for DEM Pres. Nomination had an interesting take this morning on Meet the Press.
He said he doesn't support gay "marriage". He said marriage is a religious institution. He says he likes his state's "civil union" policy.
He says it is simply a matter of equal rights.
This seems somewhat consistent with Dave's points.
But I have one follow up question to Dave:
If a non-marriage alternative were allowed, wouldn't this, in your mind, still interfere with your religious views? Even if it isn't infringing on the definition of marriage, wouldn't it still require those religious businesses to pay the benefits of the legally recognized gay partner?
I have no problem with a gay union that is clear and distinctive from marriage.
I WOULD have a problem with a legal standard that forces Christians to hire and provide benefits to gay individuals, whose lifestyle Christians clearly don't agree with.
The problem is that any legal approval of gay marriage, or an equivalent by another name, is a beach-head that gays will use to push for these other things. That is what was attempted with legally recognizing gays in the military, back in 1993 under Clinton. Giving gays recognition as a minority under federal military law, recognizing gays as a minority group, would have been exactly the legal precedent that gays are attempting now, through gay marriage legislation.
I think the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" military policy is a good compromise, that dodges state recognition of gays. And thus allows gays to practice their lifestyle, without legally stepping on Christian toes.
It's a legal standard that has a balance between rights for both groups(gays and Christians).
What is 'marriage' refered only to a religious union, and some other word was used for a secular / legal one? That would make everyone happy, I suppose.
I do appologize for my lack of quotation here, but I will have it for you by day's end...But Christ did in fact state that he hasd come to yes, fulfill the Old Covenant, and usher in a new one. I'm posting now, only so as you don't feel I'm ignoring you.
And as to the "for the 50th time, I'm not judging you" : how can you sit here and state that your 'rights' as a christian come before my rights as an equal human being and tell me you haven't passed judgement?
quote:Originally posted by klinton: And as to the "for the 50th time, I'm not judging you" : how can you sit here and state that your 'rights' as a christian come before my rights as an equal human being and tell me you haven't passed judgement?
Where does this "before" crap come from.
I've said all along that a balance is to be maintained. I already said: gay rights in a free society are fine by me. I only object to gay rights at the point that they bastardize scripture, and inhibit/corrupt the practice of Christianity, by legally forcing Christians to accept a standard they Biblically know to be immoral. The irrefutable proof is in the scriptures I quoted above.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: I saw Howard Dean this morning as well, Willie.
I am so NOT use to this user name. When I saw "Willie" in your post, I thought for a second you were patronizing me! Then I realized that for some reason, I didn't use the old standard username.
quote: I have no problem with a gay union that is clear and distinctive from marriage.
I WOULD have a problem with a legal standard that forces Christians to hire and provide benefits to gay individuals, whose lifestyle Christians clearly don't agree with.
Interesting. But wouldn't such a classification be worthless if it weren't enforced? How would it work from a practical standpoint? Optional benefits?
quote: The problem is that any legal approval of gay marriage, or an equivalent by another name, is a beach-head that gays will use to push for these other things.
The slippery slope argument, yes? What would be worse in your views than marriage? Adoption would be the logical next step. After that there isn't much more that homosexuals can ask for is there? Overall, the gay community is far too successful to ask for Affirmative Action. I don't see any grounds for economic reperations.
quote:Originally posted by klinton: I do appologize for my lack of quotation here, but I will have it for you by day's end...But Christ did in fact state that he hasd come to yes, fulfill the Old Covenant, and usher in a new one. I'm posting now, only so as you don't feel I'm ignoring you.
And as to the "for the 50th time, I'm not judging you" : how can you sit here and state that your 'rights' as a christian come before my rights as an equal human being and tell me you haven't passed judgement?
He isn't "judging" your soul or condemning you. I'd say that is following Jesus's quote pretty well actually. That passage is often misinterpreted.
One original prophecy fortelling the passing of the Law covenant:
Jeremiah 31:31, 32 - "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Isreal, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with thier fathers in the day that I took them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they break, although I was an husband unto them sayeth the Lord:"
Jesus declaring the new covenant:
Matthew 26: 27, 28 - "And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, 'Drink ye all of it; For it is my blood of the new testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins."
St. Paul's further acknowledgement of the Law Covenant's passing:
2Corinthians 3:6 - "Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: Wednesday, you said the Bible wasn't translated correctly throughout the years, or whatever your exact words were. Well according to one of the pastors at my church, yes it was. He's basing this on cold hard facts.
Thanks for bringing this up, Amy. In the rush of points raised, this is one I neglected to get back to.
There's a guy named Josh McDowell, who in the early 1970's was an atheist who set out to prove that the Bible has been doctored and re-written to suit the clergy. He set out to write a book that disproves the Bible, as inconsistent and unprovable. He instead found overwhelming evidence that the Bible is the most consistent and proveable ancient document that exists, with roughly 40,000 (updated to 60,000 in a later edition) hand-written manusripts that exist within 200 years of the life of Christ, and many manuscripts before that, including the Dead Sea Scrolls (ancient hand-written copies of the Old Testament that date back to 500-600 B.C)
Josh McDowell ended up becoming a Christian, and he wrote the first of his many books on the subject, Evidence That Demands A Verdict. The one of his books that I found the most persuasive and readable is He Walked Among Us: Evidence For the Historical Jesus, which looks at what Jesus' enemies had to say about Him, including the text of Roman historians such as Josephus, and Rabbis of various other Jewish sects of the time. It shows that even they acknowledge miracles Jesus performed, however they interpreted Him to have done these things. And regardless, they acknowledge He existed.
Another Christian author/historian I actually prefer to Josh McDowell, is Francis Schaffer.
But regardless, tremendous care has been put into the preservation of the Bible, and its translation into English and other languages.
Read the preface of an NIV English translation, and you will see the tremendous labor for accuracy, confirmation by various scholars of every denomination, and attempt to closely preserve even the style of the original Greek, Hebrew and Aramaic(the latter an ancient Syrian dialect) that the Old and New Testaments were written in.
Study Bibles are footnoted, and explain the subtleties and context of ancient words and languages that may have been lost, or less clear, in a modern translation.
But as McDowell points out, the Bible is more verifiable and has far more existing ancient manuscripts, and verifiable accuracy, than The Iliad, or even more modern writings, such as the plays of William Shakespeare.
quote:Originally posted by BigOl'Willie: ]He isn't "judging" your soul or condemning you. I'd say that is following Jesus's quote pretty well actually. That passage is often misinterpreted. [/QB]
Which passage? Jesus spoke on all levels, about treating your fellow man with love and compassion. Telling me that I don't deserve spousal benefits if I worked at his company, nor the ability to retain a marriage of equal stature to his own...This is a judgemnt on my worth as a human being is it not?
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: I saw Howard Dean this morning as well, Willie.
I am so NOT use to this user name. When I saw "Willie" in your post, I thought for a second you were patronizing me! Then I realized that for some reason, I didn't use the old standard username.
Sorry Big Ol'Willie. I didn't mean anything by it, I was just trying to informalize a little by abbreviating. I apologize for the confusion.
I'm often abbreviated as DaveTWB, to differentiate me from other Daves lurking here. :)
klinton, I know we clearly have a difference of opinion. But it is only a discussion, and I hope my words were not interpreted as more angry than they were intended. I'm attempting to clarify my position, and it's entirely possible you mean no deception, but just strongly believe what you do. While I sometimes feel frustration with repeating myself, I feel no anger. And while I'm clearly not gay, I've been friends with, and talked with, and worked with enough gays, and heard their views enough to know that it's not easy to deal with the feelings that motivate you to be gay, or with the clear discomfort that many have with the gay lifestyle. I feel that homosexuality is a choice. But I realize many feel it is not a choice.
I have to disappear for a while. Chat with you guys later.
Benefits to gay partners should not be a moral problem. The Bible doesn't say you can't or shouldn't hire gay people. Using your logic I would think you would have a major problems with Thou shall not kill, during times of war. Yes organized religions let you off the hook but it's clearly against the commandment.
Klinton, I'm not linking the two..well, not really. There is a difference between homosexuality, pedophilia and also homosexual pedophilia..they're all different things. But anyway I'm just pointing out the fact that the Pedophilia lobby seems to try to ride the wake of the homosexual movement. The only movement that is even close to homosexuality is the fringe group within the gay lobby..."the Man/Boy Love association" that's another underage lover issue though and I know it deviates from the majority of gay realtionships...
My major point with that is that they are linked in a way, not because the gay movement wants it, but the pedophilia movement does...
Ooops a quick check on the web I did find that the original Hebrew word could be translated as murder or kill. Considering that people who were breaking other commandments were supposed to be stoned to death I guess murder makes sense.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: Considering that people who were breaking other commandments were supposed to be stoned to death I guess murder makes sense.
LOL. Good point!
Biblical Dude One: "We can't kill!"
Biblical Dude Two: "But we are supposed to 'stone' these guys who killed are people."
Biblical Dude in the Crowd: "Give 'em the bong."
Biblical Dude One: "Moses is wise. He will lead us!"
quote:Originally posted by Pig Iron: The only movement that is even close to homosexuality is the fringe group within the gay lobby..."the Man/Boy Love association" that's another underage lover issue though and I know it deviates from the majority of gay realtionships...
I didn't think this was a real organization. They were parodied in a South Park episode, and I thought they were just an absurd made up group.
I don't know whether to laugh or be outraged. What a world we live in.
quote:Originally posted by klinton: Ok...sorry for the delay:
One original prophecy fortelling the passing of the Law covenant:
Jeremiah 31:31, 32 - "Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Isreal, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with thier fathers in the day that I took them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they break, although I was an husband unto them sayeth the Lord:"
Jesus declaring the new covenant:
Matthew 26: 27, 28 - "And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them, saying, 'Drink ye all of it; For it is my blood of the new testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins."
Actually what you've taken out of context, misinterpreted is when Jesus and his disciples are at the last supper and Jesus is giving them comunion.
quote: St. Paul's further acknowledgement of the Law Covenant's passing:
2Corinthians 3:6 - "Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life."
According to the dictionary at the back of my Bible, the definition for covenant is as follows (this is the one that pertains to all the scripture your misinterpreting):
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: I have no problem with a gay union that is clear and distinctive from marriage.
I WOULD have a problem with a legal standard that forces Christians to hire and provide benefits to gay individuals, whose lifestyle Christians clearly don't agree with.
These are just my thoughts. . .
Christian faith doesn't have a monopoly on marriage. Hindus, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists all have marriage rites and customs.
Like here in Australia, lots of countries also have Civil marriage ceremonies, which have been performed for decades now.
Non-Christian marriages have been performed all over the world in some form or other. Are all of these somehow illegal or less worthy than a Christian marraige? I would like to think not. Is a Protestant (Church of England) marriage less worthy than a Catholic, Muslim (* see quote below) or Jewish wedding? Once again, I would like to think not.
In the past Protestant weddings have been declared illegal. For example, the Catholic Queen Mary of England (the daughter of King Henry VIII, whose actions brought about Britains split with the Catholic church in the first place) declared the whole Protestant faith illeagal. Was she right in her beliefs and actions?
* "Although Muslims pray to Allah, this is in fact the same God worshipped by Christians and Jews by a different name. Allah is an Arabic term comprising two words: Al which means 'the' and Illah which means 'God'. To Muslims, the name Allah is preferable to that of God. . .it has no male or female gender, and it cannot be pluralised in the same way that 'God' can become 'gods'." K. Farrington. History of Religion. p. 132
In relation to Dave's second paragraph. The purpose of a democracy, like England, Canada, New Zealand, the United States and Australia (where I am from), is to represent all of its citizens, despite their heritage, beliefs and customs. This is also covered my governement legislation.
Though all of the above countries historically have a leaning (some more than others) towards Christian faith, they are not Religious States. Therfore the laws and services of these countries should have to benefit all of the population, not just Christians.
We can elect our representatives of our respective governements every 3 or 4 years. However, we do not have a say in where every cent of the taxes we pay, go towards. Though it would be nice sometimes
So what am I trying to get at with all this. Later this year I will be getting married. My fiance is Vietnamese. Her family are Buddhists, though she does not practice her faith as much as her mother would like. I was baptised Anglican (Church of England), though I do not practice this religion. Therefore getting married in a Christian Church (to me) would seem hyprocritical and an insult to the Church.
I do not practice a particular religion, because I can not believe that one set of people's values out-weigh the others.
I can not walk up to someone and prove or disprove their faith. I can not say which is the true God or in the case of some religions, Gods. Also as has been noted Christian/Catholic/Jewish/Muslim faiths are all interrelated (and we haven't even mentioned Orthodox or the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints), yet their "differences" have caused so much conflict through the ages in their God's name. Who is right and who is wrong? They all have sacred texts and scriptures. They all have "right" on their side.
Having said that I like to think there is a higher being (or even higher beings), who helped shape this little Universe of ours.
On the morning of our wedding day later this year, we will perform the Buddhist marraige ceremony (mainly as my future in-laws will be coming to Australia for the wedding). However, this will not be legally recognised in Australia. That is why we will be having a Civil marriage ceremony later in the day. The later ceremony will make our marriage or our union or our partnership or our life-long commitment to each other legal in the eyes of the Australian government (which will then be legally recognised in the rest of the world).
So if I am not religious, why am I getting married? Is it for economics?
No. In Australia lots of couples do not see the need to be married. That is their right. They can still have children and still claim defacto relationship benefits from the government.
Then why marriage?
Because I LOVE the woman I am going to marry!
We want to declare to our family, our friends and to the world that we love each other so much, we want to spend the rest of our lives together as husband and wife. To help realise each others dreams and to be there for each other in the difficult times. (All that, plus we then get to stay in the same hotel room when we go back to Vietnam ) The only way to do this is through marriage (though everyone has options on how they get married - religious or civil).
So if my fiance and I can get married in a Civil ceremony because we love each other, why can't homosexual couples? And why can't they call it marriage?
Unfortunately, if a homosexual couple wish to have a Church wedding I can see problems. Obviously the Church's beliefs are going to out-weigh that of government legislation. Even if it technically goes against the "spirit" of anti-descrimination legislation.
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: According to the dictionary at the back of my Bible, the definition for covenant is as follows (this is the one that pertains to all the scripture your misinterpreting):
The promises of God for salvation.
Well, I'm glad your bible has a dictionary and all, but according to 2 years of theology class, and the work of hundreds of scholars, that is exactly what was going on. I am not 'miseinterpreting' anything.
There is a reason the Bible was long ago seperated into two sections: The Old testement and the New.
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: According to the dictionary at the back of my Bible, the definition for covenant is as follows (this is the one that pertains to all the scripture your misinterpreting):
The promises of God for salvation.
Well, I'm glad your bible has a dictionary and all, but according to 2 years of theology class, and the work of hundreds of scholars, that is exactly what was going on. I am not 'miseinterpreting' anything.
There is a reason the Bible was long ago seperated into two sections: The Old testement and the New.
You know I really hate to drag one of the pastors from church into this because I know what I'm talking about, and so does my one friend that saw that post of your last night and said the same thing I did. And as for the 2 parts of the Bible, the Old Testiment is before Jesus's time. It tells how everything was created, and fortells Jesus's coming, among other things. The New Testiment is of Him and His life, death and resurection.
Drag whomever you want into the discussion. Yes, you are right, there are thematic differences in the Old and New testament...There is a whole new order of things in the Christian Greek Scriptures.
Quite frankly, my main point in engaging the bible itself was to point out the differences in current church doctrine and Chirst's initial message to his followers. Hatred and suppression were the farthest things from his intent. There is no justification for telling me that I am entitled to less of an existence because I am gay. None. This is a cruel and violently incaurate reading of the texts...but such practices are not new to the church, and are not likely to dissapear from it. You cannot begin to deny that history proves over and over again that the church is inclined to misenterpret biblical passages and twist them to thier own ends. It is simply and irrefutable fact, documented with countless examples in history texts.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: How did we get 6 pages on what should be a no-brainer?
If gays want to get married, good luck to them.
I wouldn't call it a no-brainer at all. It is the basic alteration of hundreds (even thousands) of years of tradition and policy. I think one can reasonably expect people to disagree on such a matter.
klinton, it is frustrating, to say the very least, to see your interpretation that so completely distorts and bastardizes the word of God away from its clear meaning.
Here are the verses you quoted, in their full context:
quote:Jeremiah 31:
31 "The time is coming," declares the LORD , "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD . 33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD . "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. 34 No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, 'Know the LORD ,' because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest," declares the LORD . "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."
The old covenant is so obviously the Old Testament (i.e. the Mosaic law, and the books of the prophets, foretelling the coming Messiah).
The new covenant is the FULFILLMENT of those prophecies, in the life and person of Jesus of Nazareth. God, in humility, came to Earth and lived as a man, to live as we live and experience all the vulnerabilities and temptations that we face. And then died to pay the price for the sins of all mankind, on the cross. And then, very importantly, was resurrected. And all who believe in Jesus as Messiah and follow his teachings will be resurrected as well.
I have absolutely no clue where you're trying to go with this alternate "new covenant" notion. But it sure isn't some loophole that allows for the endorsement of homosexuality by the Bible.
The new covenant is, again, the fulfullment of prophecy in the events of the life of Jesus. In the new covenant, every faithful person who repents will know Jesus personally, and be forgiven personally. THAT is the "new covenant".
I don't understand how you see that I've bastardized anything...You've simply repeaded what I said.
The Old (Masaic) Covenant had served it's purpose. It was given to the fledgling nation of Isreal to aid them in their goal to become God's chosen people. Yes, in this context, it is perfectly understandable that homosexuality was counterproductive to His wishes. Yes, it is understandable that one cannot partake of pork and certain foul, as these were hard to preserve and consuming them often lead to disease at the time. Yes, even the guidlines of how many lashings were to be administered was appropriate to the Isrealites at the time. None of this makes theses laws appropritate to us today.
Upon Christ's arrival, he fulfilled the Covenant and removed it's bondage from the people. Isreal had lost it's favored status. The gates of heaven were open, and He showed us the manner in which to access them.
I'd also like to add that the very fact that God felt a need to forbid the Isrealites from actively pursuing homosexual activities is a nod to the fact that he realized it existed in his human creations. It merley didn't have a place in helping the nation to grow, as he desired.
Which , again, corrupts the word of God, and attempts to omit verses that unquestionably condemn homosexuality.
You might as well try to say the Bible's teachings about murder and adultery are obsolete.
Homosexuality is, ultimately, a form of adultery.
As I answered at length in the first post at the top of page 4 of this topic, certain rituals were more for hygeine, and to culturally set Jews apart from other neighboring cultures and religions. They are/were ceremonial manifestations of spiritual faith (circumcision, not eating pork or shellfish, etc). These were NOT considered acts of extreme decadence if disobeyed. But Homosexuality clearly was, and is, described as extreme decadence. One of the few acts punishable by death, in Mosaic law. And a frequently referenced manifestation of a society that has plunged into decadence so deep that God has deemed that culture so hardened to God laws and teachings, that it is abandoned to its own self-destruction.
Marriage, on the other hand, is a sacred and essential part of the Bible, I cannot emphasize that enough. The New Testament, particularly Revelation, refers to those of the faithful as "the Bride", and those who disobey are referred to as "The Whore" (i.e., the unfaithful). "The Whore of Babylon" is the AntiChrist, and the followers of the false one-world religion, who all bear the mark of the beast, 666, on their body. Embracing homosexuality is embracing sexual immorality, and is, by definition, ceasing to be of "the Bride", and becoming part of "the Whore".
Sexual immorality (and on the topic of this discussion homosexuality specifically) in any form, never becomes "outdated" as a perverse act, and suddenly permissible. Sexual purity, sex within the bounds of marriage, sexual faithfulness, is highly valued, and one of the most powerful metaphors for spiritual faithfulness in the Bible.
Gay marriage is, in combining these two Biblical portrayals of homosexuality and marriage, a violated, corrupted bride. A whore. Not faithful. A perversion.
You again try to re-write the Bible, to serve your own extra-Biblical lifestyle.
Homosexuality is repeatedly referred to Biblically as among the ultimate perversions, and most destructive manifestations of a culture, that manifests that culture is doomed to destruction. Sodom and Gomorrah, for example (Genesis, chapters 18 and 19). http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=GEN+18&language=english&version=NIV
God destroyed those two cities because they were so evil and depraved. And the term sodomy endures from that time, a city so known for that homosexual practice that it became the enduring name for that act itself. A city destroyed by God for its evil. The geographical point on Earth that is the lowest --the furthest below sea level-- is the Dead Sea, which is believed to be the ancient site of the former Sodom and Gommorah. An enduring geographical metaphor for God's opinion of the civilization that once existed there.
Verses throughout the Bible repeat over and over the severe misfortune of any culture that allows homosexuality to flourish on a large scale.
quote: 21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. 24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. 28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done.
This is getting tiresome. Yes, Sodom and Gomorra were destroyed. But the reasoning given for that destruction are not of God's lips, but Moses'. Yes, he was a prophet, but he was also a man. If you want to accept that these words of hatred came from God's mouth, then I guess we have nothing more to say to eachother.
St. Paul's words in Romans again come from a man noted for his rashness, as well as mysogynistic veiws of women. I repeat again that such statements were never uttered by Christ, but those who came after him. These were additions to his comments, therefore further examples of exactly what he came to fix. If it was so vile a thing in his eyes, one would think he would have mentioned it...even in private to his apostles so that Paul might have invoked his words in this rant.
I agree with Dave on part of the issue. The Bible is pretty clear it considers sodomy a sin. We can talk about extraneous passages, interpretations, contradiction, etc. but from a simply reading of the Bible, homosexuality=bad.
My take on that is, the Bible was written by men in ancient times. Unlike DTWB, I am not a "direct word of God" student of Christianity.
I didn't see any cites on this from the Gospel that were directly on point, so everything else is secondary authority to ME (I understand that DTWB and others disagree).
I am also a lawyer and believe that we should have more reasoning for laws than someone doesn't like it.
I guess I just don't agree with DTWB's definition of freedom of religion.
There is case law that suggests the government can take action to ban ACTIVITIES of a certain religion as long as it is not targeted at the religion itself (is the Peyote/Indian case still good law? If not, use bigamy prohibitions instead). Likewise, they may allow activities that a religion dislikes, and have to deal with, even if they go against the teachings of that religion without infringing.
As long as the law is religiously neutral it is allowed.
This type of law would not be written to upset Christians, so it would not legally infringe upon one's right to free religion.
Perhaps you're right Willie...I've said before that I'm completely aware that the Bible does indeed contain passages that condemn homosexuality. Out of need for personal peace of mind, I have examined and re-examined the Bible for reasons behind these passages, as I cannot beieve that God in his eternal love would hold me in conpempt for living the life he gave me. I cannot imagine that he would rather I spend my life lying to myself and those around me by making me prentend to be someone I am not. This simply doesn't fit with the overall message of the bible, and would really be trading one 'sin' for another.
Dave, I do appologize if my conclusions have offended you, that was never my intent. I was merely trying to show you a different way of looking at things that to me seems more in accord with God's love.
What you say to me here, in trying to rationalize your homosexuality, is simply not true. It is either a deliberate attempt to deceive me, or self deception in your own mind. (Precisely the mindset described in the above quoted verses from Romans, by the way.)
quote:2 Timothy 3,verse 16 (among many other verses):
Meaning all scripture in the Old and New Testaments is directly inspired by God. Moses, the prophets, and the apostles of Jesus who wrote the New Testament, including Paul, were essentially transcribers, whose written words come directly from God.
And again, in John 1, verse 1:
quote:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
, and John 10, verse 30:
quote: 30 "I and the Father are one."
(as I already quoted, in above posts, exhaustively and indisputably)
And again, whether you choose to accept it, or deny what is consistent and clear within the context of the Bible, ALL scripture in the Bible is from God. The verses you want to arbitrarily reject from Genesis and Leviticus were quoted from God the Father, by Moses. (Jesus and God the Father are the same person, as the quoted verses above, and others, clearly establish) The verses you reject from the New Testament are from God the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit (three different manifestations, or faces, of the same God). You either believe the Bible is true, and that all its scripture is from God, or you don't. You can't pick and choose what you want to believe, and still claim to represent what it teaches. Particularly homosexuality. Which is so clearly, absolutely, beyond any question, condemned in the Bible. What you've said here paints such a clear picture of what I've been saying: That homosexuality is a threat to the Bible and Christianity, because it attempts to corrupt and warp scripture.
If I had any doubts, we've seen it played out pretty well over the last 6 topic pages.
In saying that, I don't mean that homosexuals as individuals are bad. But the Bible clearly teaches homosexuality, as a belief system, as a lifestyle is bad and corrupting in nature.
For this reason, while gays have a right to choose their own lifestyle as American citizens, within our democracy, I don't like the idea of gay marriage cloaked in a Christian marriage guise, which clearly distorts the meaning of Christianity, and tramples on the rights of Christians within our democracy, forcing Christians to accept as "moral" homosexual practices that are in clear opposition to what the Bible clearly teaches is immoral. Which infringes on Christians' freedom of religion.
Again, gays can create some alternative form of gay union, but do not have the right to change the meaning of marriage as it has existed and been defined as one man/one woman for at least 6000 years in Judeo/Christian culture and many other cultures.
I guess to a degree, you are right. My intention in re-examining biblical texts is contradictory to your (and by extension, the churh's) understanding them, and thus undermining concepts that you hold as fundamental and unshakable. I suppose if this makes me a force of evil in your eyes, then that's a lable that I'll live with.
As a gay man, I cannot simply excuse my natural state as a deviant and immoral existence. I just can't. I tried in my teens, but it led me to personal misery and contempt for God. Perhaps if you and I could switch places we might understand eachother better.
The only real sin I can comprehend in this world is that of inflicting harm on others. So long as my actions are not hurting another, I cannot believe that God would begrudge me my happiness. If you can reconcile your hatred with your faith, then I guess I'm happy for you. I think we've reached an impass here, so it's pointless to continue, eh?
quote:Originally posted by klinton: Perhaps you're right Willie...I've said before that I'm completely aware that the Bible does indeed contain passages that condemn homosexuality. Out of need for personal peace of mind, I have examined and re-examined the Bible for reasons behind these passages, as I cannot beieve that God in his eternal love would hold me in contempt for living the life he gave me. I cannot imagine that he would rather I spend my life lying to myself and those around me by making me pretend to be someone I am not. This simply doesn't fit with the overall message of the bible, and would really be trading one 'sin' for another.
Dave, I do apologize if my conclusions have offended you, that was never my intent. I was merely trying to show you a different way of looking at things that to me seems more in accord with God's love.
I appreciate that, klinton.
And I again want to emphasize that all I've said is within the context of debating the issue. As I said, I've felt some frustration in discussing contradictions that are so obvious to me, and attempted to clarify with scripture. But my words are not intended with anger. We're just discussing an issue, and we hold different opinions on it.
What you say about attempting to reconcile the Biblical position on homosexuality, with your clear personal homosexuality, I have similar (although clearly different, in obvious ways) struggles with my desire for women, as a 40-year old single, never-married male. I've often abstained for long periods, and at other times gotten lonely, or for various reasons taken sexual opportunities, when they were available to me. And I've found that even my desire for women, what I expect from a woman, as a Christian man, or just as a sexually torqued-up heterosexual man, has changed a lot over the years.
A pastor once told me, when I voiced lament over not being married: "You haven't missed anything, Dave. Others who married at your age are now getting divorced, because they had the wrong priorities in selecting a partner. And now they're getting divorced. You've only spared yourself that grief." Or words to that effect.
So I experience some, not all, of what you're going through.
Regarding homosexuality specifically, it is one of the basic beliefs of the gay movement that you are born that way, that it is a genetic inborn desire, and that it should therefore not be resisted.
As I said, I believe that it is a compulsion, an impulse, not inborn, and that it can be resisted, and virtually eliminated. There are many Christians who were practicing gays and lesbians, who are now happily married heterosexuals. So for some at least, perhaps all, homosexual desire can be overcome and eliminated. Not repressed, but just eliminated as a desire by a change in goals, perspective and priorities.
I hope this is not insulting, because my sexual desire for women fits into the same category, but... well, I'll begin with my own desires, and struggles with them:
I meet women who are clients that I desire to have sex with. And I have to not act on that desire, because to do so would be a patient/client violation (I'm a massage therapist). And believe me, there is a great intimacy and a great temptation, and a great OPPORTUNITY with many attractive women I meet professionally. And I've seen many who want me to cross that line, I like them and they like me. Likewise, I meet a lot of beautiful women outside of work. Even if I were not a Christian, there are limits I have to live within, if I want to have premarital/extramarital sex with women.
I've met under-age girls in their teens that I found incredibly beautiful, that I certainly had the opportunity with, but obviously that would be a bad idea. I could even get away with it, but that is a line I exert self-control maintaining, and have never crossed. (When I was 30, I dated and had a sexual relationship with a 19-year-old girl, and even though she was over 18, I felt like a cradle-robber).
I was born with that desire. But in many cases I can never act on it. And I consider myself a very sexual guy, too. It's not like I don't have the desire. It's very often difficult to say no and exert self-control.
Likewise, someone who has a compulsion to gamble, or rape, or murder, or steal, or have sex with children, or a drug addict, or an alcoholic. It could be argued that any of these people have an inborn compulsion toward these things. But it is destructive to act on those desires, destructive to others, and also self-destructive.
Likewise, even a married person doesn't suddenly stop having desire for other people. Couples grow apart, they argue. Married couples can have very bad periods in the relationship, and when each is frustrated with their marriage, and lonely, and someone attractive comes along to offer what's been missing, it's very easy to cave in to that temptation. So even the ability for heterosexuals to marry is not a license that absolves them from struggling with the same inborn desires as everyone else.
~
Willie, your points are well taken also.
I understand your stance that differs from mine on the love-triangle of freedom, homosexuality and Christianity.
As I said, I made it clear where I think the line should be drawn. (a separate term for gay union that parallels spousal benefits, while making it clear and distinct from the definition of marriage. That does not distort the long-established definition of marriage. )
But I'm not sure I'd be happy with that either, because that legal line is always moving with new legislation, and I'm concerned that it could at some point tread on the freedom to practice Christianity, as well as the very meaning of Christianity, should part or all of the Bible ever be banned from public speech, by further legislation later.
My thoughts on the Bible being the unaltered word of God...from another thread... .................................................
It's all true or it's all delusion. If it was inspired and God wrote the bible through prophets then I assume if anyone wrote false things god wouldn't allow it. So either the hebrew God is not real or he is real and the entire Bible is true. If any of the Bible is trumped up then there were no miracles at all IMO. While historical cities and figures may have actually existed then all they did was propaganda and illusion.
If anybody believes part of the bible (miracles, divine inspiration, creation, angels) and not all of it then they are surely misguided. If God is omnipotent then I'm sure he wouldn't let someone tamper with his manual.
I really dislike when people pick and choose religion like eating from a buffet. If it's just a lifestyle choice, a way of living fine. But if you honestly believe some of this and some of that...don't believe any of it... It's insane and schizophrenic.
I believe God loves you no matter what. Try the best you can in life and believe your maker will spare you.
As a heterosexual conservative, I have the same prayers.
I sometimes overlook posts when the exchange is rapid-fire, as it has been in this topic.
Big Ol' Willie, this is a wonderfully kind statement. It expresses so much love, in just a few words.
We all have a shared, and flawed, human experience. We all fall short in different ways.
After a spiritual trial, God changed Isaac's name to Israel (meaning "he who struggles with God") I think we all struggle with God, to be close to Him, despite the imperfection we all feel. And what we struggle for most in life is often what's most fulfilling.
One sinner to another, I'll pray for you, klinton.
quote:Originally posted by Pig Iron: I really dislike when people pick and choose religion like eating from a buffet. If it's just a lifestyle choice, a way of living fine. But if you honestly believe some of this and some of that...don't believe any of it... It's insane and schizophrenic.
It's not about 'some of this and some of that' (I assume you're reffering to me here). It's a matter of looking at the theme of the bible and questoning the merits of some of the included works therein. The bible is a big book, and there are plenty of admonitions within it that don't seem to flow with the overall picture...as well as many that modern people wouldn't dream of employing (do we still murder our children when they don't obey?).
My point was that despite all of the conflicting messages that the bible contains, the most predominant and reocurring theme is that of love and compassion. I mean, yes the word of God is the end of any argument, but Jesus himself clearly outlined his principles for those who would follow him. His message stands in opposition to several statments that were uttered by his diciples in letters after his passing. I will not dispute the words of Christ, but I will dispute the presence of certain writings being included as biblical cannon. Does that make sense? As I said, I may be in eror in this evaluation, but I know I am not alone in this view. Bible cannon is a constant source of theological debate. There are books refered to by biblical scribes that have not been included...are they any less relevant than say "Song of Solomon" (a lengthy love poem by a king to a woman)?
Therefore loving a person does not require condoning their actions.
And refusing to approve of a person's actions is not the same as rejecting that person.
I am reminded of a child stealing cookies from the cookie jar and getting caught by his mother. That child may have wanted those cookies, and that child will feel he is entirely right in his own eyes - in which case he will instantly conclude his mother must hate him because she didn't approve of his actions - stealing the cookies. But the child's mother knows better than the child, and she punishes him because she loves him. She opposes his actions because she knows his actions are potentially harmful to him in the short term, and would encourage patterns of self-destructive behavior in the long run.
The rules in the Bible aren't put there to justify social evils or to divide societies or to make people feel inferior. They're put there to promote people's mental, physical, and spiritual well-being.
The fact that the Bible stresses the importance of love and compassion in many places does not mitigate its statements on what is right and wrong. While you cannot pick and choose what passages of Scripture you want to believe without rendering the entire Book useless, you have to interpret any passage in the context of Scripture as a whole, which precludes attempting to justify a position specifically condemned elsewhere.
Homosexual acts are specifically addressed in both Old and New Testaments, and in both places they are addressed as sins. Not worse than any other sins, granted, but as I've been saying homosexuals are no worse than anyone else. The difference is this. In both the Bible and the laws of the United States - both church and state - we have laws against stealing (larceny), lying (perjury), murder (homicide), cheating (fraud), and so on. Now, you can nitpick about things like adultery and covetousness and so on, but... ummm... yeah, stones.
When Jesus spoke to the woman caught in adultery, He told her He did not condemn her - and in the very next sentence instructed her to 'go and sin no more.' Clearly, while God's love reaches out to a person despite their sins, it does not excuse the sin, nor does it mitigate any potential consequences.
Honestly, to push an argument through for gay rights, you'd have better luck dispensing with the Christian faith entirely - in which case I'd probably be out of your hair.
I'm not gonna pass judgment on people, just actions. I'm still your buddy, klinton - if you really feel like putting up with me.
I think it's safe to assume most of us are sinners here according to the Bible. What we have with homosexuality is basically a sin that doesn't hurt or harm anybody (unlike the other sins) Actually it's the act of sodomy itself that is being talked about in scripture as an abomination not the person. It goes against what he created. The thing is it's an abomination because men & women were made to get together & procreate. What would God say about the pill? Probably the same thing he said about masterbation. Thou shall not spill! Again we all seem to be in the same boat yet some have to sit in the back because their different.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: How did we get 6 pages on what should be a no-brainer?
If gays want to get married, good luck to them.
I wouldn't call it a no-brainer at all. It is the basic alteration of hundreds (even thousands) of years of tradition and policy. I think one can reasonably expect people to disagree on such a matter.
Pig Iron your all or nothing argument makes sense yet ...He used man as his instument. Man is not perfect. History has many examples of organized religion being corrupt & doing ungodly things in God's name. Also the Bible has that warning to those that would try to alter it or add to it. Why would that be needed if there was no danger of that happening? Why does Paul at one point tell young people not to bother getting married because the end was coming? Can't we safely assume he was wrong about that one?
quote:Originally posted by Dave: I read "tradition and policy" as "homophobia".
I read "homophobia" as daring to voice an intelligent opinion that bucks the opinion of the gay/liberal community, and being falsely labelled a "hater" of some kind, to undermine dismissively the logic and intelligence of those views.
Klinton, my post was not directed at you personally or atleast you alone. I had just seen several posts that were disputing certain parts of the bible and then claiming other parts. I see that all the time and it bothers me. Matter Eater man, I will have to research what you were talking about and I know the verse about adding or subtracting scripture or meaning already. You've given me something to ponder.
Sammich, I basically agree with you myself. I'm just here rambling...trying my best to help, not that it's needed. Crazily enough this conversation has been very contained and orderly..amazing.. usually people on either side can't be reasonable at all...
It's nice hearing sensible and knowledgable people dicussing isues. And if people read this they might just learn something if they have an open mind and actually listen..on either position.
Pig Iron, I'll try to find that bit where Paul is talking about marriage this evening. Kinda unfair throwing things at you & not sourcing them. It is nice seeing a long thread on this topic by many people remaining civil.
It's nearly impossible to sort out a debate like that without a long, drawn-out examination of different passages and how they relate. Probably not good material for this particular thread.
Pig Iron I'm still looking but can't find the dang thing! Captain Sammich your right. I would add that also pertains to other passages Dave the wonder boy has used. Put in their historical context those passages that seem antigay had different meanings than what they do today. I recommend "What the Bible really says about homosexuallity" for anybody interested.
I think a large part of what this argument boils down to is whether or not marriage is a solely Christian institution.
And yes it is, if you're talking about a church wedding with a priest and rice throwing and bibles and such.
But then there's simply weddings as a union by the state, which is practiced by many non-Christian heterosexual couples. The latter is what the gay marriage advocates are pushing for. Does the church have a monopoly on that? Can the bible dictate which couples the government is allowed to say 'yes, you are married, with the legal privileges and responsibilities that entails'? I don't think so.
If the bible is truly against homosexuality (I haven't done the research some of you have, so I can't say definitively... it's obviously a touchy subject), and the church takes it's instructions straight from the bible... then okay, maybe gays can't have a church wedding. As much as the homophobia inherent in that sickens me, and as weird as I find it that people take their orders from a two thousand year old book, we can't force people to change their rituals or beliefs. But from what I've read and people I've spoken to, a church wedding's not what they want. It's just the piece of paper, the legal recognition. Which, at least in my frame of reference, constitutes a perfectly good 'marriage'.
I could have been more offensive but that would have meant a longer post.
I don't hate anyone. I don't hate homosexuals.
But I don't approve of their actions.
And my conscience would not permit me not to oppose laws sanctioning such actions.
But that's just me.
Are you yankin' my chain, Cap'n?!!? You are really against same-sex marriages??? Why on earth for? On what moral/ethical grounds would you see fit to stand against the rights of gays and lesbians to get married? And please don't drag out the bible--- the seperation of church and state takes care of that tired old saw.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: I think it's safe to assume most of us are sinners here according to the Bible. What we have with homosexuality is basically a sin that doesn't hurt or harm anybody (unlike the other sins) Actually it's the act of sodomy itself that is being talked about in scripture as an abomination not the person. It goes against what he created. The thing is it's an abomination because men & women were made to get together & procreate. What would God say about the pill? Probably the same thing he said about masterbation. Thou shall not spill! Again we all seem to be in the same boat yet some have to sit in the back because their different.
Good post. Damn, I'll never understand why bible-thumpers always have to make gays "public enemy number one" amongst all sinners... sheesh!
The bible should have 0 bearing on the legality of same-sex marriages, anyway.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: I read "tradition and policy" as "homophobia".
I read "homophobia" as daring to voice an intelligent opinion that bucks the opinion of the gay/liberal community, and being falsely labelled a "hater" of some kind, to undermine dismissively the logic and intelligence of those views.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: I read "tradition and policy" as "homophobia".
I read "homophobia" as daring to voice an intelligent opinion that bucks the opinion of the gay/liberal community, and being falsely labelled a "hater" of some kind, to undermine dismissively the logic and intelligence of those views.
Well, I'm sure someone has probably already beaten me to the punch, but here goes: Dave, there is NO "logic and intelligence" to a "view" that slams homosexuality. There are 0 justified moral/ethical grounds to discriminate against gays in any way. Puff up and talk about the big, bad "liberal/homosexual agenda and/or media" all you want--- start flinging bible quotes all you want--- but in the end that's just a lot of hot air that boils down to one thing: you don't like homosexuality because YOU just don't like it. Period. Which is your right, of course--- but that hardly makes it a "logical or intelligent viewpoint".
quote:Originally posted by Danny: I think a large part of what this argument boils down to is whether or not marriage is a solely Christian institution.
And yes it is, if you're talking about a church wedding with a priest and rice throwing and bibles and such.
But then there's simply weddings as a union by the state, which is practiced by many non-Christian heterosexual couples. The latter is what the gay marriage advocates are pushing for. Does the church have a monopoly on that? Can the bible dictate which couples the government is allowed to say 'yes, you are married, with the legal privileges and responsibilities that entails'? I don't think so.
If the bible is truly against homosexuality (I haven't done the research some of you have, so I can't say definitively... it's obviously a touchy subject), and the church takes it's instructions straight from the bible... then okay, maybe gays can't have a church wedding. As much as the homophobia inherent in that sickens me, and as weird as I find it that people take their orders from a two thousand year old book, we can't force people to change their rituals or beliefs. But from what I've read and people I've spoken to, a church wedding's not what they want. It's just the piece of paper, the legal recognition. Which, at least in my frame of reference, constitutes a perfectly good 'marriage'.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: It requires a rethink of marriage in general to say that homosexual and heterosexual couples should have the same marital rights and responsibilities. The practices of marriage as they are commonly understood in Western society today stem largely from Judeo-Christian practices based upon Judeo-Christian scriptures - which do not condone homosexuality. All I'm saying is that you can't extend the concept of marriage as we know it now to fit something contrary to the precepts upon which that concept is built and by which it has been defined for most of our society's history. You can't change such an entrenched aspect of society without having to re-write many other precepts as well - after which you're not left with much to go on anyway. If you're that intent on making homosexual and heterosexual couples equal, you may as well throw out the marriage idea entirely. At least that's my perspective.
To me, the idea of legitimizing homosexual marriages may not directly interfere with my personal life, but the impact I feel it would have on society would ultimately affect everyone. That may not be terribly politically correct or tolerant of me, but I'm sure there are more horrible things I could be guilty of. Nothing personal, really. Like I said, I don't hate anybody. I'm just not willing to condone through silence any actions I don't approve of.
Nothing personal??? Geez, how can you utter all that complete horse poop that makes up your entire post--- offensive, senseless horse poop, without a doubt--- and then say "nothing personal"? That's absolutely mystifying!
Why can't people just mind their own business, for crying out loud? Why concern yourself to such a ridiculous degree with the relationship/marriage of two consenting adult STRANGERS? It's just hard to fathom the mind of someone who honestly supports continued discrimination against gays and lesbians throughout the world.
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: Damn, I'll never understand why bible-thumpers always have to make gays "public enemy number one" amongst all sinners... sheesh!
I agree with this. It comes off as hate as opposed to strict adherence to doctrine.
Matt, you're diminishing your near-legendary level of likability as a newbie poster.
We've been over pretty much everything you said in exhaustive detail. And we (most of us) were just about to reach an understanding. This does not help matters at all.
I'm sure you have many wonderful nuggets of previously-unheard truth with which to enlighten us, and this dragging already-resolved points of discussion out for yet another unnecessary review is just a phase. But please attempt to be constructive in your statements - there has been enough bashing of conservatives and liberals alike in here as it is.
I usually enjoy what you have to say. Don't spoil your track record as a largely objective, helpful poster by tossing out wooden, party-line, obscenely tired statements that will only lead to another round of broken-record liberal-vs.-conservative shouting matches.
I wouldn't get after you unless I really wanted to hear what else you have to say.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: I read "tradition and policy" as "homophobia".
I read "homophobia" as daring to voice an intelligent opinion that bucks the opinion of the gay/liberal community, and being falsely labelled a "hater" of some kind, to undermine dismissively the logic and intelligence of those views.
No. You can challenge the opinions of the gay/liberal community as much as you like, and you can do it in a valid, fair, intelligent and even compassionate way.
But when you deny someone the right to do the same thing you can do, simply because they like having sex with someone of their same gender, then you are a homophobe.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: I think it's safe to assume most of us are sinners here according to the Bible. What we have with homosexuality is basically a sin that doesn't hurt or harm anybody (unlike the other sins) Actually it's the act of sodomy itself that is being talked about in scripture as an abomination not the person. It goes against what he created. The thing is it's an abomination because men & women were made to get together & procreate. What would God say about the pill? Probably the same thing he said about masterbation. Thou shall not spill! Again we all seem to be in the same boat yet some have to sit in the back because their different.
Good post. Damn, I'll never understand why bible-thumpers always have to make gays "public enemy number one" amongst all sinners... sheesh!
The bible should have 0 bearing on the legality of same-sex marriages, anyway.
Actually, since you obviously don't know what you're talking about, we "Bible thumpers" as you insist on labeing us, view pornography worse than homosexuality. But really, there isn't one sin we say is worse than the next. They're all bad, but among the more destructive one are pornography, witch craft, devil worhiping, and homosexuality.
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: Damn, I'll never understand why bible-thumpers always have to make gays "public enemy number one" amongst all sinners... sheesh!
I agree with this. It comes off as hate as opposed to strict adherence to doctrine.
So you're saying, if we opose devil worshiping or porn, or whatever else, because the Bible tells us to, then you'll say the same thing?
quote: Quotations by learned men from the 19th century:
"[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts." Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America. 1,2
"There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral." Rev. Alexander Campbell
"The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example." Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist, of South Carolina
"The hope of civilization itself hangs on the defeat of Negro suffrage." A statement by a prominent 19th-century southern Presbyterian pastor, cited by Rev. Jack Rogers, moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
"The doom of Ham has been branded on the form and features of his African descendants. The hand of fate has united his color and destiny. Man cannot separate what God hath joined." United States Senator James Henry Hammond.
The quotation by Jefferson Davis, listed above, reflected the beliefs of many Americans in the 19th century. Slavery was seen as having been "sanctioned in the Bible." They argued that:
Biblical passages recognized, controlled, and regulated the practice. The Bible permitted owners to beat their slaves severely, even to the point of killing them. However, as long as the slave lingered longer than 24 hours before dying of the abuse, the owner was not regarded as having committed a crime, because -- after all -- the slave was his property. 4 Paul had every opportunity to write in one of his Epistles that human slavery -- the owning of one person as a piece of property by another -- is profoundly evil. His letter to Philemon would have been an ideal opportunity to vilify slavery. But he wrote not one word of criticism. Jesus could have condemned the practice. He might have done so. But there is no record of him having said anything negative about the institution.
Eventually, the abolitionists gained sufficient power to eradicate slavery in most areas of the world by the end of the 19th century. Slavery was eventually recognized as a extreme evil. But this paradigm shift in understanding came at a cost. Christians wondered why the Bible was so supportive of such an immoral practice. They questioned whether the Bible was entirely reliable. Perhaps there were other practices that it accepted as normal which were profoundly evil -- like genocide, torturing prisoners, raping female prisoners of war, executing religious minorities, burning some hookers alive, etc. The innocent faith that Christians had in "the Good Book" was lost -- never to be fully regained.
Nowadays, in our enlightened age, we correctly recognise slavery as an intolerable abomination, against ever precept of human dignity, fairness and conscience. The Bible on this issue is wrong.
I take the same view on homosexuality. A refusal to allow or accept that some people choose to have sex with other free-thinking individuals of the same gender is pure intolerance.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: I read "tradition and policy" as "homophobia".
I read "homophobia" as daring to voice an intelligent opinion that bucks the opinion of the gay/liberal community, and being falsely labelled a "hater" of some kind, to undermine dismissively the logic and intelligence of those views.
No. You can challenge the opinions of the gay/liberal community as much as you like, and you can do it in a valid, fair, intelligent and even compassionate way.
But when you deny someone the right to do the same thing you can do, simply because they like having sex with someone of their same gender, then you are a homophobe.
Name-calling isn't usually your style, Dave.
I don't like being slapped with labels that undermine the logic of what I've said. I've quoted Biblical verses at length to show that the Bible and homosexuality are absolutely not compatible. Gays have rights, up to the point that they choose to stomp on someone else's religion and lifestyle. As I've said. Repeatedly.
And after making my point logically, four posters ignoring the logic of what I've said come right back, ignoring the above, and call me a homophobe, or equivalent nonsense.
I already said, REPEATEDLY, as many here have ignored and forced me to repeat, that I support gays' right to have some kind of life-partner gay union equivalent of marriage, so long as they don't drape it in Christianity, and doing so attempt to pervert the meaning of Christianity and the Bible ITSELF.
Gays in a democratic society have a right to their lifestyle. Christians in a democratic society have a right to their lifestyle.
But the concept of gay marriage interferes with that balance, and urinates on the basic teachings of Christianity. (and yes, yes, I know other religions and cultures have marriage traditions as well, and I already covered that as well, in detail, for those who will bother to read the last two topic pages.)
I don't expect insults and sweeping generalizations from you, Dave.
Although they're par for the course for OMEGA MAN (a.k.a. The SENSITIVE Gourmet, a.k.a. Wilder Midnight, a.k.a. Star-butted sneetch, a.k.a. Matt Kennedy.) His comments are, as usual, completely unworthy of response.
Matter Eater Man, and Danny, raise issues slightly less offensively, but still regurgitate the same sweeping statements about conservatives and Christians ( even as they bash Christians and conservatives with closed-minded "hate" stereotypes, for allegedly using the same type of sweeping generalizations they accuse Christians/conservatives of making about gays. The difference is, it has already been proven in this topic that gay ideology attempts to re-write and corrupt the Bible, and how this relates directly to the absurd concept of gay marriage, especially gay marriage dressed in a Christian mask)
I've answered those accusations in detail already, and disproven them. As has Captain Sammitch in his posts.
I mean geez, why don't you guys actually read what we've said before making these kind of statements?
Let me clarify that it was never my intention to bash Christians or conservatives. I said I found it silly to take your orders from an old book, but that's me. I find it silly. If someone else wants to, more power to them. No skin off my nose. As long as they don't use it as justification for attacking others.
And DaveTWB, I don't think anyone wants to drape anything in Christiantiy. The goal here is state sponsored marriage, not church weddings. Which I believe are two separate things. Being married in the eyes of the government, and being married in the eyes of God, are not the same thing.
That response ignores the attempts to rationalize gay marriage within the context of the Bible, right here in this topic, at length. (Again, see the last two topic pages)
To say nothing of the wider attempt to rationalize this mindset (that gay marriage is compatible with Christianity), across the country. If a Christian ( or others, who believe marriage is clearly one man and one woman, a heterosexual union exclusively) voices objection, however clearly and logically, in defense of their traditional beliefs, they are stereotyped as closed-minded. It seems to me the opposite, that gays and liberals choose to close THEIR minds to the facts of irreconcilable inconsistency of a gay/Christian merging in the concept of gay marriage.
It is gays and liberals who choose to ignore the inconsistencies of logic inherent in gay marriage. And choose to ignore that it won't stop there, that gay marriage will keep pushing for further concessions, until even reading Bible verses condemning homosexuality will be called a "hate-crime". Or in other ways force an unwilling Christian public, and also an unwilling NON-Christian public, to accept something they know to be wrong. A gay/liberal movement that will push to undermine the truth, and to eventually prevent the truth from being said.
Even the above left-leaning Mother Jones article gives some token acknowledgement to the truth, even as it tries to portray conservatives negatively:
quote:Mother Jones article on Vermont court ruling, on gay civil unions: The tall white steeple of the Cambridge United Church has been standing watch over the rural community of Cambridge, Vermont, for more than a century. The church graces the valley beneath Mount Mansfield, Vermont's highest peak... Reverend Craig Bensen ... the bearded clergyman extends a friendly greeting.
Bensen has been pastor of the Cambridge United Church for 23 years. He is also co-founder and vice president of Take It to the People (TIP), a group formed in 1997 to oppose the legalization of same-sex marriage in Vermont. So strongly does Bensen feel about the issue that he renounced his congregation's affiliation with the United Church of Christ, which he claims supports same-sex marriage. "Our congregation is about 98 percent solidly pro-traditional marriage and believes in no special rights for homosexual individuals," he asserts.
I ask Bensen how allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry or form domestic partnerships will affect heterosexual couples. He acknowledges that same-sex marriage may not affect individuals who are married, but it undermines the institution of marriage. He contends that same-sex marriage "removes any distinction for traditional marriage as the fundamental unit of society. And society will ultimately suffer because of that." He insists that "one man and one woman is the building block" of civilization.
"Gay unions given the status of law means that the state of Vermont says that motherless or fatherless families will not have an adverse effect on children." ... "That, from a developmental-psychology point of view, is a lie." He also believes that 90 percent of gay men were sexually abused as preadolescents. I ask if he feels that same-sex marriage is an issue of civil rights. He says dismissively, "Civil rights talk is political cover for politicians who don't want to listen to what people have to say."
It is the contention of Bensen and Take It to the People that changing the rules of marriage should be the subject of popular referendum, not judicial fiat. "Being cut out of the process makes the people angry," he warns.
A February poll showed that Vermonters were about evenly divided on whether or not to allow gay couples to form "civil unions"; another poll in late April concluded that 52 percent of Vermonters opposed the new law, while 43 percent supported it. But Bensen and TIP are confident that if it were put on a ballot, voters would disapprove of civil unions. TIP, along with Vermont Catholic Bishop Kenneth Angell, suggested a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as being between one man and one woman -- thereby negating the Vermont Supreme Court ruling. The proposed amendment was killed in the state Senate in a 17-13 vote.
Once again proving that a few well-positioned liberals can undermine a majority, and corrupt what a majority believe, right out from under them.
I don't profess to be familiar enough with the bible to state conclusively 'the Bible says this' or 'the Bible approves of that'. But see the earlier posts about the condoning of slavery. Maybe the Bible isn't the be-all and end-all moral guide.
Anyway, I'm not about to dictate to Christians what their religion is and isn't compatible with. They know their own religion better than me. What I will say is that I won't always agree with them, and if they're going to have some views that I find offensive or discriminatory, then we should all work to change those views.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: I read "tradition and policy" as "homophobia".
I read "homophobia" as daring to voice an intelligent opinion that bucks the opinion of the gay/liberal community, and being falsely labelled a "hater" of some kind, to undermine dismissively the logic and intelligence of those views.
No. You can challenge the opinions of the gay/liberal community as much as you like, and you can do it in a valid, fair, intelligent and even compassionate way.
But when you deny someone the right to do the same thing you can do, simply because they like having sex with someone of their same gender, then you are a homophobe.
Name-calling isn't usually your style, Dave.
I think I haven't been clear, sorry, Dave. Its not my style. I wasn't name calling. I was calling it as I see it. You'll note I hadn't been involved in the Christian debate - it had no interest to me until I read Batwoman's post. The comment was directed against the comment that "tradition and policy" should stifle the right to a gay marriage.
Also, the use of the word "you" wasn't directed at anyone specifically, though, Dave: it was a generic "you".
It was not meant to be an attack on Christian beliefs.
I will however do that now.
quote: I don't like being slapped with labels that undermine the logic of what I've said. I've quoted Biblical verses at length to show that the Bible and homosexuality are absolutely not compatible. Gays have rights, up to the point that they choose to stomp on someone else's religion and lifestyle. As I've said. Repeatedly.
And after making my point logically, four posters ignoring the logic of what I've said come right back, ignoring the above, and call me a homophobe, or equivalent nonsense.
I already said, REPEATEDLY, as many here have ignored and forced me to repeat, that I support gays' right to have some kind of life-partner gay union equivalent of marriage, so long as they don't drape it in Christianity, and doing so attempt to pervert the meaning of Christianity and the Bible ITSELF.
Gays in a democratic society have a right to their lifestyle. Christians in a democratic society have a right to their lifestyle.
But the concept of gay marriage interferes with that balance, and urinates on the basic teachings of Christianity. (and yes, yes, I know other religions and cultures have marriage traditions as well, and I already covered that as well, in detail, for those who will bother to read the last two topic pages.)
I don't expect insults and sweeping generalizations from you, Dave.
Although they're par for the course for OMEGA MAN (a.k.a. The SENSITIVE Gourmet, a.k.a. Wilder Midnight, a.k.a. Star-butted sneetch, a.k.a. Matt Kennedy.) His comments are, as usual, completely unworthy of response.
Matter Eater Man, and Danny, raise issues slightly less offensively, but still regurgitate the same sweeping statements about conservatives and Christians ( even as they bash Christians and conservatives with closed-minded "hate" stereotypes, for allegedly using the same type of sweeping generalizations they accuse Christians/conservatives of making about gays. The difference is, it has already been proven in this topic that gay ideology attempts to re-write and corrupt the Bible, and how this relates directly to the absurd concept of gay marriage, especially in a Christian mask)
I've answered those accusations in detail already, and disproven them. As has Captain Sammitch in his posts.
I mean geez, why don't you guys actually read what we've said before making these kind of statements?
Perhaps I'm used to Christian perspectives being more tolerant of alternative lifestyles.
You see, one of the few attractions for Christianity to me is its tolerance. The Christianity I am used to in liberal Australia is broad-minded, intelligent, and flexible to change. My most recent exposure was not in fact that recent: quite a few years back now, I dated the daughter of the Anglican Archbishop of Perth for quite a while. Archbishop Carnley is an extremely intelligent man, and now the Australian primate (head of the Anglican Church in Australia). He has allowed women to be admitted as priests, and supports heroin trials. (I have no idea what his views on homosexuality are.)
I'm rapidly realising that the Christianity I've seen in practice and admired is radical Christianity.
A quick set of examples, to make my point:
If I was career criminal, would I be allowed to be a practicing Christian? Of course. Could I be married in a church? Sure.
If I was a drug abuser, would I be allowed to be a practicing Christian? You bet. Get married in a church? Yep.
If I was a disgraced politician, would the Church close its doors to me? No, it would not let me down. Could I get married in a church? No problem.
So, the Church will accept a sincere oath of marriage from criminals, drug addicts, and betrayers of the public trust, but it will not accept the same sincere oath from gays?
Homosexuality has no victims. It is on the same level as being black or white, a Pistons fan or a Lakers fan, a drinker of beer or of wine. You can choose to love a man, or a woman, or both. There is no harm to anyone. I know gays who have contributed to society in many positive ways, who are successful in their fields, who are leaders in the community.
Yet the Church will not allow that person to get married to the person of the same gender?
If reconsideration of this issue means "re-writing and corrupting the Bible" as you have said, Dave, then, like ignoring the passages condoning slavery which I have set out above, I'm all for it.
There is no place in a tolerant society for an intolerant Church. And especially a Christian church, which prides itself in this contemporary age on tolerance.
DaveTWB, your argument implies that people who have had sex should not be allowed to be married. Or people who have looked at pornography. "No, I'm sorry, you can't be married. You coveted your neighbour's wife." These things are apparently against the word of the bible. Therefore, by your logic, allowing those guilty to be married would undermine the Christian church.
Your argument also continues to rely on the presumption that the institution of marriage, and the Christian churche are inextricably linked. I contend that such is not the case.
Matt, you're diminishing your near-legendary level of likability as a newbie poster.
We've been over pretty much everything you said in exhaustive detail. And we (most of us) were just about to reach an understanding. This does not help matters at all.
I'm sure you have many wonderful nuggets of previously-unheard truth with which to enlighten us, and this dragging already-resolved points of discussion out for yet another unnecessary review is just a phase. But please attempt to be constructive in your statements - there has been enough bashing of conservatives and liberals alike in here as it is.
I usually enjoy what you have to say. Don't spoil your track record as a largely objective, helpful poster by tossing out wooden, party-line, obscenely tired statements that will only lead to another round of broken-record liberal-vs.-conservative shouting matches.
I wouldn't get after you unless I really wanted to hear what else you have to say.
Hey, I admit that I didn't get very far into reading this thread (I read about 2 pages worth yesterday, I guess) before I jumped in with my 2 cent's worth--- I was just responding to your earlier writings in this thread, that's true. But while I'm pleased as punch that you like me so well, Cap'n--- it makes me feel all warm and woogly inside, it really does --- if you still stand by those words that I quoted then I have to respectfully stand by MY responses to said quotes.
Forget the bible, forget "tradition", forget any other half-baked excuse that tries to justify continued discrimination against gays and lesbians. Gays and lesbians should be afforded the same rights and benefits (not "special rights" as so many willfully obtuse people like to call them, but EQUAL rights) as heterosexuals. Period.
quote:Originally posted by Danny: Let me clarify that it was never my intention to bash Christians or conservatives. I said I found it silly to take your orders from an old book, but that's me. I find it silly. If someone else wants to, more power to them. No skin off my nose. As long as they don't use it as justification for attacking others.
__________________________________________ My feelings exactly.
--- Matt K.
And DaveTWB, I don't think anyone wants to drape anything in Christiantiy. The goal here is state sponsored marriage, not church weddings. Which I believe are two separate things. Being married in the eyes of the government, and being married in the eyes of God, are not the same thing.
I agree. (We think so alike that we must have been separated at birth, Danny--- maybe a wild pack of Australian Dingoes carried me away as a baby and then I was found and adopted by American tourists on vacation in the land of OZ? )
Dave The Wonder Boy: RE: my alt IDs on the old DC messageboard: Ooh, aren't you such a super-slueth? I publicly admitted that I was Star-Butted-Sneetch ( that one I gave away on the old DC Legion board) and The SENSITIVE Gourmet (I "outed" myself on this ID on the old DC Direct forum) even WHILE I was using them, Einstein--- I used those "handles" during various periods where I was banned, but my "real" identity was never any secret. Your goofball paranoia is showing on "Wilder Midnight", however--- I have no earthly idea who that fellow is.
You really "cracked the case" on that OMEGA MAN discovery, too. You DID notice my siggy, didn't you? You know, the one that I've had on every single post since I came here to Rob's Boards? Sheesh...
MY posts aren't worth responding to, dear Wonder Davey? Well, I feel the same way about the tiresome, devisive tripe that's coming out of your repulsive blow-hole as well. But since Typhoid Dave is handing you your ass debate-wise I really don't feel the need to respond to you, anyway--- I'll just sit back and let the sensible Dave do all the work.
quote: WASHINGTON (CNN) – The Supreme Court struck down a Texas ban on gay sex Thursday, ruling that the law was an unconstitutional violation of privacy.
The justices voted 6-3 in striking down the Texas law, saying it violated due process guarantees.
The case was seen as testing the constitutionality of anti-sodomy laws in 13 states. The justices reviewed the prosecution of two men under a 28-year-old Texas law making it a crime to engage in same-sex intercourse.
John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner were arrested in a Houston-area apartment in 1998 by officers responding to a neighbor's false report of an armed intruder. That neighbor wrongly claimed a man was "going crazy" inside the residence. Police crashed into Lawrence's home and discovered Lawrence and Garner involved in a sexual act. They were arrested, jailed overnight and later fined $200.
"It was sort of like the Gestapo coming in," said Lawrence after a court appearance.
The men's lawyers had said that if the convictions were upheld, their clients would be prevented from obtaining from certain jobs and they would also be considered sex offenders in several states. The Texas law, they told the court, gives gay Americans second-class status as citizens.
"I feel like my civil rights were being violated," said Garner, "and I don't think I was doing anything wrong."
Lawrence and Garner were charged under Texas' "homosexual conduct" law, which criminalizes "deviate sexual intercourse with another individual of the same sex." Although only 13 states now criminalize consensual sodomy, a Texas state appeals court found the law "advances a legitimate state interest, namely, preserving public morals."
Landscape has changed since 1986 ruling The last time the Supreme Court addressed the issue of was in 1986, when the court upheld a Georgia anti-sodomy law. Since then, much has changed in U.S. culture, say gay rights supporters, including changes in public attitudes and the fact that such laws are rarely enforced.
"The state should not have the power to go into the bedrooms of consenting adults in the middle of the night and arrest them," said Ruth Harlow of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a gay-rights group representing the two Texas men.
"These laws are widely used to justify discrimination against gay people in everyday life; they're invoked in denying employment to gay people, in refusing custody or visitation for gay parents, and even in intimidating gay people out of exercising their First Amendment rights."
Lambda cited recent U.S. Census figures showing about 600,000 households with same-sex partners, 43,000 or so in Texas.
Texas prosecutors argued the government has the right to enforce public morality. Supporters of the Texas law say states have long regulated behavior deemed "immoral," including gambling and prostitution.
"The government has a legitimate interest in helping preserve not only public health, but public morals as well," said Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council, which filed a legal brief backing Texas. "The mere fact that this behavior occurs in private doesn't mean the public doesn't have a stake in these behaviors."
The 1986 Supreme Court ruling, Bowers v. Hardwick, upheld a Georgia state law that effectively made homosexual sexual behavior a crime. In 1998, however, the Georgia Supreme Court overturned that state law.
The late Justice Lewis Powell, the deciding vote in the 5-4 Bowers decision, said afterward that he probably made a mistake with his decision on that case.
State laws have existed for more than a century State sodomy laws have been on the books for a century or more, and generally define the act sodomy as "abnormal" sex, including oral and anal sex. Such laws were on the books of every state as recently as 1960.
Legal experts on both sides of the issue acknowledge such laws are rarely enforced, but can serve to underpin a basic message of morality in society that courts and government have supported.
The 1986 Bowers case focused on the right to privacy. By the time of Bowers, only half the states carried criminal sodomy laws, and now only a fourth do.
In a 1996 decision, Romer v. Evans, the court voted 6-3 to overturn a Colorado amendment that barred local governments from enacting ordinances to protect gays.
The case has entered the national political debate, stirred by recent comments from Sen. Rick Santorum. The Pennsylvania Republican told The Associated Press in May, "If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery, you have the right to anything."
Santorum defended his remarks but some fellow Republicans distanced themselves from them.
The case is Lawrence and Garner v. Texas, case no. 02-0102).
Interesting that it was 6-3. I was predicting 5-4 the other way.
It doesn't say, but I'd bet my left nut that the 3 were Scalia, Thomas and the Chief.
O'Connor MUST be on her way out. This, along with the Aff. Action cases, are last minute legacies for a moderate Justice!
How strongly will these two landmark cases affect the SCOTUS nominations and confirmations?
Surely, Bush will be MUCH more determined to appoint an ideologue now.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: I read "tradition and policy" as "homophobia".
I read "homophobia" as daring to voice an intelligent opinion that bucks the opinion of the gay/liberal community, and being falsely labelled a "hater" of some kind, to undermine dismissively the logic and intelligence of those views.
No. You can challenge the opinions of the gay/liberal community as much as you like, and you can do it in a valid, fair, intelligent and even compassionate way.
But when you deny someone the right to do the same thing you can do, simply because they like having sex with someone of their same gender, then you are a homophobe.
Name-calling isn't usually your style, Dave.
I think I haven't been clear, sorry, Dave. Its not my style. I wasn't name calling. I was calling it as I see it. You'll note I hadn't been involved in the Christian debate - it had no interest to me until I read Batwoman's post. The comment was directed against the comment that "tradition and policy" should stifle the right to a gay marriage.
huh? Which post are you talking about? I've barly contributed to this thread becase DTWB has been doing a good job of explaining things, not to mention the fact that I keep missing everything.
Yeah, thanks, Willie. Great news. If something this sensible and just can go down in Texas (Nothing personal, Texans--- see how I just borrowed your "move", Cap'n S? ), then maybe there's still hope for the US to do the right thing by legalizing same-sex marriages down the road after all.
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: ...Forget the bible, forget "tradition", forget any other half-baked excuse that tries to justify continued discrimination against gays and lesbians. Gays and lesbians should be afforded the same rights and benefits (not "special rights" as so many willfully obtuse people like to call them, but EQUAL rights) as heterosexuals. Period.
Why?
I have heard plenty of people say that homosexuals and heterosexuals should have the same rights. You all seem to be very committed to that perspective (which I can respect, as I generally abhor compromise on issues of this magnitude), to the point that it's basically accepted as gospel (okay, could have chosen better words there) and anyone who disagrees immediately raises a red flag in your minds.
I am just genuinely curious as to what exactly makes that postulate true. What's your reasoning behind that? We would probably all feel more comfortable once both sides explain exactly why they feel the way they do.
This 'because homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals' line is starting to feel like a 'just because' explanation, which IMO isn't too much of an explanation at all. Perhaps if the supporters of gay rights would at least attempt to justify their position, it would be easier to come to a real understanding of the issue.
Dave, I appreciate your taking the time to respond and clarify.
Most of your statements are your opinion -vs- my opinion. You simply hold a different opinion than I do, and since I already clarified my opinion abundantly, I won't repeat myself again.
I'll just add comment to these points:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: If I was a career criminal, would I be allowed to be a practicing Christian? Of course. Could I be married in a church? Sure.
If I was a drug abuser, would I be allowed to be a practicing Christian? You bet. Get married in a church? Yep.
If I was a disgraced politician, would the Church close its doors to me? No, it would not let me down. Could I get married in a church? No problem.
So, the Church will accept a sincere oath of marriage from criminals, drug addicts, and betrayers of the public trust, but it will not accept the same sincere oath from gays?
The key point is that these previous 3 situations you list are for forgiven PAST TRANSGRESSIONS.
Christianity doesn't condone someone who continues to do the same anti-Biblical behavior ongoing, while attending church. Whether it's gay sex, heterosexual sex, political corruption, drug abuse, murder, or whatever. I think Captain Sammitch already quoted above from the new testament gospels, where Jesus saved a prostitute from being stoned and then said "Go, and sin no more."(JOHN 8, verses 1-11) http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=JOHN+8&language=english&version=NIV But the Bible (and Christianity) doesn't condone ongoing immorality.
I hasten to add that a reformed homosexual can attend church, and marry a spouse of the opposite sex.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Homosexuality has no victims. It is on the same level as being black or white, a Pistons fan or a Lakers fan, a drinker of beer or of wine. You can choose to love a man, or a woman, or both. There is no harm to anyone. I know gays who have contributed to society in many positive ways, who are successful in their fields, who are leaders in the community.
Homosexuality subtlely does have victims, as a result of its insideous corruptive nature.
Contrary to attempts by the gay-supporting liberal media to say otherwise, homosexuality still accounts for an overwhelming percentage of AIDS/HIV cases in the U.S. I read an article two weeks ago in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel newspaper (the major Fl Lauderdale area newspaper) that in Florida, about 80% of AIDS cases can be traced back to a gay or I.V. drug using sex partner, or the combination of the two. Nationally, that goes up to 83%. It's not that heterosexuals don't get AIDS too, but the numbers are overwhemingly gay men. Women most often get AIDS from a secretly bisexual partner.
And as I laid out at length in previous posts here, gay ideology seeks to re-write the Bible to suit its needs, which is inherently a corruption of Christianity. Heterosexuals who commit premarital/extramarital sex don't pretend their behavior is condoned by the Bible, and try to create traditions and ceremony that change/corrupt the meaning of Christianity. Homosexuality does attempt to re-write the Bible. ( As I believe Big Ol'Willie said above, if gays would not try to give Christian legitimacy to gay rights, they would no doubt meet far less resistance. )
To say nothing of the destructive nature of gay ideology, that condones their homosexual obsession, and prevents them from pursuing a normal heterosexual life, and instead to devoting their lives to fighting for their right to be corrupt and live a gay lifestyle.
In a democratic society, it is their right, I guess. But I don't agree with it, and I don't have to.
Christianity that is true to the Bible is not "closed minded". It is fighting for the best interests of society and mankind, and for the laws our creator gave us, and told us never to change or corrupt. There is absolutely no way you can convince me that homosexuality is not self-destructive and corrupting. The evidence of its corruptive and destructive nature, to individuals and to our society, is overwhelming as far as I'm concerned.
I think you clearly mean the other Dave, Bearguy57, and not me.
quote:Originally posted by Danny:
DaveTWB, your argument implies that people who have had sex should not be allowed to be married. Or people who have looked at pornography. "No, I'm sorry, you can't be married. You coveted your neighbour's wife." These things are apparently against the word of the bible. Therefore, by your logic, allowing those guilty to be married would undermine the Christian church.
This clearly is NOT what I said in my above posts.
I never said that if someone has had premarital sex, that they can never be married. To repeat myself, because you obviously weren't listening, any past transgressions can be forgiven, for someone who changes their way and begins living a life in line with Biblical teachings (i.e., who repents).
A gay person can be forgiven, and even marry a person of the opposite sex, after changing their life in accord with a Christian lifestyle.
quote:Originally posted by Danny:
Your argument also continues to rely on the presumption that the institution of marriage, and the Christian church are inextricably linked. I contend that such is not the case.
I raise the issue because gays try to wrap their "gay marriage" in Christian ceremony, whereas in contrast homosexuality is consistently portrayed Biblically as one of the most destructive plunges into decadence a society can take. Gays have the right to live together, and practice their lifestyle. They already have this, and have for roughly 20 years or more. What's occurring now goes beyond gay rights, and is instead a gay offensive on Christianity, and on other groups who would be content to allow homosexuals to have their subculture, if it were not thrust in the faces of the rest of us in the mainstream.
Gays don't have the right to change Christianity, as they're clearly trying to. It's no longer about gay rights, it's about a subversive legal agenda. Marriage and gay civil union are two separate things, the first clearly created by God in Genesis, and favored by God, and the latter clearly not. As I've said. Repeatedly. Please don't keep raising the same allegations to points I've already answered, in extensive detail.
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: MY posts aren't worth responding to, dear Wonder Davey? Well, I feel the same way about the tiresome, devisive tripe that's coming out of your repulsive blow-hole as well. But since Typhoid Dave is handing you your ass debate-wise ...
The high ratio of insults in your posts, coupled with the absolute vaccuum of anything meaningful you have to say, make every debate I've seen you jump into devolve to a foodfight of insults that derails any meaningful and intelligent discussion. Insults and nonsense that your last several posts, including what's quoted above, demonstrate quite well.
I think it's for others to decide if Dave is"handing [me] my ass debatewise..." I think I'm holding my own quite well, as are several others. While I respect Dave's alternative perspective, I don't think he or anyone else has come anywhere close to disproving what I've said here.
I have no animosity toward Dave. I definitely do toward you. You contribute nothing worthwhile to these or any other debates, beyond hurling insults and egging people on toward ugliness who share your liberal views.
I'd rather talk to the grown-up liberals here, who can intelligently and respectfully express their views.
Dave the wonder boy much of your theorys on homosexuality seems to be agenda based. Do these Institutes that degay people have results that jibe with the AMA? No they don't. They also are funded by organizations that have an agenda & surprisingly have results that support their claims. Aids strikes people who practice unsafe sex. The virus doesn't care about your orientation. Not sure what your particular religion is but I doubt it speaks for all or even most Christians (lots of Gay Christians out there fella for starters) I bring this up because at one point you claim people who don't buy your interpatation of the Bible are not Christian. That is for a fact unChristian behavior. end of part 1
My stance is this: Gays should have the right to get married. Religions most definitely keep their rights & beliefs. They however should not impose them on others. So if say the Catholic church won't do gay marriage that is their right. Now if say the Methodist Church wants to do them, than thats their right. Seems like a win win situation here. You would think anyway but there is the sancity of marriage argument making the rounds. Wow so much concern about a small percentage of the population. Where is that concern for the majority of the population? Whats the divorce rate these days? (it was over 50 percent) Why does the church allow people to remarry? The Bible is really clear about divorce. The new testament says remarriage is adultry. Defense of Marriage indeed! How is this not hypocrasy?
Captain, you asked why gays should have the right to marry. I ask you why shouldn't two people in love who want to make that commitment not get that option? I could argue it benefits everyone when a society treats all its citizens equally. I could also mention heterosexual people need no such justification. How do you like to be treated when you don't fit in with the crowd?
If you actually read DTWB's posts, you'd see that no where does he mention any kind of antigay institution. What he's refering to, since some people here need it spelled out, is prayer and forgivness from God. And since it's not obvious from his posts, he is a Christian, as everyone knows so am I and I agree with every thing he's said.
Batwoman a couple of pages back DWB said "As I said, I believe that it is a compulsion, an impulse, not inborn, and that it can be resisted, and virtually eliminated. There are many Christians who were practicing gays and lesbians, who are now happily married heterosexuals. So for some at least, perhaps all, homosexual desire can be overcome and eliminated. Not repressed, but just eliminated as a desire by a change in goals, perspective and priorities. "
Granted he doesn't say anything about an Institute. It does match their litrature though & I was going by memory. My mistake. So where does he get his conclusions though? I don't know any reformed homosexuals myself, I do know some self hating ones though or ones that had a long struggle with it. A result of a strict religous background IMHO
I agree with him. Prayer and forgivness are a part of it too. I know plenty of people who are either currently in a homosexual relationship, or who have persued that in the past. Now they claim they are gay, but in reality aren't, or have said they are bi, and are so not. I told Dave offboard of 3 examples of what I just said here. I wont go into detail because of who it is, but one of them I will at least say this. It's someone that grew up in a Christian home, grew up going to church, know's what the Bible says about homosexuality, and says they are willingly going againts God's word, but she's doing it anyhow. Oh and this person is still attracted to the opposite sex.
And don't think I'm siding with Dave on this one just to have someone in his corner either, I've talked to at least one friend about this from church and she agrees with what we've said 100%. In fact, she was over the other night and I showed her a post that klintion made on here where he took a passage from Mathew and misinterpreted it. My friend even said the same thing I did when she saw it. This isn't something that a select few Christians think, this is what is stated in Bible.
I would ask how your interpeting the Bible. By what it says in a literal way or a historical critical way. Looking at the Bible with it's historical context you get vastly different reading than a literal reading. Again I recomend "What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality" It looks at the actual Hebrew passages & takes into account the historical times & what is actually being said.
OK heres an example of the other way to interpet the Bible. The sin of Sodom wasn't homosexuality but inhospitality. That might sound silly but in it's historical setting & what actually happens it's the logical conclusion. As the story is referenced throughout the Bible it's not about sex but about how you treat strangers. Back then in the harsh desert climate you were supposed to take travelers in, even enemies. Raping the strangers would be as inhospitable as you could get. A common practice of armies at the time were to rape the losers. The term sodomy later came to mean anal sex. In the story it was at best male rape, a very different thing from homosexuality. So a story that was supposed to stress the importance of taking strangers in is commonly used against people who are thought to be strange (queer)
The book does a better detailed job but hopefully my attempt to paraphrase a bit of it didn't mangle it to much.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: I would ask how your interpeting the Bible. By what it says in a literal way or a historical critical way. Looking at the Bible with it's historical context you get vastly different reading than a literal reading. Again I recomend "What the Bible Really Says About Homosexuality" It looks at the actual Hebrew passages & takes into account the historical times & what is actually being said.
Read my quotations of the Bible, beginning with the first post on page 4. There is clearly no misinterpretation: that within the context of the Bible, homosexuality is a defining characteristic of a society so jaded that it is abandoned to self-destruction, shortly followed by destruction by God, IS UNMISTAKEABLE. There is no "interpretation", that is literally what it says. Again see GENESIS chapter 18 and 19, and ROMANS chapter 1. (How many times have I said this? 12 times? 20 times? )
The message is clear and indisputable, you just choose for your own reasons not to accept a point that has been clearly made, that this is unmistakeably what the Bible says. And to allow this false "Bible accepts the gay lifestyle" notion to slip by and be accepted as truth has a corrupting influence on society, and CHRISTIANITY ITSELF.
Attempting to change the subject and bring in divorce just muddies the issue. The issue we are discussing here is homosexuality. It's like if a guy is arrested for murder, and you say, Well we don't enforce sodomy laws in our state, therefore we shouldn't punish murderers either. Divorce is something I'm not wild about (being the child of a divorced family, I have some considerable experience on how hard that is on a family). But the fact that divorce exists doesn't absolve homosexuality. Divorce is another manifestation of our instant-gratification popular culture, that encourages adulterousness and breeds a lack of commitment, that needs to be addressed. But one does not rationalize the other, the existence of divorce does not make homosexuality acceptable. They are two separate issues to be addressed and resolved.
(There are situations where one can divorce legally, according to Jesus: 1) If your spouse has committed adultery, you are justified to divorce them. That is, again, an example of the sanctity of marriage, and violation of it by one partner frees the other to seek a faithful spouse. Although one can elect to reconcile, and try to save the marriage despite their partner's unfaithfulness.
and 2) Divorce is permissible if someone married as a non-Christian, and then divorced. At that point, they are free to find a Christian spouse. 1 CORINTHIANS 7: VERSES 15-16, among others. )
The slavery issue (which as I recall T-Dave and one other here raised) is a false issue. It was not something widely accepted by Christians. There is a verse in previous times used by some to falsely justifying slavery, that a vast percentage of Christians, --even in slavery times-- condemned as a non-Christian misinterpretation. Abolitionist John Brown, among others, was a Christian who gave his life in a rather violent effort to abolish slavery, in 1859. He truly despised the notion of slavery, and made it a holy mission to abolish it. As did others.
The verse is in Genesis chapter 9 is the one I've heard used to rationalize slavery. Specifically Genesis 9:verses 26-27. It is clearly a curse on Ham for mistreatment of Noah, and does not condemn any race or people to slavery, but specifically Noah's son Ham (and Ham's son Canaan and his descendents, for the corrupt pattern they would follow as well.) When the Jews left Egypt around 1400 B.C., they settled in the land of Canaan, remade the land and culture into Israel.
Anyone who doesn't have a Bible, here is an NIV you can access online to read any of these sections directly (as I linked with other verses earlier):
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: OK heres an example of the other way to interpet the Bible. The sin of Sodom wasn't homosexuality but inhospitality.
The book does a better detailed job but hopefully my attempt to paraphrase a bit of it didn't mangle it to much.
If GENESIS 19 and 20 were the only mention of homosexuality, I might say unlikely, but maybe.
But in the context of, and cross-reference with, the rest of the Bible, it is clear that homosexuality itself is what God condemns, to the point that it marks a civilization for destruction when it becomes prevalent.
"Lack of hospitality" is not the reason God destroyed Sodom and Gommorah. The reason for the destruction of these cities was well known in ancient times, and it is clear to any who are not homosexual what that reason is. Sodomy. Wanting to rape the very angels who came to save Lot and his family.
It was not "inhospitality" that compelled God to make the crater of these destroyed cities the lowest point on the planet Earth. There are no other crimes listed in this portion of Genesis, other than men sleeping with men, and men raping men, or attempting to. I'm frankly amazed at the level of denial here, to verses plainly stated.
quote:Genesis 19:1-5:
1 The two angels arrived at Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of the city. When he saw them, he got up to meet them and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 "My lords," he said, "please turn aside to your servant's house. You can wash your feet and spend the night and then go on your way early in the morning." "No," they answered, "we will spend the night in the square."
3 But he insisted so strongly that they did go with him and entered his house. He prepared a meal for them, baking bread without yeast, and they ate. 4 Before they had gone to bed, all the men from every part of the city of Sodom-both young and old-surrounded the house. 5 They called to Lot, "Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us so that we can have sex with them."
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: Batwoman, a couple of pages back DWB said: "As I said, I believe that it is a compulsion, an impulse, not inborn, and that it can be resisted, and virtually eliminated. There are many Christians who were practicing gays and lesbians, who are now happily married heterosexuals. So for some at least, perhaps all, homosexual desire can be overcome and eliminated. Not repressed, but just eliminated as a desire by a change in goals, perspective and priorities."
Granted he doesn't say anything about an Institute. It does match their litrature though & I was going by memory. My mistake. So where does he get his conclusions though? I don't know any reformed homosexuals myself, I do know some self hating ones though or ones that had a long struggle with it. A result of a strict religous background IMHO
I get my conclusions from many sources over the last 20 years. There are non-Christian conservatives who feel similarly, that gays try to create the idea that homosexuality is an inborn trait, and that it is a skewed scientific perspective, where gays in the scientific community, and those sympathetic to the gay position, basically fabricate the evidence of something indicating a "gay gene", or similar extrapolations. One article I saw was in TIME, that argued both the gay and the non-gay views from the scientific community. Sometime in the early/mid 1990's.
From Christian sources, if you were to watch The 700 Club or Coral Ridge Hour, I'm sure you'd see coverage of gay issues from the conservative/Christian perspective. One I don't watch as much who also discusses the Biblical position on homosexuality frequently is Hal Lindsey, on his program Wednesdays at 8:30 PM.
But my opinion on homosexuality was well established from secular sources, long before I ever gave the Christian news sources any serious consideration.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Dave, I appreciate your taking the time to respond and clarify.
Most of your statements are your opinion -vs- my opinion. You simply hold a different opinion than I do, and since I already clarified my opinion abundantly, I won't repeat myself again.
I'll just add comment to these points:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: If I was a career criminal, would I be allowed to be a practicing Christian? Of course. Could I be married in a church? Sure.
If I was a drug abuser, would I be allowed to be a practicing Christian? You bet. Get married in a church? Yep.
If I was a disgraced politician, would the Church close its doors to me? No, it would not let me down. Could I get married in a church? No problem.
So, the Church will accept a sincere oath of marriage from criminals, drug addicts, and betrayers of the public trust, but it will not accept the same sincere oath from gays?
The key point is that these previous 3 situations you list are for forgiven PAST TRANSGRESSIONS.
Nope. Only one of those examples is intended to be a "past transgression". You can be a practicing criminal, or an on-going drug abuser, and still get married in a Chritian church by giving a solemn oath to God.
quote:
Christianity doesn't condone someone who continues to do the same anti-Biblical behavior ongoing, while attending church. Whether it's gay sex, heterosexual sex, political corruption, drug abuse, murder, or whatever. I think Captain Sammitch already quoted above from the new testament gospels, where Jesus saved a prostitute from being stoned and then said "Go, and sin no more." But the Bible (and Christianity) doesn't condemn ongoing immorality.
I hasten to add that a reformed homosexual can attend church, and marry a spouse of the opposite sex.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Homosexuality has no victims. It is on the same level as being black or white, a Pistons fan or a Lakers fan, a drinker of beer or of wine. You can choose to love a man, or a woman, or both. There is no harm to anyone. I know gays who have contributed to society in many positive ways, who are successful in their fields, who are leaders in the community.
Homosexuality subtlely does have victims, as a result of its insideous corruptive nature.
This sounds very subjective. Lets look at your sole example of "insidiousness" or "corruption":
quote:
Contrary to attempts by the gay-supporting liberal media to say otherwise, homosexuality still accounts for an overwhelming percentage of AIDS/HIV cases in the U.S. I read an article two weeks ago in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel newspaper (the major Fl Lauderdale area newspaper) that in Florida, about 80% of AIDS cases can be traced back to a gay or I.V. drug using sex partner, or the combination of the two. Nationally, that goes up to 83%. It's not that heterosexuals don't get AIDS too, but the numbers are overwhemingly gay men. Women most often get AIDS from a secretly bisexual partner.
HIV/AIDS is a disease. There is nothing more morally insidious or corruptive about contracting HIV/AIDS than there is than being diagnosed with cancer.
quote:
And as I laid out at length in previous posts here, gay ideology seeks to re-write the Bible to suit its needs, which is inherently a corruption of Christianity.
As I've said, aspects of the Bible have been properly overlooked (I'm referring to slaver again, here), so I see no reason why condemnation of homosexuality cannot also be overlooked.
quote: Heterosexuals who commit premarital/extramarital sex don't pretend their behavior is condoned by the Bible, and try to create traditions and ceremony that change/corrupt the meaning of Christianity. Homosexuality does attempt to re-write the Bible. ( As I believe Big Ol'Willie said above, if gays would not try to give Christian legitimacy to gay rights, they would no doubt meet far less resistance. )
To say nothing of the destructive nature of gay ideology, that condones their homosexual obsession, and prevents them from pursuing a normal heterosexual life, and instead to devoting their lives to fighting for their right to be corrupt and live a gay lifestyle.
If I was prevented from dating or marrying someone of African or Oriental decent by law, because they belong to a slave culture and slavery is condoned by the Bible, I'd be fighting for my rights to do so tooth and nail. Or if I was prevented from teaching evolution in a school, even though Occam's Razor shows that it makes more sense than the Bible, I'd be protesting loudly. What is the difference in position with gays asserting their rights?
And your sole example of the corruptive nature of homosexuality - with respect, such as it is - does not automatically lead to a designation of the term "corruption" .
I think you have in mind the misconception that perverted gays corrupt youths, some sort of anal rape which forever turns the poor innocent over to the sordid path of homosexuality. But anecdotally, I've never met a gay man so inclined. It just doesn't work like that. Gays make a choice in this day and age. From what I understand, again anecdotally, its a very difficult decision because it runs counter to societal expectations - get married to someone of the opposite gender, have a family, that sort of thing.
quote:
In a democratic society, it is their right, I guess. But I don't agree with it, and I don't have to.
Christianity that is true to the Bible is not "closed minded". It is fighting for the best interests of society and mankind, and for the laws our creator gave us, and told us never to change or corrupt. There is absolutely no way you can convince me that homosexuality is not self-destructive and corrupting. The evidence of its corruptive and destructive nature, to individuals and to our society, is overwhelming as far as I'm concerned.
But you haven't given me any examples of its destructive or corruptive nature, other than HIV/AIDS, which even you concede is capable of being transmitted by straight people, and obviously people who use needles or have unsafe blood transfusions.
Is it destructive to a culture? Our cultures revere the ancient Greeks, their philosophers, their history, their military victories, all factors leading to Ancient Greece being considered a golden age. And yet they were a bisexual society: Socrates regarded homosexuality as quite ordinary. The bravest and toughest of them all, the Spartans, were the most flagrantly homosexual.
Richard the Lionheart, who was the flower of English chivalry, was openly homosexual.
You've debated me to a standstill on other issues, Dave, and I've been hard-pressed to match some of your well-thought out arguments. But, again with respect, your views on this issue lack cogent rationale.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: OK heres an example of the other way to interpet the Bible. The sin of Sodom wasn't homosexuality but inhospitality. That might sound silly but in it's historical setting & what actually happens it's the logical conclusion. As the story is referenced throughout the Bible it's not about sex but about how you treat strangers. Back then in the harsh desert climate you were supposed to take travelers in, even enemies. Raping the strangers would be as inhospitable as you could get. A common practice of armies at the time were to rape the losers. The term sodomy later came to mean anal sex. In the story it was at best male rape, a very different thing from homosexuality. So a story that was supposed to stress the importance of taking strangers in is commonly used against people who are thought to be strange (queer)
The book does a better detailed job but hopefully my attempt to paraphrase a bit of it didn't mangle it to much.
Now see, that to me is a complet lack of understanding and manipulation of scriputre. I've read what DTWB said and I agree with him so I don't feel I need to add anything.
So ignoring the history of the time & some how equating a mob trying to rape travelers to two guys having a loving relationship in todays society is following the scripture? And I gotta ask do you really believe rape is sex?
Dave the Wonder Boy brings up Paul's letter to Romans. A literal reading ignoring the historical context once again turns what was said & understood at the time into the complete opposite of his message. Keep in mind Paul's audiance is both the Jews & the Gentile Christians. Arguments between the two groups are the major concern & he's trying to bring them together. He does quite cleverly with his letter. Both groups are being rebuked. He brings up homogenial acts as a purity matter to hook in the Jews & apeal to their sense of superiority. The whole goal is to bring the two groups closer together. At the time it was the least controversial of the purity issues. Sadly his main argument that faith & love are whats important in Christ & not what is pure or impure is used to divide people from the church.
"There are non-Christian conservatives who feel similarly, that gays try to create the idea that homosexuality is an inborn trait, and that it is a skewed scientific perspective, where gays in the scientific community, and those sympathetic to the gay position, basically fabricate the evidence of something indicating a "gay gene", or similar extrapolations. "
Heh, so any future scientific evidence that doesn't agree with you can be dismissed as false. Kind of makes for a safe tidy life I suppose.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Nope. Only one of those examples is intended to be a "past transgression". You can be a practicing criminal, or an on-going drug abuser, and still get married in a Chritian church by giving a solemn oath to God.
I highly doubt this scenario, Dave. This borders on a charicature of Christianity, and resembles true Christian marriage in no church I've attended. A pastor in any church I've attended meets with couples and counsels them to see if they're ready for marriage. A criminal or drug user would be advised to delay marriage until he/she has proven stable enough to reasonably commit to marriage.
quote:[qb]
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dave: Homosexuality has no victims. It is on the same level as being black or white, a Pistons fan or a Lakers fan, a drinker of beer or of wine. You can choose to love a man, or a woman, or both. There is no harm to anyone. I know gays who have contributed to society in many positive ways, who are successful in their fields, who are leaders in the community.
I strongly disagree. Being black or Asian is not the same.
Being gay is not a racial trait that one can be singled out for and harassed for. And besides, the argument has been made by any number of politicians and political groups that gays have a higher average income than any minority or group, including white heterosexual males. So much for persecution. Some gays are noticeably effeminate, many are not. Some heterosexual men are effeminate, but are not homosexual. Many who have admitted to me they are gay, I would never have guessed it. Unless a gay person makes known that they are gay, it would be very difficult to discriminate. But regardless, they are not a bonafide minority.
Being gay is not a racial or otherwise easily distinguishable physical trait. It is a behavior. As I said, it is an obsession. I would compare it most closely to being a foot fetishist, or having a fetish for women's stockings, women's underwear, for lingerie, for cross-dressing, being a compulsive gambler, or an alcoholic, or to use another sexual example, a pedophile. It is an obsession. And you don't give someone special minority status for a compulsion or sexual behavior. ( I can envision special minority status for men who wear women's underpants. Robin can be their poster-boy. Break out the green panties... )
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: I agree. (We think so alike that we must have been separated at birth, Danny--- maybe a wild pack of Australian Dingoes carried me away as a baby and then I was found and adopted by American tourists on vacation in the land of OZ? )
Ah, but were that me, I would have then turned around and cooked and eaten the dingo. Whereas you would just break out some pink wool and knit a nice little dingo sweater. Then eat a salad. Such is the major difference between us two...
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Nope. Only one of those examples is intended to be a "past transgression". You can be a practicing criminal, or an on-going drug abuser, and still get married in a Chritian church by giving a solemn oath to God.
I highly doubt this scenario, Dave. This borders on a charicature of Christianity, and resembles true Christian marriage in no church I've attended. A pastor in any church I've attended meets with couples and counsels them to see if they're ready for marriage. A criminal or drug user would be advised to delay marriage until he/she has proven stable enough to reasonably commit to marriage.
But that's at the discretion of the pastor, not a dictat of the church. There is nothing to prevent a known gangsater from getting married in a church.
A devout Christian homosexual is more deserving than the straight gangster.
quote:
quote:[qb]
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dave: Homosexuality has no victims. It is on the same level as being black or white, a Pistons fan or a Lakers fan, a drinker of beer or of wine. You can choose to love a man, or a woman, or both. There is no harm to anyone. I know gays who have contributed to society in many positive ways, who are successful in their fields, who are leaders in the community.
I strongly disagree. Being black or Asian is not the same.
Being gay is not a racial trait that one can be singled out for and harassed for.
Like choice of religion and ethnicity, sexual preference is something people are singled out for and harassed for. But that is a minor point.
quote:
And besides, the argument has been made by any number of politicians and political groups that gays have a higher average income than any minority or group, including white heterosexual males. So much for persecution.
Many Jews have a higher than average income, but have been subject to persecution for centuries. Wealthy Chinese are the target of discrimination in places like Thailand, and wealthy Asians are the target of discrimination in Australia. Income earning potential does not equate to an immunity from persecution.
quote:
Some gays are noticeably effeminate, many are not. Some heterosexual men are effeminate, but are not homosexual. Many who have admitted to me they are gay, I would never have guessed it. Unless a gay person makes known that they are gay, it would be very difficult to discriminate. But regardless, they are not a bonafide minority.
Being gay is not a racial or otherwise easily distinguishable physical trait. It is a behavior. As I said, it is an obsession. I would compare it most closely to being a foot fetishist, or having a fetish for women's stockings, women's underwear, for lingerie, for cross-dressing, being a compulsive gambler, or an alcoholic, or to use another sexual example, a pedophile.
It is a behavioural choice. A choice by adult individuals to engage in homosexual behaviour should not be the subject of discrimination.
You suggest it is a compulsion, some form of procreative misprogramming?
quote: It is an obsession. And you don't give someone special minority status for a compulsion or sexual behavior. ( I can envision special minority status for men who wear women's underpants. Robin can be their poster-boy. Break out the green panties... )
But you are according gays a special minority status: a disadvantageous one, rather than an advantageous one. The disadvantage is no ability to have a church marriage. If it is a mere obsession, and that it has no victims, then where is the harm?
Many people have a compulsion to buy full-ruins of comics, irrespective of their literary quality: such a compulsion does not hinder their religious freedom.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: I have heard plenty of people say that homosexuals and heterosexuals should have the same rights. What's your reasoning behind that?
Because to discriminate against someone simply because god/evolution/gamma radiation or whatever made them born different is wrong.
DaveTWB, you're attracted to women. Did you make the choice to be so? Did you look at some chicks, then look at some dudes, and gp 'eenie, meenie, minie... boobies!'? Or is it just the way you are, and you can't imagine yourself being any other way?
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: [QUOTE] Being gay is not a racial or otherwise easily distinguishable physical trait. It is a behavior. As I said, it is an obsession. I would compare it most closely to being a foot fetishist, or having a fetish for women's stockings, women's underwear, for lingerie, for cross-dressing, being a compulsive gambler, or an alcoholic, or to use another sexual example, a pedophile. It is an obsession. And you don't give someone special minority status for a compulsion or sexual behavior. ( I can envision special minority status for men who wear women's underpants. Robin can be their poster-boy. Break out the green panties... )
Just to set you straight on this one, it is so much more than just a 'physical' obsesion. Speaking from a lifetime of knowledge on the subject, I can tell you it extends far beyond any initial physical attraction. I prefer the company of another man...I need it. I've dated many girls in my lifetime, and loved each of them for thier own beauty...but there is something there that falls short of any real connection.
If this were merely the desire to have sex with other men, as you seem to think, then I'd have long ago resigned myself the the idea that it was simply a sexual 'fetish'...But I know (and don't you dare argue me on this one, because cannot possibly argue it with any accurate understanding) it's more than that. As I've said before, my relationship carries all of the emotional baggage of any 'straight' relationship. Quite frankly, if I was in it just to satisfy a sexual fetish, I sure as hell wouldn't be settled down as I am now. I'm lucky if he's in the mood once or twice a week. :lol:
And if you ever mention pedophilia in the same breath as homosexuality again, I will hunt your arrogant ass down. I am sick to death of that. There is no possible connection, other than the ones your twisted sense of superiority has drawn.
Another thing, earlier in here you mentioned the whole 'yes it does hurt others, look at AIDS', or something to that effect. I hate when people mention this as a legitimate argument. Look at the social factors that have shaped the gay community...It has formed around secrecy and shame. There was a time (not that long ago, really...10 years back otta do it) when a successful gay relationship was a fantasy in light of societal pressures. We've seen people grow into their old age knowing deep down what they want, but not being allowed to live thier life in accord with thier heart's desire. Out of this shame, coupled with the fact that men (gay or 'straight') are generally more sexually active, we've seen the devlopement of a sub-culture where instant gratification was the closest one could get to thier ideal existence. It's sad and disgusting...and it's existence can be pinned more on judgmental forces like yourself and your church than those who sought personal fulfilment.
And at the end of the day, you'd be wise to note that lesbians have the lowest rate of HIV transmission out of any demographic, thereby blowing your whole theory to hell. Just who are they hurting?
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Homosexuality subtlely does have victims, as a result of its insideous corruptive nature.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: This sounds very subjective. Lets look at your sole example of "insidiousness" or "corruption":
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
Contrary to attempts by the gay-supporting liberal media to say otherwise, homosexuality still accounts for an overwhelming percentage of AIDS/HIV cases in the U.S. I read an article two weeks ago in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel newspaper (the major Fl Lauderdale area newspaper) that in Florida, about 80% of AIDS cases can be traced back to a gay or I.V. drug using sex partner, or the combination of the two. Nationally, that goes up to 83%. It's not that heterosexuals don't get AIDS too, but the numbers are overwhemingly gay men. Women most often get AIDS from a secretly bisexual partner.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: HIV/AIDS is a disease. There is nothing more morally insidious or corruptive about contracting HIV/AIDS than there is than being diagnosed with cancer.
I feel like I've explained this repeatedly, but I'll attempt to clarify. AIDS is not highly contagious, like SARS or Hantavirus or Ebola or the common cold. AIDS is a very preventable disease.
There ARE innocent victims of AIDS, but almost all cases are through illicit sex, infidelity, prostitution, or I.V. drug use. By this, as I'm sure you already know, it is a disease almost exclusively caused by immoral behavior and selfish disregard for the safety of a person's sex partners. The children born to AIDS infected mothers, and unsuspecting partners of adulterous and bisexual men being the usual exceptions.
And as I said, in the U.S. and much of the industrialized world, it is largely a gay disease.
In places like Asia and Africa and the undeveloped world, it is more related to prostitution and heterosexual anal sex (as a way to prevent pregnancy through unprotected vaginal sex).
And in the example of a gay man who gives HIV/AIDS to another man or a girlfiend, or a wife, or to children through his infected wife, through a secret bisexual life or other lack of consideration for his partner, homosexuality is clearly not a "victimless crime". Homosexuality is not the only cause of AIDS and sexual indiscretion, but it is certainly a big one.
It's frustrating for me to have to type this explanation, because you're far too informed and intelligent to not have already seen this perspective. Perhaps you just wanted written clarification.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
And as I laid out at length in previous posts here, gay ideology seeks to re-write the Bible to suit its needs, which is inherently a corruption of Christianity.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: As I've said, aspects of the Bible have been properly overlooked (I'm referring to slavery again, here), so I see no reason why condemnation of homosexuality cannot also be overlooked.
Because it is among the most severely criticized behaviors in the Bible. As I've said repeatedly, to condone and accept homosexuality is repeatedly depicted as the mark of a decadent civilization on the verge of destruction.
It's not like eating shellfish or pork, it's a major transgression, raised repeatedly throughout the Bible as a milestone on the brink of a civilization's total destruction and collapse (see my post again at the top of page 4 of this topic. Even that is not a complete list of relevant verses.)
quote:Originally posted by Dave: If I was prevented from dating or marrying someone of African or Oriental descent by law, because they belong to a slave culture and slavery is condoned by the Bible, I'd be fighting for my rights to do so tooth and nail.
I don't agree with the logic of this scenario. I don't know anyone who argues as a Christian who they will date, based on a passage that endorses slavery. The Bible does NOT endorse slavery.
And as I pointed out above, the rationalization of slavery that was alleged to exist in the Bible was NOT considered valid, even by a vast number of Christians in that Civil War time (1865 and prior). Certainly slavery was not endorsed in the North. And the example of John Brown, that I gave above, a Christian who risked his life and died in a personal effort to stop slavery. As did many other Bible-reading Christian abolitionists.
And many well-populated Western U.S. territories were denied statehood for decades, up till after the Civil War, to prevent the further spread of slavery.
I'd say Darwin is to blame for beliefs of racial superiority, NOT the Bible. Beliefs of racial superiority emerged from Darwin's writings.
As I said, what Noah said (in Genesis) to Ham, and Ham's son Canaan, was a judgement where Ham was cursed for his specific individual immoral actions, NOT condemning a race as inferiors. Canaan and his descendents would be slaves to Shem and his sons, because Ham and his sons would be morally corrupt, and punished by God, having inferior blessings to that of his two brothers. Shem and Japheth, in contrast, would be rewarded. Much like the contrast of Cain and Abel.
quote:GENESIS 9, verses 24-27: 24 When Noah awoke from his wine and found out what his youngest son had done to him, 25 he said,
"Cursed be Canaan! The lowest of slaves will he be to his brothers."
26 He also said,
"Blessed be the LORD , the God of Shem! May Canaan be the slave of Shem. 27 May God extend the territory of Japheth ; may Japheth live in the tents of Shem, and may Canaan be his slave."
Clearly, Ham by his actions has lost his father Noah's blessing, and Noah has forfeited his inheritance to his two brothers Shem and Japheth. (Canaan is Ham's son).
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Or if I was prevented from teaching evolution in a school, even though Occam's Razor shows that it makes more sense than the Bible, I'd be protesting loudly. What is the difference in position with gays asserting their rights?
I've yet to see any conclusive scientific proof that homosexuality is inborn/genetic. It's just a theory.
What I've seen indicates that homosexuality is an abberant impulse. And that it does have a corrosive effect on society, in that homosexuality kicks open the door for a variety of abberrant sexual behaviors: Bondage and discipline, rimming, fisting, group sex, swing clubs, cross dressing/transvestites, sex changes, various other fetishes, and with or without the blessing of the gay community, pedophilism (as Big Ol'Willy also previously noted).
The America of 2003 is far more crass and vulgar than the America of 1990. And the gay movement is a part of that, a big part. It is a part of the in-your-face/ shock value/morally compassless, group-sex, anything-goes culture, that has very few standards left.
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
And your sole example of the corruptive nature of homosexuality - with respect, such as it is - does not automatically lead to a designation of the term "corruption" .
I think you have in mind the misconception that perverted gays corrupt youths, some sort of anal rape which forever turns the poor innocent over to the sordid path of homosexuality. But anecdotally, I've never met a gay man so inclined. It just doesn't work like that. Gays make a choice in this day and age. From what I understand, again anecdotally, its a very difficult decision because it runs counter to societal expectations - get married to someone of the opposite gender, have a family, that sort of thing.
????!!!??? I don't know what the anal rape thing is about in your statement. Although there are gay rapes. Though I don't consider that a major factor. Except in U.S. prisons, where it is estimated a million men a year are raped, which far exceeds the number of women raped nationally. A guy I met at church in 1988 had just left the gay lifestyle and become a Christian. He was anally raped by two men at a Miami zoo when he was 13, and it screwed him up sexually for several years (he was 20 when I met him). He described frequenting gay clubs and having anonymous sex with many men, frequently in a parking lot or alley behind a gay club. Several gay men who have left the homosexual life have described similar experiences to me. A friend of mine's home was adjacent to the back alley behind a gay club, and he complained that it was a frequent problem, of gays making out in or near his backyard.
But in saying corrupting influence, I mean a lowering of standards in society, at a more broad mainstream/secular level, as well as trying to re-write and undermine the Bible to suit their own needs, as well as adopting children, who growing up in such an atmosphere would be more likely to be homosexual or bisexual. And trans-gender stuff that really creeps me out. Women who look like Janet Reno. Men who look like men, but behave like women. And sometimes dress like women as well. In Miami a few months ago, some 17-year-old kid in a Miami high school dressed in drag and was elected prom queen, and the guy came on stage in drag and accepted his award. A freakshow. Hideous. Perverse. That could never have happened 10 years ago. There were opinions interviewed on the news, both pro and con. Most of the kids who voted for him did it expecting a freakshow, and got what they expected.
It just lowers the moral bar.
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
But you haven't given me any examples of its destructive or corruptive nature, other than HIV/AIDS, which even you concede is capable of being transmitted by straight people, and obviously people who use needles or have unsafe blood transfusions.
On the contrary, I feel like I've given extensive examples. If not, I just gave more above in this post.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Is it destructive to a culture? Our cultures revere the ancient Greeks, their philosophers, their history, their military victories, all factors leading to Ancient Greece being considered a golden age. And yet they were a bisexual society: Socrates regarded homosexuality as quite ordinary. The bravest and toughest of them all, the Spartans, were the most flagrantly homosexual.
The Greek and Roman cultures began with great promise, then sunk into decadence that destroyed them from within. Many Christian scholars have written of the similarities between Rome on the verge of collapse, and modern America and Europe: huge public debt, huge entitlement programs, moral decadence and social division, orgies, bread and circuses (which were comparable to popular entertainment such as Jerry Springer, The Bachelor, House Party , and a slew of other insulting trash reality dating shows that border on softcore porn, and and other vulgar movies, television and music, that add to the perception that we live in a wild, promiscuous, standardless society, and create a common-sense notion that: "Well, it's on every channel, that must be what real dating is like..." and becomes a role-model of behavior for a generation of teens and pre-teens who are given pure tittilation in place of a real culture.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Richard the Lionheart, who was the flower of English chivalry, was openly homosexual.
This one, I admit, is a surprise for me.
If this is even true, I can't imagine it is that well known. There are more prominent gay men in history, I'm sure, such as Michaelangelo, and several Greek and Roman figures you've given mention to.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: You've debated me to a standstill on other issues, Dave, and I've been hard-pressed to match some of your well-thought out arguments. But, again with respect, your views on this issue lack cogent rationale.
I don't know how to answer other than to take the discussion one question at a time. As I'm sure you can imagine, many of your points from the other perspective don't ring true for me either. For me, it's so obvious and self-evident, but I understand you come from another perspective. The Bible stance on homosexuality in particular seems so crystal clear, as it relates to the corruptive notion of gay marriage. I find it difficult to believe, whether you believe the Bible or not, that you don't see that the Bible clearly condemns homosexuality.
All the re-spinning of that obvious point is making me dizzy.
We may just agree to disagree. But I hope that you can at least see my perspective, whether or not you agree with it.
And Dave...can't you see, despite all of your arguments as to what the Bible says on the matter, that this discrimination is just plain wrong? I mean, you show these glimmers of being a sensetive, normal guy and then top it off with such venom and contempt.
I mean, if you were really so worried about the sanctity of marriage, wouldn't you become a marriage counselor? It seems to me that 'straight' people - christian and otherwise - don't really view it with any sort of divine respect, what with the 50% divorce rate and all....
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: So ignoring the history of the time & some how equating a mob trying to rape travelers to two guys having a loving relationship in todays society is following the scripture? And I gotta ask do you really believe rape is sex?
Dave the Wonder Boy brings up Paul's letter to Romans. A literal reading ignoring the historical context once again turns what was said & understood at the time into the complete opposite of his message. Keep in mind Paul's audiance is both the Jews & the Gentile Christians. Arguments between the two groups are the major concern & he's trying to bring them together. He does quite cleverly with his letter. Both groups are being rebuked. He brings up homogenial acts as a purity matter to hook in the Jews & apeal to their sense of superiority. The whole goal is to bring the two groups closer together. At the time it was the least controversial of the purity issues. Sadly his main argument that faith & love are whats important in Christ & not what is pure or impure is used to divide people from the church.
I'm not buying.
The New Testament repeatedly condemns sexual immorality. Homosexuality is certainly that, in any verse it is mentioned in the Bible.
This is yet another contrived rationalization, that bypasses the clear and consistent portrayal of homosexuality in the Bible.
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: . In fact, she was over the other night and I showed her a post that klintion made on here where he took a passage from Mathew and misinterpreted it.
I can understand your not accepting my assesment of St' Paul's assertations, or Moses' condemnations (quite frankly, as I stated at the time, those are personal conclusions that I've drawn, and never presented them as anything else)...But I honestly thought that it was commmon knowledge that Christ did away with the original covenant with Isreal. I've heard many a sermon in my lifetime to that effect, usually to explain why christians are no longer subject to some of the more bizzare implications of it. This is the first time I've ever heard anyone question this.
quote:Originally posted by Danny: Because to discriminate against someone simply because god/evolution/gamma radiation or whatever made them born different is wrong.
DaveTWB, you're attracted to women. Did you make the choice to be so? Did you look at some chicks, then look at some dudes, and gp 'eenie, meenie, minie... boobies!'? Or is it just the way you are, and you can't imagine yourself being any other way?
Again, this has already been covered abundantly, but you choose to not read my previous posts.
If I lusted after 12-year-old girls, or had an inborn impulse to rape women, or to kill people, would I have a right to act on those impulses because it's an inborn part of my identity? No. Of course not.
I again stand by what I said earlier, that homosexuality is an impulse, a compulsion, an obsession, that can be controlled, redirected, or even eliminated.
quote:Originally posted by klinton: And Dave...can't you see, despite all of your arguments as to what the Bible says on the matter, that this discrimination is just plain wrong? I mean, you show these glimmers of being a sensetive, normal guy and then top it off with such venom and contempt.
I mean, if you were really so worried about the sanctity of marriage, wouldn't you become a marriage counselor? It seems to me that 'straight' people - christian and otherwise - don't really view it with any sort of divine respect, what with the 50% divorce rate and all....
What I've stated is the clear standard of the Bible, chapter and verse. It is NOT "discriminatory and wrong". That is what it says. And to say otherwise is just misrepresentative spin on your part.
As I've said repeatedly, related to the Bible, I've only repeated what it says. One man's "venom" is another man's facts. Reading the Bible, what I've quoted are clearly GOD's facts. And straying from God's standard has brought anarchy to our culture. Sorry you don't see it that way. The anarchy in our culture seems pretty evident to me.
The divorce thing has already been mentioned. It's largely a result of popular culture, and lack of commitment bred from bombardment of messages selling instant gratification in our popular media. That's your secular culture at work, undermining Christian ideals, commitment and fidelity, saying that every kind of "alternative lifestyle" is okay. Of which gay culture has no small hand. But if we object to the obvious moral ambiguity that is causing it, we're "narrow-minded" and "homophobes".
I don't dislike gays as people, I think they're good people who have bought into a belief system and lifestyle that a few decades ago any individual would have just snapped out of, and gotten on with their life. And looked back 20 years later, sitting next to their wife, and said; Geez, what a crazy idea that was...
Whereas now there's a huge movement that pushes for all kinds of twistings of our traditions, and rights for the 2% or so who are gay (and even THAT number seems incredibly high to me), and stomp on the traditions of the other 98% of the population who aren't gay.
Do you REALLY think that's not going unsettle and piss off a lot of people?
I really don't see why gays need marriage, other than to annoy conservatives nationwide. Will it really win any more respect from the mainstream for gay marriage? Or will it just be something where a vast percentage of that 98% heterosexual majority will just roll their eyes and say "whatever..."
I mean, why not just live together? Many heterosexual couples do. And they don't pretend God or the Bible sanctions their doing so.
Gays would serve their cause better by not rubbing their abberrant sexuality in the rest of our faces. It's just gross to me, I don't even want to think about it. I feel no hostility toward gays, let them do whatever they want behind closed doors. But force me to look at it, and to see laws passed that undermine the definition of marriage as it has existed for 6,000 years, and twists the very meaning of the Bible itself... well, you've crossed the line of what you can do in your own home, and tried to pervert what is sacred to me. Just so you can rationalize your own lifestyle.
And hell yes, I have a problem with that.
I've offered explanations, clear and indisputable, but you clearly won't accept anything other than YOUR VERSION of the truth (which is to say, a lie that rationalizes homosexuality) despite all logic to the contrary. Well, don't expect me to endorse your lie.
WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court's ruling striking down bans on gay sex also strengthens the constitutional underpinnings for legal abortion and other socially divisive issues, some legal experts say.
The court said Thursday that what gay men and women do in the privacy of their bedrooms is their business and not the government's, a historic civil rights ruling that will likely be used to challenge other bans involving private conduct.
The decision in many respects deals with the same issues as the court's 30-year-old Roe v. Wade ruling that provided for legal abortions. Emory University law professor David Garrow said the ruling "strengthens and enshrines" the court's thinking in the abortion case.
The case involving gay sex was in the final batch of rulings handed down by the Supreme Court this term. The justices take a three-month summer break each year. Justices in the past have chosen the last day to announce if they plan to retire, but no one did so Thursday.
Also this week the court upheld the use of affirmative action in cases involving college admissions policies at the University of Michigan.
The court, in striking down a Texas law that made homosexual sex a crime, overturned an earlier ruling that had upheld sodomy laws on moral grounds. The law allowed police to arrest gays for oral or anal sex, conduct that would be legal for heterosexuals.
"The scale and footprint of this far swamps the Michigan duo (affirmative action rulings) in long-term historical stature," Garrow said.
Justices used strikingly broad and contrite language in the 6-3 decision.
The Constitution's framers "knew times can blind us to certain truths and later generations can see that laws once thought necessary and proper in fact serve only to oppress," Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in the majority opinion.
Two gay men arrested in Texas after police walked in on them having sex "are entitled to respect for their private lives," Kennedy wrote. "The state cannot demean their existence or control their destiny by making their private sexual conduct a crime."
In a lengthy, strongly worded dissent, the three most conservative justices said the ruling was a huge mistake that showed the court had been co-opted by the "so-called homosexual agenda."
"The court has taken sides in the culture war," Justice Antonin Scalia wrote for himself and Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas, suggesting the ruling would invite laws allowing same-sex marriages.
Matt Coles, director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the court's decision was broader than expected and will affect other social issues involving gay rights.
The ruling also, he said, "should go a long way to make us feel a lot more comfortable about the continuing vitality of a woman's right to choose."
Houston District Attorney Charles A. Rosenthal Jr., who argued in favor of the law before the high court, called the ruling a major departure from earlier court statements.
"I am disappointed that the Supreme Court (majority) did not allow the people of the state of Texas, through their elected legislators, to determine moral standards of governance for this state."
Of the 13 states with sodomy laws, four — Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri — prohibit oral and anal sex between same-sex couples. The other nine ban consensual sodomy for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.
Thursday's ruling invalidates all of those laws, lawyers said.
Garrow said it also weakens the reasoning used by the Supreme Court in ruling in 1997 that terminally ill people do not have a constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide.
Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer agreed with Kennedy in full.
Justice Sandra Day O'Connor agreed with the outcome of the case but would have decided it on different constitutional grounds. She also did not join in reversing the court's 1986 ruling on the same subject.
The court "has largely signed on to the so-called homosexual agenda," Scalia wrote for the dissenters.
Although the majority opinion said the case did not "involve whether the government must give formal recognition to any relationship that homosexual persons seek to enter," Scalia said the ruling could open the way to laws allowing gay marriage.
"This reasoning leaves on pretty shaky grounds state laws limiting marriage to opposite-sex couples," Scalia wrote.
The ruling also threatens laws banning bestiality, bigamy and incest, he wrote.
The two men at the heart of the case, John Geddes Lawrence and Tyron Garner, were each fined $200 and spent a night in jail for the misdemeanor sex charge in 1998.
The case began when a neighbor with a grudge faked a distress call to police, telling them that a man was "going crazy" in Lawrence's apartment. Police went to the apartment, pushed open the door and found the two men.
"This ruling lets us get on with our lives and it opens the door for gay people all over the country," Lawrence said Thursday.
I just wanted to quickly address this, before heading off home:
quote: He described frequenting gay clubs and having anonymous sex with many men, frequently in a parking lot or alley behind a gay club. Several gay men who have left the homosexual life have described similar experiences to me.
If you substituted the word "homosexual" for "heterosexual", and "man" for "woman" in that passage, you'd be describing my lifestyle in the late 80s and most of the 90s.
"Decadence" isn't confined to gays. Which kind of gets back to my point: I could have married in a church, entirely unrepentant of my lifestyle, and yet a committed gay couple who have lead a chaste life for years and years cannot. (As an aside, I did not get married in a church because I'm an atheist, and I felt it would been hypocritical and shown disrespect to the church if I had done so).
I'd like particularly to address your assertion that AIDS is a predominantly homosexual disease and a sign of the corruptive nature of homosexuality, and therefore a reason why gays should not be allowed to get married in a church, but will have to leave it until the morning (my time).
...I've offered explanations, clear and indisputable, but you clearly won't accept anything other than YOUR VERSION of the truth (which is to say, a lie that rationalizes homosexuality) despite all logic to the contrary. Well, don't expect me to endorse your lie.
The court said Thursday that what gay men and women do in the privacy of their bedrooms is their business and not the government's...
This much I can agree with.
But unfortunately...
quote:From the Supreme Court article:
... a historic civil rights ruling that will likely be used to challenge other bans involving private conduct.
Matt Coles, director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the court's decision was broader than expected and will affect other social issues involving gay rights.
Of the 13 states with sodomy laws, four — Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Missouri — prohibit oral and anal sex between same-sex couples. The other nine ban consensual sodomy for everyone: Alabama, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Virginia.
Thursday's ruling invalidates all of those laws, lawyers said.
Garrow said it also weakens the reasoning used by the Supreme Court in ruling in 1997 that terminally ill people do not have a constitutional right to doctor-assisted suicide.
Scalia said the ruling could open the way to laws allowing gay marriage.
The ruling also threatens laws banning bestiality, bigamy and incest, he wrote.
...it doesn't end there.
This is clearly a beach-head, that will push through legal precedents that will defy all common sense, for a majority of Americans.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Gays would serve their cause better by not rubbing their abberrant sexuality in the rest of our faces. It's just gross to me, I don't even want to think about it. I feel no hostility toward gays, let them do whatever they want behind closed doors. But force me to look at it, and to see laws passed that undermine the definition of marriage as it has existed for 6,000 years, and twists the very meaning of the Bible itself... well, you've crossed the line of what you can do in your own home, and tried to pervert what is sacred to me. Just so you can rationalize your own lifestyle.
*thunk* (Klint engages in the infinitely more productive activity of slaming his head into a wall).
As I said in I think the very first reply i gave to you, it's not about 'getting respect'. I don't want your respect, or even your approval. What I do want is to know that if I'm in the hospital, my boyfriend will be allowed at my bedside. What I do want is to be confident that if I died tomorrow, my boyfriend would unquestionably inherit my estate. What I want is the satisfaction that I am not a second class citizen, subject to the whims of people like you. Fine, you feel that Christ hates me. That's your perogative. That is still no justification for treating me as an invalid member of society.
I don't want to shove anything in your face any more than you'd want to shove your life in mine. Quite frankly all of the 'abberhant' sexuality that goes along with my life is my buisness....I think I'd be more disgusted if you were wittness to it than you ever could be. :)
And for the last bloody time, before you start flining the word 'lie' at me, and my faith in Christ, you should really take a step back and re-examine all of the 'facts' that you've presented in your arguments. I'd hoped you'd understood that my intentions in extrapolating on bible context are genuine in their intent. Quite frankly, that whole discussion should never have taken place because it's pretty much drowned out anything else that's been said to you, hasn't it?
...I've offered explanations, clear and indisputable, but you clearly won't accept anything other than YOUR VERSION of the truth (which is to say, a lie that rationalizes homosexuality) despite all logic to the contrary. Well, don't expect me to endorse your lie.
That was rather inappropriate, don't you think?
I'm not sure I get your meaning, Wednesday.
I've offered several topic pages of quotes and explanations, and I can't seem to get the slightest acknowledgement of what the words in the Bible clearly say... is CLEARLY WHAT THEY SAY !
It took a lot of time to find and post thiose passages. And for what?
I feel the clear validity of my points (of what the Bible and Christian teachings clearly say about homosexuality) is being deliberately ignored. I guarantee when the current legislation has undermined Christianity as I predicted, that no one will be arguing the rights of Christians to their beliefs and lifestyle.
And by the way, I haven't threatened anyone. klinton has.
quote:klinton:
And if you ever mention pedophilia in the same breath as homosexuality again, I will hunt your arrogant ass down. I am sick to death of that. There is no possible connection, other than the ones your twisted sense of superiority has drawn.
So much for civility.
My "twisted sense of superiority" is supported by the words of Justice Scalia. And no doubt millions of other displeased Americans.
My position makes ideological sense. Yours only bends the truth to rationalize your lifestyle.
I've stuck to the issue, and resisted namecalling. Many on the liberal side of this topic have not.
Oh, shit. Sorry about that one Dave. You just have no idea how much it sickens me when people attempt to get sympathy for thier bigotry by alluding to pedophilia. You'd be more correct in stating that there's a stronger connection between heterosexuality and mollesting children, as the vast majority of such cases are indeed carried out by 'straight' men.
You know, that I wish you no ill, right? If I had, I'd have given up talking to you days ago. It was a knee jerk response to a statement I've grown to hate with a violent passion.
You know, klinton, I really am trying to understand.
To get back to the issue, setting aside the Christianity aspect for a minute, I understand gays wanting to live together. And while I've met and know many gay men (although only one lesbian) I've never heard them express a desire for gay marriage. From my own experience, very few gays even want to be part of the Christian church, and are virtually all atheist that I've met.
That's largely why I see gay marriage as a trumped-up gay activist ploy, rather than a legitimate desire for marriage.
Again, if gays want to live together, it's a free country, and many heterosexual couples do the same, and simply live together, bypassing the issue of Christianity and marriage.
The point where I have a problem with HETEROsexual unmarried cohabitation is when children are involved. I really feel sorry for kids who grow up without legitimate parents. Which is the same reason I also oppose gay adoption.
But again if gay men (and women) want to live together, that's their right, and many companies already offer spousal-type benefits to gay couples (Ben & Jerry's in Vermont was the first I heard of). Gays already HAVE the right to cohabitate together, be openly gay, and even show affection and hold hands in public. I fail to see why gay marriage is necessary. Except to piss off Christian conservatives and attempt to change their concept of marriage out from under them, against scripture.
Gays have freedom. If they pushed for no other legal changes, they would find far less resistance. Why does every last institution have to be overturned? And why would you assume that is not threatening to the conservative/traditional mainstream?
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: The point where I have a problem with HETEROsexual unmarried cohabitation is when children are involved. I really feel sorry for kids who grow up without legitimate parents. Which is the same reason I also oppose gay adoption.
Here's one area where I'll almost agree with you, but for entirely different reasons. I have no intention of bringing children into my family, as I don't want them to have to live with the stigma and burden that it might entail. This is not to say that I would oppose anyone of my friends who decided differently, or feel that the option should be denied them (who would argue that Rosie O'Donell doesn't come across as the perfect mom?). It's just not something I would want a child to have to cope with.
Dave the wonder boy, you can repeat things as many times as you want. That obviously doesn't make something more true.
Going back to Sodom & your misuse of the story. In Mathew 10:5-15 Jesus refers not to gay sex when sending out his 12. He says "If any one will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom & Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town." He is obviously talking about hospitality here and there is no reference to consensual gay sex in either.
I brought divorce not to argue one makes the other right but to point out the lack of concern about it. You argue about the gays ruining the concept of marriage yet huge numbers of hetrosexuals have been getting divorced & remarried. Where was the concern & efforts to protect marriage when hetrosexuals started to abuse it?
As for Paul's letter to Romans, your focusing on one passage & missing the point of what he's saying. Romans 14:14 "I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself"
Going back to Sodom & your misuse of the story. In Mathew 10:5-15 Jesus refers not to gay sex when sending out his 12. He says "If any one will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town. Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom & Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town." He is obviously talking about hospitality here and there is no reference to consensual gay sex in either.
How the heck do you see Jesus apointing his apostles to go and tell peole of Him with Sodom and Gamora? Those are 2 completly differnt things. Sodam and Gamora was about the imoral lives everyone was living, not about inhospitality as you claim it.
Why does Jesus bring up Sodam & Gomorah when sending out his 12? It's obvious that they are going to towns & are expected to be taking in. Like the angels in Sodom if they are not treated right that town is going to suffer worse than Sodom did.
DWB, homosexuality is certainly not a fetish. Some people might lust after a shoe or an object but they don't love the object. Anyone in a long monogomous relationship gay or straight can tell you it's not the lust keeping two people together but the love. I count myself very fortunate in that respect.
Because the Bible says homosexuality is immoral, DTWB formulates his opinion on these religious teachings.(and I think it takes a dramatic stretch of reason to assume that there isn't overwhelming evidence of such a condemnation within the overall collection of the Christian Bible)
But in response, there are two lines of criticism.
1. The argument that the Bible doesn't condemn homosexuality.
and
2. Some derision for the position itself which manifests itself in two possible forms: A. Disgust at the Bible for taking a stand contrary to one's opinion, or B. Disgust at Dave TWB for having a position contrary to one's own.
As to Point 1, I have said above, I feel this is at best revisionist history. I think it is possible to take my view that it is not the divine word of god, but rather God's word as told by man. Or even to dismiss it as folklore. But it is also a legitimate view to believe as DTWB does. That everything in the Bible must be followed as the way he or his church reads it. You may not approve of his views, but I think it is a legitimate view. Because I believe that if a person who had never read the Bible before came to this topic in an objective manner, one would conclude that the Bible prohibits homosexuality. Right or wrong, I feel the overall tone and content of the Bible (as a whole) does not approve of the lifestyle.
Point 2 is more complex. Point 2a is the easier part. It should be the crux of the debate, actually. The true debate here should be whether the Bible is correct. I think there is some room here. DTWB feels that the Bible is ALWAYS correct. Others may feel that the Bible is folklore. I am in neither camp.
But that brings me to Point 2b: the derision of DTWB for his views. I will defend DTWB. DTWB doesn't seem to have malice. He seems to be defending a position that has been given to him by a higher power. He believes it because he is a firm believer in his faith. I find that admirable.
I understand the argument that if we remove the teachings of the Bible with which we don't agree, then it is not God's teachings, but rather man's.
I think people are too quick to dismiss others as hatemongerers when they are subscribing to a theory that is not their own.
Now, I imagine someone would make the argument that DTWB should do some thinking on his own. But I think we'll all agree that "Does God exist" is a WHOLE other 10+ Page thread.
The simple fact is, DTWB has subscribed to a doctrine that tells him the moral code of life is "x" and he, in his reasonable opinion, has to follow all or nothing.
I think DTWB's theory is perfectly valid, though I disagree with it.
BigOl'Willie while I beleive DWB deserves a pat on the back for debating his beliefs with others & spending much time & energy doing that it doesn't make his point anymore valid than mine or anyone elses. Like anybody else he has a right to it.
As for the Bible condeming homosexuality, I too used to believe that years ago. The thing is I had only read parts of it. To me, DWB is looking at the tree & not seeing the forest. Pauls letter to Romans is a good example of this. By emphasizing the bit where Paul is saying homosexuality is socially unacceptable, you lose the entire point of what Paul is speaking about. (The purity matters in Levitcus don't matter & should not be used to divide Christains)
[QUOTE]Originally posted by BigOl'Willie: [QB] I think you are all missing Dave TWB's point.
Because the Bible says homosexuality is immoral, DTWB formulates his opinion on these religious teachings.(and I think it takes a dramatic stretch of reason to assume that there isn't overwhelming evidence of such a condemnation within the overall collection of the Christian Bible) -----------------------------------------------------------------------
The only logical response to that is that the inquisitions, the crusades (essentialy mass genocide), and the witch hunts, were all based on what was deemed accurate interpretaion of the bible at the time. These readings have since been revisited, and their merits discounted. To propogate hate in the name of the bible is, in my eyes, not a valid theory. It's a travestty against humanity, masquarading as 'christian morality'.
I mean - just to step outside the argument at hand here - the church botches things as simple as not praying to idols, nor making for oneself representations of anything in the heavens or on earth for devotion. They set up saints as mediatiors to pray to, when they angels themselves (perfect creatures that bask in God's glory) refuse any sort of devotion from men, and Christ specifically said that no oe can approach the father exept through him. These too are simple, stated in black and white principles that the church ignores to thier own ends. When asked in his book about the use of titles in the church (a practice specifically condemned by Christ), Jean-Paul replied something to the effect that 'these traditions had been in place so long that what harm could there be in them'....exactly the sort of behavior Christ had warned against.
These are just a few minor examples...all things stated just as plainly in the bible as 'homos are bad', but yet somehow they can look the other way here, and reason thier way around them...but to look for justification for my existence from my creator is to propogate lies?
Do you understand why I argue so fervently? As I've said, I have nothing against Dave. He actually sounds like a right decent guy, who's willing to concede more than most. But just as he cannot let go of his convictions, I cannot possibly ignore my own.
quote:Originally posted by klinton: [QB] [QUOTE]Originally posted by BigOl'Willie: [QB] The only logical response to that is that the inquisitions, the crusades (essentialy mass genocide), and the witch hunts, were all based on what was deemed accurate interpretaion of the bible at the time. These readings have since been revisited, and their merits discounted. To propogate hate in the name of the bible is, in my eyes, not a valid theory. It's a travestty against humanity, masquarading as 'christian morality'.
That is a facially interesting argument but it is not on point. Simply because one thing (which I think you will find is more political than religious if you study the true motives of those events) is repudiated does not invalidate EVERYTHING that is IN there.
But the biggest thing I would like to highlight is "in my eyes". I agree you think it is the wrong interpretation. I agree with your interpretation. But UNAMBIGIUOSLY there are criticisms of the practice. If you accept that, then you must believe that.
quote: I mean - just to step outside the argument at hand here - the church botches things as simple as not praying to idols, nor making for oneself representations of anything in the heavens or on earth for devotion. They set up saints as mediatiors to pray to, when they angels themselves (perfect creatures that bask in God's glory) refuse any sort of devotion from men, and Christ specifically said that no oe can approach the father exept through him. These too are simple, stated in black and white principles that the church ignores to thier own ends. When asked in his book about the use of titles in the church (a practice specifically condemned by Christ), Jean-Paul replied something to the effect that 'these traditions had been in place so long that what harm could there be in them'....exactly the sort of behavior Christ had warned against.
These are just a few minor examples...all things stated just as plainly in the bible as 'homos are bad', but yet somehow they can look the other way here, and reason thier way around them...
This is absolutley unfair. This is as blanket a statement.
When you say "the church" you refer to Catholocism. I doubt DTWB is Catholic.
But overall, your point is valid. I simply think it was unfairly couched. The real question you should ask is Why follow one thing to the letter and slide on other things? That is a legitimate question if not made murky with sniping and generalization.
quote: Do you understand why I argue so fervently? As I've said, I have nothing against Dave. He actually sounds like a right decent guy, who's willing to concede more than most. But just as he cannot let go of his convictions, I cannot possibly ignore my own.
But what exactly is it that you are arguing? I can't gather it. It seems all over the board.
Which position is closest to your view on this topic?
A. That the Bible doesn't say or doesn't mean homosexuality is immoral.
B. That even if it says it, DTWB and others should ignore that passage as antiquated.
C. That the Bible, if it feels that way, is morally wrong.
D. That DTWB is wrong regardless of the Bible.
It seems he has been hit with every possible option. I am just confused on the crux of the debate.
Finally (and slightly out of order):
quote: but to look for justification for my existence from my creator is to propogate lies?
I didn't like that line either. I could reasonably see that you feel that is true. I don't like the "know" school of religion. I prefer the "believe" school.
But here is the interesting point: why are you trying to justify your existence to your creator by convincing Dave?
Dave can't keep you from justifying your existence with God. The only thing DTWB can do is keep you from justifying your existence at the Court House. Isn't that the real issue here?
Poor DTWB is being hit pretty hard of late. I think I might have said a few more inflammatory things than him, in which case I would like to apologize if I offended anyone while stating that I am holding to my convictions as well. I am not going to post too much this weekend, as I hurt my shoulder at work today, but I might be in and out of here to say a few things. Have a good weekend.
quote:Originally posted by BigOl'Willie: Matt, this isn't the Texas Supreme Court that held this. It was the federal supreme court overruling a Texas statute.
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: MY posts aren't worth responding to, dear Wonder Davey? Well, I feel the same way about the tiresome, devisive tripe that's coming out of your repulsive blow-hole as well. But since Typhoid Dave is handing you your ass debate-wise ...
The high ratio of insults in your posts, coupled with the absolute vaccuum of anything meaningful you have to say, make every debate I've seen you jump into devolve to a foodfight of insults that derails any meaningful and intelligent discussion. Insults and nonsense that your last several posts, including what's quoted above, demonstrate quite well.
I think it's for others to decide if Dave is"handing [me] my ass debatewise..." I think I'm holding my own quite well, as are several others. While I respect Dave's alternative perspective, I don't think he or anyone else has come anywhere close to disproving what I've said here.
I have no animosity toward Dave. I definitely do toward you. You contribute nothing worthwhile to these or any other debates, beyond hurling insults and egging people on toward ugliness who share your liberal views.
I'd rather talk to the grown-up liberals here, who can intelligently and respectfully express their views.
Dave, you have got to be one of the most sickening, self-righteous, paranoid cry-babies that I've ever "met" on-line--- quite an accomplishment when you think of the sheer number of cyber-goofballs out there. I tip my hat to you, sir: you RAWK.
RE: My high ratio of insults: What can I say? Poking large, ugly, stupid animals with a sharp stick is just ever so much fun.
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: And since it's not obvious from his posts, he is a Christian, as everyone knows so am I and I agree with every thing he's said.
Yay! So you're a hateful, bullying, close-minded pinhead, too. Oh, goody! Thanks for clearing things up and going "on the record", Batwoman.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: Batwoman a couple of pages back DWB said "As I said, I believe that it is a compulsion, an impulse, not inborn, and that it can be resisted, and virtually eliminated. There are many Christians who were practicing gays and lesbians, who are now happily married heterosexuals. So for some at least, perhaps all, homosexual desire can be overcome and eliminated. Not repressed, but just eliminated as a desire by a change in goals, perspective and priorities. "
Granted he doesn't say anything about an Institute. It does match their litrature though & I was going by memory. My mistake. So where does he get his conclusions though? I don't know any reformed homosexuals myself, I do know some self hating ones though or ones that had a long struggle with it. A result of a strict religous background IMHO
Have you guys ever seen that hilarious skit from "Mr. Show" about the gay fellow who kept getting "cured" of his homosexuality only to keep relapsing on every New Year's Day? Fuck, that was so funny! :lol:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: [qb] Nope. Only one of those examples is intended to be a "past transgression". You can be a practicing criminal, or an on-going drug abuser, and still get married in a Chritian church by giving a solemn oath to God.
I highly doubt this scenario, Dave. This borders on a charicature of Christianity, and resembles true Christian marriage in no church I've attended. A pastor in any church I've attended meets with couples and counsels them to see if they're ready for marriage. A criminal or drug user would be advised to delay marriage until he/she has proven stable enough to reasonably commit to marriage.
quote:
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Dave: Homosexuality has no victims. It is on the same level as being black or white, a Pistons fan or a Lakers fan, a drinker of beer or of wine. You can choose to love a man, or a woman, or both. There is no harm to anyone. I know gays who have contributed to society in many positive ways, who are successful in their fields, who are leaders in the community.
I strongly disagree. Being black or Asian is not the same.
Being gay is not a racial trait that one can be singled out for and harassed for. And besides, the argument has been made by any number of politicians and political groups that gays have a higher average income than any minority or group, including white heterosexual males. So much for persecution. Some gays are noticeably effeminate, many are not. Some heterosexual men are effeminate, but are not homosexual. Many who have admitted to me they are gay, I would never have guessed it. Unless a gay person makes known that they are gay, it would be very difficult to discriminate. But regardless, they are not a bonafide minority.
Being gay is not a racial or otherwise easily distinguishable physical trait. It is a behavior. As I said, it is an obsession. I would compare it most closely to being a foot fetishist, or having a fetish for women's stockings, women's underwear, for lingerie, for cross-dressing, being a compulsive gambler, or an alcoholic, or to use another sexual example, a pedophile. It is an obsession. And you don't give someone special minority status for a compulsion or sexual behavior. ( I can envision special minority status for men who wear women's underpants. Robin can be their poster-boy. Break out the green panties... )
I knew it wouldn't take long before you trotted out pedophilia, you ignorant fuckwad. Homosexuality and pedophilia are two completely separate things, and you damn well know it.
You're a moral idiot, a bully, and a fool, Dave--- all you're doing is using your take on the Bible as a get-out-of-jail-free card to judge and persecute those who are different than you. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself.
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: I agree. (We think so alike that we must have been separated at birth, Danny--- maybe a wild pack of Australian Dingoes carried me away as a baby and then I was found and adopted by American tourists on vacation in the land of OZ? )
Ah, but were that me, I would have then turned around and cooked and eaten the dingo. Whereas you would just break out some pink wool and knit a nice little dingo sweater. Then eat a salad. Such is the major difference between us two...
quote:Originally posted by Danny: Because to discriminate against someone simply because god/evolution/gamma radiation or whatever made them born different is wrong.
DaveTWB, you're attracted to women. Did you make the choice to be so? Did you look at some chicks, then look at some dudes, and gp 'eenie, meenie, minie... boobies!'? Or is it just the way you are, and you can't imagine yourself being any other way?
Again, this has already been covered abundantly, but you choose to not read my previous posts.
If I lusted after 12-year-old girls, or had an inborn impulse to rape women, or to kill people, would I have a right to act on those impulses because it's an inborn part of my identity? No. Of course not.
I again stand by what I said earlier, that homosexuality is an impulse, a compulsion, an obsession, that can be controlled, redirected, or even eliminated.
Strom Thurmond didn't die, gang--- he lives on in Dave The Wonder Boy.
quote:Originally posted by klinton: And Dave...can't you see, despite all of your arguments as to what the Bible says on the matter, that this discrimination is just plain wrong? I mean, you show these glimmers of being a sensetive, normal guy and then top it off with such venom and contempt.
I mean, if you were really so worried about the sanctity of marriage, wouldn't you become a marriage counselor? It seems to me that 'straight' people - christian and otherwise - don't really view it with any sort of divine respect, what with the 50% divorce rate and all....
As I've said repeatedly, related to the Bible, I've only repeated what it says. One man's "venom" is another man's facts. Sorry you don't see it that way. The anarchy in our culture seems pretty evident to me.
The divorce thing has already been mentioned. It's largely a result of popular culture, and lack of commitment bred from bombardment of messages selling instant gratification. That's your secular culture at work, undermining Christian ideals, commitment and fidelity, saying that every kind of "alternative lifestyle" is okay. Of which gay culture has no small hand. But if we object to the obvious moral ambiguity that is causing it, we're "narrow-minded" and "homophobes". A rose by any other name...
I don't dislike gays as people, I think they're good people who have bought into a belief system and lifestyle that a few decades ago any individual would have just snapped out of, and gotten on with their life. And looked back 20 years later, sitting next to their wife, and said; Geez, what a crazy idea that was...
Whereas now there's a huge movement that pushes for all kinds of twistings of our traditions, and rights for the 2% or so who are gay (and even THAT number seems incredibly high to me), and stomp on the traditions of the other 98% of the population who aren't gay.
Do you REALLY think that's not going unsettle and piss off a lot of people?
I really don't see why gays need marriage, other than to annoy conservatives nationwide. Will it really win any more respect from the mainstream for gay marriage? Or will it just be something where a vast percentage of that 98% heterosexual majority will just roll their eyes and say "whatever..."
I mean, why not just live together? Many heterosexual couples do. And they don't pretend God or the Bible sanctions their doing so.
Gays would serve their cause better by not rubbing their abberrant sexuality in the rest of our faces. It's just gross to me, I don't even want to think about it. I feel no hostility toward gays, let them do whatever they want behind closed doors. But force me to look at it, and to see laws passed that undermine the definition of marriage as it has existed for 6,000 years, and twists the very meaning of the Bible itself... well, you've crossed the line of what you can do in your own home, and tried to pervert what is sacred to me. Just so you can rationalize your own lifestyle.
And hell yes, I have a problem with that.
I've offered explanations, clear and indisputable, but you clearly won't accept anything other than YOUR VERSION of the truth (which is to say, a lie that rationalizes homosexuality) despite all logic to the contrary. Well, don't expect me to endorse your lie.
Imbecile. What a ridiculous, sewage-spewing toad you are, Dave. Did you come by your "views" all by yourself, or did mommy and daddy give you a hand?
You're one to talk MK. Have you read the crap you've been spewing? You came into this thread that was going well, and just insulted people left and right. Picking on certain people you obviously hate. So why are you even here? Why not go harrass someone who actually gives a care? You're contributing nothing to this thread.
...I've offered explanations, clear and indisputable, but you clearly won't accept anything other than YOUR VERSION of the truth (which is to say, a lie that rationalizes homosexuality) despite all logic to the contrary. Well, don't expect me to endorse your lie.
That was rather inappropriate, don't you think?
I'm not sure I get your meaning, Wednesday.
I've offered several topic pages of quotes and explanations, and I can't seem to get the slightest acknowledgement of what the words in the Bible clearly say... is CLEARLY WHAT THEY SAY !
It took a lot of time to find and post thiose passages. And for what?
I feel the clear validity of my points (of what the Bible and Christian teachings clearly say about homosexuality) is being deliberately ignored. I guarantee when the current legislation has undermined Christianity as I predicted, that no one will be arguing the rights of Christians to their beliefs and lifestyle.
And by the way, I haven't threatened anyone. klinton has.
quote:klinton:
And if you ever mention pedophilia in the same breath as homosexuality again, I will hunt your arrogant ass down. I am sick to death of that. There is no possible connection, other than the ones your twisted sense of superiority has drawn.
So much for civility.
My "twisted sense of superiority" is supported by the words of Justice Scalia. And no doubt millions of other displeased Americans.
My position makes ideological sense. Yours only bends the truth to rationalize your lifestyle.
I've stuck to the issue, and resisted namecalling. Many on the liberal side of this topic have not.
As you well know, people here in America have the freedom to practice pretty much any Religion they want. No one is out to ban or abolish your ability to worship, Dave. And if there ever did come a time when the US government tried to oppose your right to practice religion, you better believe I would stand up and fight for your rights.
YOU (and many people like you, unfortunately) are the one who wants to use your take on the Bible as a means to continue discriminating against gays, Dave. YOU are the one trying to force your beliefs down everyone else's throats. However, since we do have a separation of church and state in this country, the bible should play no part in the legality of gay marriages.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Gays would serve their cause better by not rubbing their abberrant sexuality in the rest of our faces. It's just gross to me, I don't even want to think about it. I feel no hostility toward gays, let them do whatever they want behind closed doors. But force me to look at it, and to see laws passed that undermine the definition of marriage as it has existed for 6,000 years, and twists the very meaning of the Bible itself... well, you've crossed the line of what you can do in your own home, and tried to pervert what is sacred to me. Just so you can rationalize your own lifestyle.
*thunk* (Klint engages in the infinitely more productive activity of slaming his head into a wall).
As I said in I think the very first reply i gave to you, it's not about 'getting respect'. I don't want your respect, or even your approval. What I do want is to know that if I'm in the hospital, my boyfriend will be allowed at my bedside. What I do want is to be confident that if I died tomorrow, my boyfriend would unquestionably inherit my estate. What I want is the satisfaction that I am not a second class citizen, subject to the whims of people like you. Fine, you feel that Christ hates me. That's your perogative. That is still no justification for treating me as an invalid member of society.
I don't want to shove anything in your face any more than you'd want to shove your life in mine. Quite frankly all of the 'abberhant' sexuality that goes along with my life is my buisness....I think I'd be more disgusted if you were wittness to it than you ever could be. :)
Exactly. Great post, Klinton.
Gays who want to get married just want the same rights, benefits, and privelidges that we straight married people have. It's so perfectly reasonable and fair that I can't believe anyone would have the gall to say otherwise, for fuck's sweet sake.
Be careful, Matt. Rob doesn't check this forum as often as some of the others, but you're flirting with getting some of your posts deleted at the very least. Not only are you making personal attacks on individuals, you are attacking Christianity itself. Distinctly not an advisable course of action.
I don't care what your motivation or your agenda is. In this particular thread, you have breached just about every rule of MB etiquette there is. So, you find DTWB's statements offensive - which justifies your far more offensive statements against the whole lot of posters who don't agree with you? I don't think so.
I am genuinely trying to be patient here. On the other threads you post in, you're generally pretty reasonable. I'm not sure what happened in this thread. Klinton, Matter-Eater Man, and the other posters who support legalizing gay marriage have been for the most part understanding, or at least polite. You, on the other hand...
Well, it's a good thing I opted to moderate the Video Games forum instead of Deep Thoughts/Issues, because I probably would have deleted half your posts in this thread. A lot of other people would have banned you outright. But hey - I guess I'm a nice guy.
I've offered several topic pages of quotes and explanations, and I can't seem to get the slightest acknowledgement of what the words in the Bible clearly say... is CLEARLY WHAT THEY SAY !
It took a lot of time to find and post thiose passages. And for what?
I feel the clear validity of my points (of what the Bible and Christian teachings clearly say about homosexuality) is being deliberately ignored...
I WAS GOING to comment that you had clearly underminded the views of others, and treated those views as less than your own simply because they disagree. I WAS GOING to say that your views are simply a belief stacked on a belief, no more or less important than klinton's, Big's, Dave's, or anyone else's. Even mine .
But having read the last page and a half and reread a good portion of this thread, I wouldn't dare. Both sides (myself included) are guilty as charged. For what it's worth, though, despite the fact that I disagree with you almost 100%, I do appreciate what you've said. You're obviously educated and have made strong points. I'm not ignoring your points, I'm simply taking the time to absorb what's been said (the point of debate, IMHO) and sort my thoughts. I will TRY to not make another half-assed, incomplete dispute of the Bible or your religious beliefs. I do respect them.
Now if you'll excuse me, it's Friday night and this holier-than-thou ex-Christian needs to partake in some good ol' fashion debauchery.
Oh, and we made the board's front page (yay us!), so at least we can agree that we disagree well.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: Poor DTWB is being hit pretty hard of late. I think I might have said a few more inflammatory things than him, in which case I would like to apologize if I offended anyone while stating that I am holding to my convictions as well. I am not going to post too much this weekend, as I hurt my shoulder at work today, but I might be in and out of here to say a few things. Have a good weekend.
Cap'n and Big Willie: Wonder Dave is a big boy. I'm sure he can take care of himself.
Wonder Dave is also a gigantic asshole on legs, in my opinion. To waste time wiping his nose for him is just that--- a waste of time. Believe me, I'm VERY familiar with this goofy, long-winded joker having listened to his endless blather over on the old DC messageboards. (And take it from me, he absolutely LOVES playing the martyr--- the last thing Dave wants is to come down from the cross, gang. )
Matt, stop flaming him. You can find his opinions personally atrocious, but flaming someone is counter-productive. Hearing the fully-fleshed out argument of someone you disagree with is productive because it can cause you to examine your own beliefs or sttrengthen your beliefs by a comparison. Name-calling only means you're incapable of fighting him because you can't mount an argument to reject his views.
Dave TWB has side-stepped a number of issues I have raised, the key one being the condonement of slavery in the Bible. I don't think he has addressed this (unless I overlooked it) other than to say that a Christian pro-slavery view was only predominant in the South. I think its worth looking into further, beyond the boundaries of your regional civil war. For example, a strict adherence to the Bible would mean that a slaver is able to be a good Christian and able to be married in a church, but a homosexual who truly believed that Christ died for his sins was not. This, of course, is ludicrous by our contemporary standards.
One of Dave's arguments - in fact the only one supporting the insidousness of homosexuality - is that AIDS is a gay disease.
I think this is an ethnocentric view, based upon your anecdotal experience and observations. You say that you think 2% of people are gay (at best). Yet I found this on the UN website:
quote: The Economic and Social Council also began discussion of the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. Peter Piot, Executive Director noted that ten years or more had been stripped from life expectancy in the worst-affected countries, and that a 10 per cent HIV rate caused an annual loss of around 1 per cent of a country's GDP. Such effects were cumulative. It had been estimated, for example, that by the beginning of the next decade South Africa's GDP would be 17 per cent less than it would have been without AIDS.
quote: According to World Health Organization (WHO) reports, Africa is still the major area most affected by the AIDS epidemic (Mertens and others, 1994). As of the beginning of 1994, nearly two thirds (about 9 million adults) of all cumulative cases of HIV infection have occurred in Africa. However, the epidemic is expanding rapidly in some parts of South and South-eastern Asia and, if the current rate of infection continues, the annual number of new infections in Asia is expected to surpass that of Africa. WHO estimates that there were more than 2 million AIDS cases in Africa as of the end of 1993, constituting about 67 per cent of the total cumulative number of cases in the world. Thirteen per cent occurred in the United States, 12 per cent in Latin America and the Caribbean, and 5 per cent in Europe. Because the epidemic started relatively recently in Asia, only 2 per cent of the AIDS cases in the world occurred in Asia.
That isn't attributable to a 2% population segment. Obviouly I've not given you a comprehensive citation, but it leads me to believe that either there are more gays in the world than you think, or the disease is not chiefly a gay disease.
Even if it was a gay disease, a "disease" itself cannot be a fair example of evidence of a "corrupt" or "insidous" practice which would be capable of denying someone a Christian marriage. A leper has a terrible disease, yet a good Christian leper can be married in a church. To anticipate what you might say, the fact that the disease is capable of tranmission through anal or oral sex is not a relevant factor - anal and oral sex is also a practice amongst heterosexuals. In any event, AIDS is also capable of tranmission through vaginal sex.
I am reluctant to attack you rather than your argument, but I think that your disposition against homosexual marriage is clouded by your personal revulsion of anal sex between male homosexuals. You might also hate going to the dentist or hearing fingernails scraped along a blackboard, but none should impair your ability to objectively regard homosexuality as a behavioural choice.
Speaking personally, I regard the practice was some mild distaste, but my personal feelings simply aren't a consideration. I don't let that get in the way of my views on gay rights - the right to live a lifestyle, sexually or otherwise, as you wish. I refuse to be prejudiced against someone because of their victimless lifestyle.
I'm also, frankly, disappointed to think that a right-thinking Christian can want to exclude a fellow Christian from the goodwill of the Church simply because of a behavioural choice. Relying upon the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality is as incorrect as relying upon the Bible for justification of slavery.
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: You're one to talk MK. Have you read the crap you've been spewing? You came into this thread that was going well, and just insulted people left and right. Picking on certain people you obviously hate. So why are you even here? Why not go harrass someone who actually gives a care? You're contributing nothing to this thread.
Settle down, Churchie McChurchenstein. I don't "hate" dear ol' Dave--- I just think he's a wrong-headed, bullying, self-righteous windbag. That's all. Other than that I'm sure he's a real peach of a human being.
Matt, tolerance is a double-edged sword. Any person straight, gay, lesbian, bi, etc that is pro homosexual rights demands tolerance for the most part (I don't want to generalize too much). At the same time people like you offer none. You just wan to take and take and take. From your perspective homosexuals deserve the rights that are inalienable. Fine, I have no problem with that regardless of my religious beliefs.
People who act as you have been doing are a stain on positive conversation, action and debate...and nothing positive comes of it. Do you ever wonder why Israel and Palestine have never settled their differences? It's because of people who think and act exactly as you do. Demanding tolerance, demanding this, taking that..but never, never offering the same in return. Why should anyone who thinks even more strongly than I do or Dave does even bother discussing anything with anyone as curmudgeonly as you are? It won't get them anywhere, their negative opinions will be reinforced and ultimately do more harm than good (especially in the general populace).
Matt, homosexuals will get marriage and even more proteceted civil-rights, etc. But guess what, there won't be a wellspring of positivity from middle America. And it won't be something that middle America wants. It will be granted by the government, and much like slavery will be forced upon the common people. When the government forced the abolition of slavery down the american citizen's throats it took generations for it to set in properly (although the history books you have read may not tell that tale)..in fact it did more lasting harm than good. The same will happen with the homosexual rights issue. Martin Luther King did more in a decade to heal the wounds of generations by speaking of understanding, common sense, tolerance and inalienable rights than any that had come before. Because he was accepted by the common American, because they eventually related to his message..because of his demeanor and the compassion he exuded as a leader.
Matt, you will bring disdain upon yourself and those you are seeking to help because you end up looking as ridiculous trying to advance homosexual ideals as Jerry Falwell does advancing Christian ideals. The joke is only as funny and successful as the delivery, and your delivery is neither effective or eloquent.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: Be careful, Matt. Rob doesn't check this forum as often as some of the others, but you're flirting with getting some of your posts deleted at the very least. Not only are you making personal attacks on individuals, you are attacking Christianity itself. Distinctly not an advisable course of action.
I don't care what your motivation or your agenda is. In this particular thread, you have breached just about every rule of MB etiquette there is. So, you find DTWB's statements offensive - which justifies your far more offensive statements against the whole lot of posters who don't agree with you? I don't think so.
I am genuinely trying to be patient here. On the other threads you post in, you're generally pretty reasonable. I'm not sure what happened in this thread. Klinton, Matter-Eater Man, and the other posters who support legalizing gay marriage have been for the most part understanding, or at least polite. You, on the other hand...
Well, it's a good thing I opted to moderate the Video Games forum instead of Deep Thoughts/Issues, because I probably would have deleted half your posts in this thread. A lot of other people would have banned you outright. But hey - I guess I'm a nice guy.
Watch your mouth.
Not ONCE did I "attack christianity", chief.
And from what I understand, Rob's Boards are anything goes, no quarter asked or given (just ask the Nature Boyz). But even if that is NOT the case, since you aren't a moderator here it's hardly your call.
quote:Originally posted by Pig Iron: Matt, tolerance is a double-edged sword. Any person straight, gay, lesbian, bi, etc that is pro homosexual rights demands tolerance for the most part (I don't want to generalize too much). At the same time people like you offer none. You just wan to take and take and take. From your perspective homosexuals deserve the rights that are inalienable. Fine, I have no problem with that regardless of my religious beliefs.
People who act as you have been doing are a stain on positive conversation, action and debate...and nothing positive comes of it. Do you ever wonder why Israel and Palestine have never settled their differences? It's because of people who think and act exactly as you do. Demanding tolerance, demanding this, taking that..but never, never offering the same in return. Why should anyone who thinks even more strongly than I do or Dave does even bother discussing anything with anyone as curmudgeonly as you are? It won't get them anywhere, their negative opinions will be reinforced and ultimately do more harm than good (especially in the general populace).
Matt, homosexuals will get marriage and even more proteceted civil-rights, etc. But guess what, there won't be a wellspring of positivity from middle America. And it won't be something that middle America wants. It will be granted by the government, and much like slavery will be forced upon the common people. When the government forced the abolition of slavery down the american citizen's throats it took generations for it to set in properly (although the history books you have read may not tell that tale)..in fact it did more lasting harm than good. The same will happen with the homosexual rights issue. Martin Luther King did more in a decade to heal the wounds of generations by speaking of understanding, common sense, tolerance and inalienable rights than any that had come before. Because he was accepted by the common American, because they eventually related to his message..because of his demeanor and the compassion he exuded as a leader.
Matt, you will bring disdain upon yourself and those you are seeking to help because you end up looking as ridiculous trying to advance homosexual ideals as Jerry Falwell does advancing Christian ideals. The joke is only as funny and successful as the delivery, and your delivery is neither effective or eloquent.
But I'm NOT Martin Luther King, Pig Iron. I'm just a mere mortal who doesn't suffer fools well.
And no one in the history of mankind has ever looked/sounded as ridiculous as Jerry Falwell. Just sayin'...
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: Be careful, Matt. Rob doesn't check this forum as often as some of the others, but you're flirting with getting some of your posts deleted at the very least. Not only are you making personal attacks on individuals, you are attacking Christianity itself. Distinctly not an advisable course of action.
I don't care what your motivation or your agenda is. In this particular thread, you have breached just about every rule of MB etiquette there is. So, you find DTWB's statements offensive - which justifies your far more offensive statements against the whole lot of posters who don't agree with you? I don't think so.
I am genuinely trying to be patient here. On the other threads you post in, you're generally pretty reasonable. I'm not sure what happened in this thread. Klinton, Matter-Eater Man, and the other posters who support legalizing gay marriage have been for the most part understanding, or at least polite. You, on the other hand...
Well, it's a good thing I opted to moderate the Video Games forum instead of Deep Thoughts/Issues, because I probably would have deleted half your posts in this thread. A lot of other people would have banned you outright. But hey - I guess I'm a nice guy.
Watch your mouth.
Not ONCE did I "attack christianity", chief.
And from what I understand, Rob's Boards are anything goes, no quarter asked or given (just ask the Nature Boyz). But even if that is NOT the case, since you aren't a moderator here it's hardly your call.
Watch my mouth? Mind your business, chum.
On second thought: FUCK YOU. I don't need or want your "patience", Sammitch, so you can cram that condescending attitude of yours straight up your poop chute, ol' Hoss.
...I've offered explanations, clear and indisputable, but you clearly won't accept anything other than YOUR VERSION of the truth (which is to say, a lie that rationalizes homosexuality) despite all logic to the contrary. Well, don't expect me to endorse your lie.
That was rather inappropriate, don't you think?
I'm not sure I get your meaning, Wednesday.
I've offered several topic pages of quotes and explanations, and I can't seem to get the slightest acknowledgement of what the words in the Bible clearly say... is CLEARLY WHAT THEY SAY !
It took a lot of time to find and post thiose passages. And for what?
I feel the clear validity of my points (of what the Bible and Christian teachings clearly say about homosexuality) is being deliberately ignored. I guarantee when the current legislation has undermined Christianity as I predicted, that no one will be arguing the rights of Christians to their beliefs and lifestyle.
And by the way, I haven't threatened anyone. klinton has.
quote:klinton:
And if you ever mention pedophilia in the same breath as homosexuality again, I will hunt your arrogant ass down. I am sick to death of that. There is no possible connection, other than the ones your twisted sense of superiority has drawn.
So much for civility.
My "twisted sense of superiority" is supported by the words of Justice Scalia. And no doubt millions of other displeased Americans.
My position makes ideological sense. Yours only bends the truth to rationalize your lifestyle.
I've stuck to the issue, and resisted namecalling. Many on the liberal side of this topic have not.
As you well know, people here in America have the freedom to practice pretty much any Religion they want. No one is out to ban or abolish your ability to worship, Dave. And if there ever did come a time when the US government tried to oppose your right to practice religion, you better believe I would stand up and fight for your rights.
YOU (and many people like you, unfortunately) are the one who wants to use your take on the Bible as a means to continue discriminating against gays, Dave. YOU are the one trying to force your beliefs down everyone else's throats. However, since we do have a separation of church and state in this country, the bible should play no part in the legality of gay marriages.
quote:YOU (and many people like you, unfortunately) are the one who wants to use your take on the Bible as a means to continue discriminating against gays, Dave. YOU are the one trying to force your beliefs down everyone else's throats. However, since we do have a separation of church and state in this country, the bible should play no part in the legality of gay marriages.
As Danny pointed out a few pages back, though, there is a distinction betwene a legal marriage and a Christian marriage. None of the Christian arguments can negate the right to gay couples going to a civil celebrant and obtianing a marriage license.
My issue is that a loving Christian Church should not deny a gay couple the same privilege as a straight couple. On that point, I fear you are right: it is discrimination.
quote:YOU (and many people like you, unfortunately) are the one who wants to use your take on the Bible as a means to continue discriminating against gays, Dave. YOU are the one trying to force your beliefs down everyone else's throats. However, since we do have a separation of church and state in this country, the bible should play no part in the legality of gay marriages.
As Danny pointed out a few pages back, though, there is a distinction betwene a legal marriage and a Christian marriage. None of the Christian arguments can negate the right to gay couples going to a civil celebrant and obtianing a marriage license.
My issue is that a loving Christian Church should not deny a gay couple the same privilege as a straight couple. On that point, I fear you are right: it is discrimination.
I was just responding to an earlier post by Wonder Dave where he claimed that the US government was going to ultimately trample on his rights as a christian--- I think that's completely unfounded horseshit, but if it ever DID happen I would definitely fight for his right to worship.
What he wants, though, is to exclude/deny a homosexual's right to worship or have a church wedding based on HIS take on the Bible. Just another bully hiding behind "the good book" and trying to use it as a weapon against those who are different than him.
Of course christianity won't stop homosexuals from getting legally married, T-Dave. As much as people like Wonder Boy hate it, one day (and probably not too far off, really) gays and lesbians in the US will get all the rights and benefits that they deserve. It's just a matter of time.
quote:YOU (and many people like you, unfortunately) are the one who wants to use your take on the Bible as a means to continue discriminating against gays, Dave. YOU are the one trying to force your beliefs down everyone else's throats. However, since we do have a separation of church and state in this country, the bible should play no part in the legality of gay marriages.
As Danny pointed out a few pages back, though, there is a distinction betwene a legal marriage and a Christian marriage. None of the Christian arguments can negate the right to gay couples going to a civil celebrant and obtianing a marriage license.
My issue is that a loving Christian Church should not deny a gay couple the same privilege as a straight couple. On that point, I fear you are right: it is discrimination.
I was just responding to an earlier post by Wonder Dave where he claimed that the US government was going to ultimately trample on his rights as a christian--- I think that's completely unfounded horseshit, but if it ever DID happen I would definitely fight for his right to worship.
What he wants, though, is to exclude/deny a homosexual's right to worship or have a church wedding based on HIS take on the Bible. Just another bully hiding behind "the good book" and trying to use it as a weapon against those who are different than him.
Of course christianity won't stop homosexuals from getting legally married, T-Dave. As much as people like Wonder Boy hate it, one day (and probably not too far off, really) gays and lesbians in the US will get all the rights and benefits that they deserve. It's just a matter of time.
And when that time does come, I also think that there will be more than a few churches that will sanction and perform church weddings, too--- so gays and lesbians will be able to decide how they want to tie the knot based on their particular faith (or lack of faith if they aren't religious).
Thank you all for acknowledging the rudeness and pointless antagonism of Matt Kennedy's posts. There really is no need, or worthiness, of a response to what he has said. His idiocy speaks for itself.
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
Dave TWB has side-stepped a number of issues I have raised, the key one being the condonement of slavery in the Bible. I don't think he has addressed this (unless I overlooked it) other than to say that a Christian pro-slavery view was only predominant in the South. I think its worth looking into further, beyond the boundaries of your regional civil war. For example, a strict adherence to the Bible would mean that a slaver is able to be a good Christian and able to be married in a church, but a homosexual who truly believed that Christ died for his sins was not. This, of course, is ludicrous by our contemporary standards.
I take exception to your choice of the word "side-stepped" to describe my previous responses. Although it could have a connotation that you did not intend. I am certainly endeavoring to answer all your inquiries clearly, and at great length, and there is no attempt on my part to avoid any detail of the questions raised. In point of fact, I answered in such detail that Rob's board wouldn't allow me to post (it aparently exceeded the maximum post length) and I had to copy/paste it to a separate page, and then break it into 3 separate posts to get it through.
I feel I answered the issues you addressed thoroughly in my two posts responding to yours, beginning midway down page 9 of this topic. Please re-read that section, which hopefully I've answered adequately for you.
To elaborate on the alleged Christian endorsement of slavery: I don't see that the Bible EVER endorsed slavery. At least not in a way that most Christians in any era would have agreed to.
quote:GALATIANS 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
A religion that professes equality for all in Jesus does not seem like a religious faith that would condemn one racial/ethnic/gender group of its faithful to slavery under another.
While I'm sure there were Christians who were misled to believe the Bible endorses slavery (I already quoted the verse, GENESIS 9:verses24-27, that allegedly does this, on page 9), a vast percentage of Christians in any given time did not.
And in Civil War times in America (1860-1865, and prior), Christians worked hard in the North to legislate freedom of slaves, prevent Western territories from becoming states (because they would have strengthened slavery by also becoming slave states), and many Christians labored and even risked their lives in the abolitionist movement, and so-called "underground railroad", the network of abolitionists helping slaves escape the South, into the North and freedom.
Christianity didn't create slavery, and Christianity didn't perpetuate or dominate slavery. Slavery began thousands of years before Europeans colonized Africa, and began with African tribes selling off members of neighboring tribes, to depopulate the region for their own tribal domination. Europeans were only in the slave trade from Africa on a large scale for about 150 years.
And in any case, Christians in the modern era do NOT believe in slavery. People in the Middle Ages and prior used to 'bleed" people as a medical practice, too, but I don't think modern Christians should be held accountable for that.
Protestantism was founded because MANY of the practices of the Medeival Catholic church were not Biblical (pergutory, preists and nuns cannot marry, the Inquisition, which arguably killed many true Christians who defied Catholic practices as "heretics", a Bible that could only be read by clergy (in Latin) and thus not accessible to common Christians, etc.)
Modern Christianity should not be judged by historical crimes that were not even representative of true Christianity. Modern Catholicism, though it still has practices that are not in the Bible, is much more true to the Bible, and accessible to average Catholics.
(As Big Ol'Willie speculated,I'm not Catholic. I'm Protestant. Specifically, Presbyterian. Although I've also attended many other denominations, including Catholic church.)
quote:Originally posted by Dave: One of Dave[TWB]'s arguments - in fact the only one supporting the insidousness of homosexuality - is that AIDS is a gay disease.
Not the only one. As I said, other forms of insideousness of homosexuality in corrupting our culture are in creating a general sense of "anything goes" permissiveness. Gay rights kick open the door to rights, and spread, of a wide variety of sexual practices and perversions. All of which undermine family, fidelity and marriage.
And the biggest insideous affect of homosexuality is its attempt to corrupt and re-write scripture for its own purposes. Undermining the true teachings of moral behavior for Christianity.
Again, see page 9. All of this is there, although I've expanded somewhat here.
I already acknowledged that AIDS is not limited to homosexuals, and worldwide is more common among heterosexual prostitutes and from heterosexual anal sex. And as I said, virtually all transmissions of AIDS, heterosexual or homosexual, are from indiscriminant immoral behavior.
But as I said on page 9, it is very prevalent in the U.S. among homosexuals, and the largest infected, and infecting, group in the U.S. And transmission through a secretly bisexual husband or boyfriend is the most common method of transmission to women in the U.S. (Other major causes being prostitution and I.V. drug use)
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
I think this is an ethnocentric view, based upon your anecdotal experience and observations. You say that you think 2% of people are gay (at best)...
That isn't attributable to a 2% population segment. Obviously I've not given you a comprehensive citation, but it leads me to believe that either there are more gays in the world than you think, or the disease is not chiefly a gay disease.
I answered most of this above.
There are many different studfies done on the ratio of homosexuality in our culture. Estimates I've seen range from 1% to 2% to 5% to 10% (the largest, of course, a study clearly done by a group sympathetic to gay rights).
I have some personal anecdotal experience, yes, but my information is mostly from various articles I've read over the last 15 years or so, from TIME magazine to the New York Times to the Sun-Sentinel (again, a major Ft. Lauderdale newspaper), to various network news programs, and to a lesser degree some Christian news sources, primarily The 700 Club, Hal Lindsey, and Coral Ridge Hour's news sections. And from a long conversation with the Center for Disease Control, and with various local doctors, when I wrote a magazine article on AIDS/HIV in 1993.
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
Even if it was a gay disease, a "disease" itself cannot be a fair example of evidence of a "corrupt" or "insidous" practice which would be capable of denying someone a Christian marriage. A leper has a terrible disease, yet a good Christian leper can be married in a church. To anticipate what you might say, the fact that the disease is capable of tranmission through anal or oral sex is not a relevant factor - anal and oral sex is also a practice amongst heterosexuals. In any event, AIDS is also capable of tranmission through vaginal sex.
Again, AIDS/HIV is transmissible almost exclusively through immoral behavior (illicit heterosexual/homosexual sex, and I.V. drug use)
I already included immoral heterosexual behavior in my earlier post, on page 9 of this topic.
This topic is specifically addressing homosexuality. But Christianity condemns both (heterosexual and homosexual extramarital sex), as much as you and several others try to allege that Christianity has a different standard for for heterosexual immorality and homosexual immorality. The point has been made abundantly by myself, Captain Sammich, Big Ol'Willie and others here that ALL sin is equal in the eyes of god.
And that all sin can be forgiven, with repentance.
Any member attending church, homosexual or heterosexual, who is having extramarital sex (hetero- or homo- ) and does not mention it, will be able to attend church. Even mentioning it, they will be able to attend. Other Christians will tell them the behavior is wrong and they need to stop it, but they can still attend and be given the counsel of other Christians. I don't mean that as some kind of church doctrine, I just mean you'd talk about it with your friends inside the church, and they'd be supportive. If the behavior went on long enough, I suppose it would cause them to be confronted about it, inquiring whether their attendance of church was sincerely spiritual.
But probably before it ever got to that, they would likely cease to be friends because of a difference in lifestyle and a lack of common ground.
I had a female friend who was having an affair with a married pastor, and I was supportive but in a friendly way for months said "You HAVE to know this is wrong and can only bring you both trouble." I finally ended the friendship for different but somewhat related reasons, and told her she consistently demonstrated selfish behavior. She was what you'd term a fair-weather friend. I felt I was always there for her, and over a 4-year period, she was never there for me.
Again, form a Judao-Christian/Biblical perspective, all sexual immorality (whether heterosexual or homosexual) is viewed unfavorably. Criticism by pastors or friends in the church is supportive, and not angry or judgemental, but it makes clear what the Biblical standard is, and advocates no other standard.
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
I am reluctant to attack you rather than your argument, but I think that your disposition against homosexual marriage is clouded by your personal revulsion of anal sex between male homosexuals. You might also hate going to the dentist or hearing fingernails scraped along a blackboard, but none should impair your ability to objectively regard homosexuality as a behavioural choice.
Speaking personally, I regard the practice was some mild distaste, but my personal feelings simply aren't a consideration. I don't let that get in the way of my views on gay rights - the right to live a lifestyle, sexually or otherwise, as you wish. I refuse to be prejudiced against someone because of their victimless lifestyle.
YOU believe it is victimless, Dave, please respect the fact that, for the reasons I've abundantly stated, I DO NOT.
Cultural acceptance of homosexuality encourages a variety of other sexual and abberrant behaviors, as I've detailed above. The Bible teaches this (Romans, chapter 1, for example, as quoted in my posts over several pages), and I'm inclined to agree. And most importantly, as I've said, homosexuality activists attempt to re-write the Bible, and distort the bible's meaning.
I'm not prejudiced toward gays. As recently as three weeks ago, I had lunch with a gay associate. I make it clear that I don't judge or discrriminate against gays as people, but that it's not a lifestyle I believe in. I generally don't discuss religion with gay friends, except on an occasional as-raised basis (usually when Christian-bashing remarks are made, I politely clarify the true Christian position, but don't dwell on it). But I have plenty of other things to discuss with gay friends and co-workers: politics, shop talk, jokes, entertainment, etc.
I don't judge someone as a bad person because they're gay. Just like I don't think Democrats are bad people, just misguided . There are characteristics of just about anyone that I like, as well as ones I dislike.
Gays have a right to their lifestyle in a democratic secular society. They do NOT have a right to re-write the Bible and its most sacred traditions (and specifically change the pre-existing 6000-plus year definition of marriage both within the Judao-Christian world, and within other religions and parts of the world). As I said, gays have a right to create their own form of gay union and spousal benefits. They don't have a right to re-write the Biblical definition of marriage, and pervert the meaning of Christianity by doing so.
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
I'm also, frankly, disappointed to think that a right-thinking Christian can want to exclude a fellow Christian from the goodwill of the Church simply because of a behavioural choice. Relying upon the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality is as incorrect as relying upon the Bible for justification of slavery.
I don't want to exclude anyone from the church.
I would want to exclude a gay person who tried to re-write the Bible to endorse the gay lifestyle, but otherwise I would welcome a gay person to church. How else can they learn what Christianity truly is? As I said, I've met several gay men at church, who were attempting to look beyond their previous gay lifestyle.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: As Danny pointed out a few pages back, though, there is a distinction between a legal marriage and a Christian marriage. None of the Christian arguments can negate the right to gay couples going to a civil celebrant and obtianing a marriage license.
My issue is that a loving Christian Church should not deny a gay couple the same privilege as a straight couple. On that point, I fear you are right: it is discrimination.
Along the same path of thought, a loving court system should not convict and imprison thieves, rapists, drug dealers and murderers.
Laws are set up for a reason, for the good of society.
And the Bible is a set of laws of moral behavior. If those laws are not enforced and practiced, then why have them in the first place? And without them, it is no longer Christianity. It is decadence and sexual immorality.
As Captain Sammitch said in one of his posts, more articulately, 3 or 4 pages back.
I'm really tired of answering the same questions I and others have already answered. I think many here want to believe we're wrong, and thus don't give serious consideration to the arguments I and others have raised.
Here is Captain Sammitch's post I referred to, from the bottom of page 6:
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: I can't get free of this thread!!!
Let's see...
You are a person.
You commit actions.
You are not your actions.
Therefore loving a person does not require condoning their actions.
And refusing to approve of a person's actions is not the same as rejecting that person.
I am reminded of a child stealing cookies from the cookie jar and getting caught by his mother. That child may have wanted those cookies, and that child will feel he is entirely right in his own eyes - in which case he will instantly conclude his mother must hate him because she didn't approve of his actions - stealing the cookies. But the child's mother knows better than the child, and she punishes him because she loves him. She opposes his actions because she knows his actions are potentially harmful to him in the short term, and would encourage patterns of self-destructive behavior in the long run.
The rules in the Bible aren't put there to justify social evils or to divide societies or to make people feel inferior. They're put there to promote people's mental, physical, and spiritual well-being.
The fact that the Bible stresses the importance of love and compassion in many places does not mitigate its statements on what is right and wrong. While you cannot pick and choose what passages of Scripture you want to believe without rendering the entire Book useless, you have to interpret any passage in the context of Scripture as a whole, which precludes attempting to justify a position specifically condemned elsewhere.
Homosexual acts are specifically addressed in both Old and New Testaments, and in both places they are addressed as sins. Not worse than any other sins, granted, but as I've been saying homosexuals are no worse than anyone else. The difference is this. In both the Bible and the laws of the United States - both church and state - we have laws against stealing (larceny), lying (perjury), murder (homicide), cheating (fraud), and so on. Now, you can nitpick about things like adultery and covetousness and so on, but... ummm... yeah, stones.
When Jesus spoke to the woman caught in adultery, He told her He did not condemn her - and in the very next sentence instructed her to 'go and sin no more.' Clearly, while God's love reaches out to a person despite their sins, it does not excuse the sin, nor does it mitigate any potential consequences.
Honestly, to push an argument through for gay rights, you'd have better luck dispensing with the Christian faith entirely - in which case I'd probably be out of your hair.
I'm not gonna pass judgment on people, just actions. I'm still your buddy, klinton - if you really feel like putting up with me.
Actually anyone trying to rewrite the Bible would be doomed straight or gay. Sincere interpretation of the Bible is another matter entirely. One Bible yet there are how many different branches of Christianity?
As I said before, freedom of religion is not an issue here. Your church won't be forced to marry homosexuals but as MK pointed out some churches will. Win win situation.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: As Danny pointed out a few pages back, though, there is a distinction between a legal marriage and a Christian marriage. None of the Christian arguments can negate the right to gay couples going to a civil celebrant and obtianing a marriage license.
My issue is that a loving Christian Church should not deny a gay couple the same privilege as a straight couple. On that point, I fear you are right: it is discrimination.
Along the same path of thought, a loving court system should not convict and imprison thieves, rapists, drug dealers and murderers.
Laws are set up for a reason, for the good of society.
And the Bible is a set of laws of moral behavior. If those laws are not enforced and practiced, then why have them in the first place? And without them, it is no longer Christianity. It is decadence and sexual immorality.
As Captain Sammitch said in one of his posts, more articulately, 3 or 4 pages back.
I'm really tired of answering the same questions I and others have already answered. I think many here want to believe we're wrong, and thus don't give serious consideration to the arguments I and others have raised.
Homosexuals are in the same moral sphere as "thieves, rapists, drug dealers, and murderers"? Nice analogy, you goofy fuckwit.
The vast majority of what you've been trying to sell here just doesn't merit "serious consideration", Bunky. Same old tired "Jesus told me so" rhetoric--- the kind of mindless, knee-jerk garbage that wrong-headed people much like yourself have used as a justification to do all kinds of purely evil shit throughout the ages.
As I said before, freedom of religion is not an issue here. Your church won't be forced to marry homosexuals but as MK pointed out some churches will. Win win situation.
Exactly!
And since we live in a free country Davey will still have the right to consider all of you a bunch of hell-bound homos. Ain't freedom of religion a butt-kickin' gas?
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: Yes freedom of religion is a good thing. That got started when a group of people were persecuted for their different beliefs. Also got to love irony
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: Be careful, Matt. Rob doesn't check this forum as often as some of the others, but you're flirting with getting some of your posts deleted at the very least. Not only are you making personal attacks on individuals, you are attacking Christianity itself. Distinctly not an advisable course of action.
I don't care what your motivation or your agenda is. In this particular thread, you have breached just about every rule of MB etiquette there is. So, you find DTWB's statements offensive - which justifies your far more offensive statements against the whole lot of posters who don't agree with you? I don't think so.
I am genuinely trying to be patient here. On the other threads you post in, you're generally pretty reasonable. I'm not sure what happened in this thread. Klinton, Matter-Eater Man, and the other posters who support legalizing gay marriage have been for the most part understanding, or at least polite. You, on the other hand...
Well, it's a good thing I opted to moderate the Video Games forum instead of Deep Thoughts/Issues, because I probably would have deleted half your posts in this thread. A lot of other people would have banned you outright. But hey - I guess I'm a nice guy.
Watch your mouth.
Not ONCE did I "attack christianity", chief.
And from what I understand, Rob's Boards are anything goes, no quarter asked or given (just ask the Nature Boyz). But even if that is NOT the case, since you aren't a moderator here it's hardly your call.
Watch my mouth? Mind your business, chum.
On second thought: FUCK YOU. I don't need or want your "patience", Sammitch, so you can cram that condescending attitude of yours straight up your poop chute, ol' Hoss.
I could say something. I really could. But if I tried to sink to the level you've reached, the sudden change in barometric pressure would squash the whole thread flat. You have no idea how much restraint I am showing right now.
Well, congratulations, kid, you did it. You have pretty much earned the right to have EVERYTHING you say ignored, at least by me. The rules of this board and the rules of this country may dictate that you can speak your mind, but there's nothing that says any of us actually have to listen to you. And you have completely and utterly failed to redeem yourself by posting a legitimate rebuttal of anything your opponents have said, resorting instead to brainless character attacks on anyone who doesn't agree with you.
I was a bit worried there for a minute, but seeing how Armageddon hasn't happened yet and the dead are still securely in their graves, it would appear that you are not in fact the second coming of Christ. You probably won't get banned from here, but you're earning yourself an even worse fate: being universally ignored. It probably won't be too long before others start doing what I've done.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: Be careful, Matt. Rob doesn't check this forum as often as some of the others, but you're flirting with getting some of your posts deleted at the very least. Not only are you making personal attacks on individuals, you are attacking Christianity itself. Distinctly not an advisable course of action.
I don't care what your motivation or your agenda is. In this particular thread, you have breached just about every rule of MB etiquette there is. So, you find DTWB's statements offensive - which justifies your far more offensive statements against the whole lot of posters who don't agree with you? I don't think so.
I am genuinely trying to be patient here. On the other threads you post in, you're generally pretty reasonable. I'm not sure what happened in this thread. Klinton, Matter-Eater Man, and the other posters who support legalizing gay marriage have been for the most part understanding, or at least polite. You, on the other hand...
Well, it's a good thing I opted to moderate the Video Games forum instead of Deep Thoughts/Issues, because I probably would have deleted half your posts in this thread. A lot of other people would have banned you outright. But hey - I guess I'm a nice guy.
Watch your mouth.
Not ONCE did I "attack christianity", chief.
And from what I understand, Rob's Boards are anything goes, no quarter asked or given (just ask the Nature Boyz). But even if that is NOT the case, since you aren't a moderator here it's hardly your call.
Watch my mouth? Mind your business, chum.
On second thought: FUCK YOU. I don't need or want your "patience", Sammitch, so you can cram that condescending attitude of yours straight up your poop chute, ol' Hoss.
I could say something. I really could. But if I tried to sink to the level you've reached, the sudden change in barometric pressure would squash the whole thread flat. You have no idea how much restraint I am showing right now.
Well, congratulations, kid, you did it. You have pretty much earned the right to have EVERYTHING you say ignored, at least by me. The rules of this board and the rules of this country may dictate that you can speak your mind, but there's nothing that says any of us actually have to listen to you. And you have completely and utterly failed to redeem yourself by posting a legitimate rebuttal of anything your opponents have said, resorting instead to brainless character attacks on anyone who doesn't agree with you.
I was a bit worried there for a minute, but seeing how Armageddon hasn't happened yet and the dead are still securely in their graves, it would appear that you are not in fact the second coming of Christ. You probably won't get banned from here, but you're earning yourself an even worse fate: being universally ignored. It probably won't be too long before others start doing what I've done.
Audience privileges revoked.
Buh-bye.
Boo-Hoo! Sammitch is going to ignore poor ol' me! How will I ever survive such a cruel, cruel fate?
Oh, get over yourself, you self-important cunt. I could care less about a brain-dead fuckwit like you ignoring me.
I was listening to an old DC Talk album earlier today and while listening to the retrospective at the end of it, they were talking about their song "Socially Acceptable" and how society has changed over the years. How there was a time when things were taboo but now they're the norm. I think this says a lot about the world Christians live in. How things have changed and go against what the Bible says.
quote:DC Talk Free At Last [It's okay, it's all right]
It's okay, it's alright Yeah, here we go dcT is in the house boy It's okay, it's alright
Whatcha thinking, doing the things you do Whose opinion are ya listening to? Justifying, you turn it all to gray Synchronizing to society's ways
Society has gotten to be all outta whack And don't bother with excuses whether white or black To blame it on a color won't get a result Because history reveals to me how ethics were lost In reality our decency has taken a plunge "In God We Trust" is an American pun Funny how it happened so suddenly Hey yo fellas, kick the melody...
(chorus) Socially acceptable, it's okay, it's all right Socially acceptable, it's okay, in whose sight Socially acceptable
Times are changing, with morals in decay Human rights have made the wrongs okay Something's missing, and if you're asking me I think that something is the G-O-D
To label wrong or right by the people's sight Is like going to a loser to ask advice And by basing your plans On another man's way of living life Is creating a brand of ethics Sure to be missing the punch No count morals that are out to lunch They're sliding away cause everything is okay It was taboo back then but today ya say, "What the hey"
(repeat chorus)
Yeah, yeah, yeah Here we go, here we go A come on, a come on Here we go, here we go A come on, a come on Here we go, here we go A come on, a come on Here we go, here we go A come on, a come on
Everybody's doin' it Who's doin' it Everybody's doin' it Yo, who's doin' it Everybody's doin' it Who's doin' it Everybody's doin' it Yo, yo, yo, who's doin' it Ohhhh, alright Ohhhh, come on
(bridge) We gotta back to the principles found in the Word A little G-O-D could be society's cure From the state that we're in cause again we're slipping So pray for America cause time is ticking
To summarise Dave TWB's arguments as to the corruptive nature of homosexuality, then:
1. HIV/AIDS is a disease spread by gays but, conceded, only predominantly in the US and other Western countries;
2.homosexuality is a herald to or directly creates "a general sense of "anything goes" permissiveness". This is because "Gay rights kick open the door to rights, and spread, of a wide variety of sexual practices and perversions. All of which undermine family, fidelity and marriage." In other words, as I understand it, the strengthening of gay rights could lead to the acceptance of other forms of behavour which is contrary to Dave's interpretation of the Christian moral code.
3. homosexuality and those who advocate for gay rights "corrupt and re-write scripture for its own purposes. Undermining the true teachings of moral behavior for Christianity. "
4. it is a crime with victims: "And in the example of a gay man who gives HIV/AIDS to another man or a girlfiend, or a wife, or to children through his infected wife, through a secret bisexual life or other lack of consideration for his partner, homosexuality is clearly not a "victimless crime"." In other words, again as I understand it, the victims are the duped spouses or sexual partners of bisexuals who are infected with AIDS. Homosexuality is therefore not a victimless crime.
Examples of corruption #1,2 and 4 are each plagued by logical fallacies, which I will make clear. Dealing with each of those in turn:
1. again, I think you're being ethnocentric. "Morality" isn't limited to just North America and the European peninsula: I assume morality and the effects of morality are global bcause Christianity is a universal religion. Yet you say:
a. AIDS is predominately spread by gays b. yet only in the West, and not in the rest of the world c. therefore AIDS is a gay disease and is a form of "corruption".
This lacks logic - its ignarato elenchi. Its also probably a circular argument or a non sequitur- AIDS is an indicator of corruption, AIDS is spread by gays, homosexuality is an indicator of corruption, therefore AIDS is an indicator of corruption, therefore homosexuality is corrupt.
2. Gay rights will lead to the downfall of civilisation - you let open the barn door, and all the cows will get out. This is a logical fallacy, too - the slippery slope.
3. Interpretation of the Bible is an industry in itself. You oppose a liberal interpretation, which is just as valid as liberally interpreting the Bible so that it can co-exist with evolutionary theory. You exclude all other interpretations of the Bible save your own. This is a radical fundamentalist view.
4. the fourth example of the corruptive nature of homosexuality suffers from the logical fallacy of the hasty generalisation. What about all of the gays who are devoted to their partners? Or the gays which are not bisexual? Or the open bisexuals who practice no deceit? You take one segment of the gay community and apply their practices agaisnt all segments.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: Be careful, Matt. Rob doesn't check this forum as often as some of the others, but you're flirting with getting some of your posts deleted at the very least. Not only are you making personal attacks on individuals, you are attacking Christianity itself. Distinctly not an advisable course of action.
Uhhhh....Rob doesn't "check" forums here...this isnt the DCMB's and he didn't "check" them either...he only responded to complaints...and he won't even do that here...
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: I was listening to an old DC Talk album earlier today and while listening to the retrospective at the end of it, they were talking about their song "Socially Acceptable" and how society has changed over the years. How there was a time when things were taboo but now they're the norm. I think this says a lot about the world Christians live in. How things have changed and go against what the Bible says.
quote:DC Talk Free At Last [It's okay, it's all right]
It's okay, it's alright Yeah, here we go dcT is in the house boy It's okay, it's alright
Whatcha thinking, doing the things you do Whose opinion are ya listening to? Justifying, you turn it all to gray Synchronizing to society's ways
Society has gotten to be all outta whack And don't bother with excuses whether white or black To blame it on a color won't get a result Because history reveals to me how ethics were lost In reality our decency has taken a plunge "In God We Trust" is an American pun Funny how it happened so suddenly Hey yo fellas, kick the melody...
(chorus) Socially acceptable, it's okay, it's all right Socially acceptable, it's okay, in whose sight Socially acceptable
Times are changing, with morals in decay Human rights have made the wrongs okay Something's missing, and if you're asking me I think that something is the G-O-D
To label wrong or right by the people's sight Is like going to a loser to ask advice And by basing your plans On another man's way of living life Is creating a brand of ethics Sure to be missing the punch No count morals that are out to lunch They're sliding away cause everything is okay It was taboo back then but today ya say, "What the hey"
(repeat chorus)
Yeah, yeah, yeah Here we go, here we go A come on, a come on Here we go, here we go A come on, a come on Here we go, here we go A come on, a come on Here we go, here we go A come on, a come on
Everybody's doin' it Who's doin' it Everybody's doin' it Yo, who's doin' it Everybody's doin' it Who's doin' it Everybody's doin' it Yo, yo, yo, who's doin' it Ohhhh, alright Ohhhh, come on
(bridge) We gotta back to the principles found in the Word A little G-O-D could be society's cure From the state that we're in cause again we're slipping So pray for America cause time is ticking
Oh, you poor, put-upon christians. What a tough life you have here in the US where you have complete freedom of Religion.
Give me a frigging break.
And thanks for sharing that delightful little ditty with us--- it was pure magic, and an absolute musical treat. (I bet you also enjoy Jack T. Chick publications, don't ya?)
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: Be careful, Matt. Rob doesn't check this forum as often as some of the others, but you're flirting with getting some of your posts deleted at the very least. Not only are you making personal attacks on individuals, you are attacking Christianity itself. Distinctly not an advisable course of action.
Uhhhh....Rob doesn't "check" forums here...this isnt the DCMB's and he didn't "check" them either...he only responded to complaints...and he won't even do that here...
Yeah, I thought that was the case here. Thanks for the info, Franta.
I think ol' Cap'n Dawson should just plug up his "flow" (it's obvious that it is "that time of month" for the dear, apple-cheeked lad) and head back to "the creek" before he makes me angry--- I would really hate to say something that would hurt his precious lil' feelings, y'know...
Y'know, Dave, you say all this as if you are an impartial observer, but your opinion is as subjective as you claim that mine is.
Within the context of the Bible, my statements are objectively correct. What I've said, and quoted at length, is LITERALLY what the Bible says. It is only through omission and re-interpretation that the Bible verses (quoted extensively above) can be made to endorse homosexuality. And since you don't seem to have any faith whatsoever in the Bible's credibility as a source of law and authority, there goes your objectivity right there.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Examples of corruption #1,2 and 4 are each plagued by logical fallacies, which I will make clear.
Again, in your opinion. I respect that you have a different view than mine, but I don't think you've proven my statements non-factual and false. You've only STATED that my views are false, without detailing how this is untrue. For me, your OWN statements are a non-sequitor. And I say that as respectfully as I can. It just doesn't add up for me.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Dealing with each of those in turn:
1. again, I think you're being ethnocentric. "Morality" isn't limited to just North America and the European peninsula: I assume morality and the effects of morality are global because Christianity is a universal religion.
I'm not entirely clear what your point is. As you know, I live in Florida, and I meet people here who have come from all over the world, from every continent. I almost daily come into contact with people from Europe, China, Japan, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Morrocco, Iran, Vietnam, the Phillipines, and places closer to home for you, Australia and New Zealand. I've regularly spoken to people who are Jews, Muslims, Hindu, and Buddhist. Among all these cultures, I've never heard any raise a favorable opinion of homosexuality. I see that the standard of one man/one woman is the global standard for marriage, and I've never seen ANY evidence, or any personal opinion of foreigners I know personally, to indicate otherwise.
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
Yet you say:
a. AIDS is predominately spread by gays b. yet only in the West, and not in the rest of the world c. therefore AIDS is a gay disease and is a form of "corruption".
Dave, you are a highly intelligent and literate person. Could you truly not see my point in what I just previously posted to you?
I acknowledged AIDS/HIV is not an exclusively gay disease. That in most of the world heterosexual transmission [again, 1)through prostitution, and 2) through heterosexual anal sex, either for pleasure or to avoid pregnancy through vaginal sex] is the major way of contracting the disease, GLOBALLY.
But in the U.S., homosexual males, I.V. drug users, and I.V. drug user/homosexual men, account for over 75% of AIDS/HIV cases in the U.S. And that many of the 17% or so of heterosexually transmitted cases originate from a secretly bisexual gay man, who then gives it through heterosexual intercourse to a woman. But despite the source, it is sattistically labelled as "heterosexual transmission". I spoke to the CDC directly about this statistical breakdown when I wrote an article about AIDS/HIV in 1993.
But THE POINT is, heterosexual OR homosexual methods of transmitting AIDS are both through illicit sex or IV drug use. Close to 100% of AIDS/HIV cases are transmitted through (by Biblical standards) immoral behavior. As I said in my last post, homosexuality is not EXCLUSIVELY transmitting AIDS/HIV, but it is certainly a major slice of the AIDS/HIV pie, particularly in the U.S. And while I don't single out the gay lifestyle exclusively, I have logically explained my position on homosexuality as a corruptive culture, from a Biblical perspective (detailing gay attempts to alter the obvious literal meaning of Bible scripture on homosexuality), permissiveness/promiscuity argument (which I think the media attempts to hide from the public, and only display monogamous gay couples, projecting a politically correct notion that gays are "just like us", whereas I've seen numerous reports, mostly on Christian news, that gays are far more promiscuous and risky in their behavior than heterosexuals generally are), and cultural acceptance of homosexuality opening the floodgates for a variety of perversions and abberant sexual practices. Which as has been noted, other excesses follow on the coat-tails of gay rights.
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
This lacks logic - its ignarato elenchi. Its also probably a circular argument or a non sequitur- AIDS is an indicator of corruption, AIDS is spread by gays, homosexuality is an indicator of corruption, therefore AIDS is an indicator of corruption, therefore homosexuality is corrupt.
"lacks logic" is your opinion of my opinion. I can as easily say that your own opinion lacks logic and doesn't add up for me. I don't see any clear and logical argument that my opinion lacks logic. I think I've made the connections clear.
"circular logic" is a bit insulting. I see this term as more of a label than a clear criticism. A dismissive label.
My train of logic as you describe it is not accurate. My train is more of: The Bible condemns sexual immorality, homosexuality is (Biblically) a clear form of sexual immorality, like other forms of sexual immorality (heterosexual forms of illicit sex), homosexual immorality likewise spreads AIDS/HIV also. And not surprisingly, gays have a high ratio of HIV/AIDS infection.
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
2. Gay rights will lead to the downfall of civilisation - you let open the barn door, and all the cows will get out. This is a logical fallacy, too - the slippery slope.
You again label this as a logical fallacy (in your own subjective opinion) and yet do not clearly demonstrate any fallacy beyond the dismissive label.
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
3. Interpretation of the Bible is an industry in itself.
FALSE interpretation is, but logic dictates that if you're going to be a Christian, you want a clear, factual, verifiable base for your beliefs and teachings. That logical base is the Bible. As I detailed in a previous post, there is considerable historic/archaological evidence to verify the Bible has been accurately preserved for 2,000 years, more verifiable than any other ancient document. And while there is symbolic interpretation of certain passages, there is overwhelming consensus on the major themes of the Bible, including overwhelming consensus on the Biblical stance on homosexuality.
It is therefore dismissive and illogical to dismiss the Bible as a verifiable foundation for Judao-Christan teaching and ideology. Or to put it another way, to NOT go by what the Bible says, to reject any part of it, is to defy what is clearly the "God breathed" Word of God. And logically, anyone who professes to be a Christian and IGNORES those teachings (or in the case of gays, circumvents and manipulates those teachings) clearly and simply IS NOT A CHRISTIAN. Rejecting or ignoring scripture is buffet religion, and ignorant of the clear teachings of Christianity. And logically, NOT truly representative of Christianity.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: You oppose a liberal interpretation, which is just as valid as liberally interpreting the Bible so that it can co-exist with evolutionary theory. You exclude all other interpretations of the Bible save your own. This is a radical fundamentalist view.
Liberal interpretation is not equally valid. It is disingenuously manipulative toward ulterior motives, and ignores the clear direct meaning. For instance, my example in earlier posts, of the literal as well as symbolic meaning for "the Bride" in scripture, and the value of purity. Gay sex violates that proscribed purity, just as HETEROsexual immorality does. As I've said repeatedly. I feel you're attempting to falsely imply that I hold a different standard for homosexuality, when in point of fact I've clearly and repeatedly said that both (hetero and homo) forms of extramarital sex are prohibited Biblically, and punishable by death. Homosexuality (when prevalent) has the Biblical distinction of marking a society that has reached its ultimate slump into decadence, and marks that society's near destruction. And as quoted in Biblical scripture (particularly ROMAN 1, quoted above) that meaning is unmistakeable, except to a mind that chooses to ignore the clear meaning )
quote:Originally posted by Dave: 4. the fourth example of the corruptive nature of homosexuality suffers from the logical fallacy of the hasty generalisation. What about all of the gays who are devoted to their partners? Or the gays which are not bisexual? Or the open bisexuals who practice no deceit? You take one segment of the gay community and apply their practices against all segments.
"hasty generalization" is another emotional label that is wrapped in a fancy coat of allegedly impartial pseudo-science.
But ultimately, it is again your interpretation and your opinion, based on your own liberal preconceptions, and utter rejection of the Bible as a reasonable source of law and moral standard.
Somebody better tell all them priests and their supporters that forcing homosexual sex on kids is NOT OK...but as the Chicago cardinal stated it could be overlooked if its a female kid 17 or 18 and the priest was drunk.
Not being a Catholic, and seeing very clearly that vows of celibacy (i.e., an inability to marry) , are clearly NON-Biblical, I offer no defense of the Catholic church's policy on this.
But I would hasten to add that many Catholics I know are outraged by this protection of child molesters in the church, and many have denied tithe-collections and other support to the Catholic church as a result, until the Vatican changes its position. Which will really hit the Vatican where it hurts, until they do change their policy.
The Catholic clergy's position is a clear good-ol'-boy situation, where the elite of the Catholic church can thwart the will of its parishioners. But it is not just, or Biblical.
Again, Genesis 2, verses 23-25 establishes that men and women are to marry for companionship and family:
quote: 23 The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man."
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Christians (and specifically priests and nuns and other clergy) are not pressed to celibacy in order to serve God. I have absolutely no idea why the Catholic church does not abolish this practice. They would find far more men and women eager to become priests and nuns. And this would weed ot the abusive perverts victimizing innocent boys (and girls).
The Old Testament book SONG OF SOLOMON details a healthy, and passionate, relationship between a man and his wife. Christianity is clearly not meant to be sexlessness, or sexual repression. Or celibacy. This book is a celebration of marriage:
But seeing as Catholics ARE Christians... Why are these Christians able to ignore Homosexuality when its statitory rape... but.... not when amongst consenting adults?!?!?!?!?!
Actually DWB you do interpet the Bible with your own bias. The story of Sodom for example you apply to todays gay people. What literaly happened in that story? A mob tries to rape some angles & are punished by God. Now if one of the villagers asked one of the angles out on a date & was punished by God I would believe your interpretation.
I know it's off topic but I would be interested in your interpretation of Jesus's view on piety?
Arguments that have gays leading the country's slide into decadence smacks of scapegoatism. If gays are so decadent why do so many want to get married?
Batwoman & anybody else. What period of time were values A-OK? Before Civil Rights? During Biblical Times? Disco 70's?
Hey, Franta--- were you aware that "The 700 Club" apparently has oodles and oodles of "news" and assorted highly credible info on the decadent, immoral gay "lifestyle"? It's true! That's what Wonder Dave has said therefore it must be true. (He's a decent, pious, and infinitely wise Christian fellow, so I'm sure he wouldn't lie!)
Come to think of it, right-wing christian television and/or radio sounds like a GREAT place to get ANY kind of "news"--- gay or otherwise! Now why haven't I thought of this before???
quote:Originally posted by THE Franta: But seeing as Catholics ARE Christians... Why are these Christians able to ignore Homosexuality when its statitory rape... but.... not when amongst consenting adults?!?!?!?!?!
Damn good question, Franta. (Wonder Dave's probable answer: 'cuz Jesus told me so; in fact, that's pretty much ALL he has to say on this subject when you get right down to it--- our Davey is a regular bear for independent thought, y'know.)
The pork thing gets into the purity code in Leviticus. As Klinton brought up a zillion pages ago, was done away with in the New Testament. So it would only apply to Jews & how they interpret it. I don't think legislating morality works anyway. It needs to be taught by a parent or guardian. Some parents just are not putting the time in these days or there trying to be a friend instead of a parent IMHO
I saw a bit of the 700 club many years ago where they were commenting on the Family Leave Act & how it was going to be abused & ruin small business. I figure it's not really about getting the news with those type of show but a reaffirmation for the thumpers.
My views are based on many sources, as I already said Matt. Not just Christian news.
As I said earlier, you clearly have nothing to say, beyond caricaturing, oversimplifying, and deliberately misrepresenting views posted by myself and anyone else you disagree with.
In all your posts, you've made not one single intelligent statement. Since you got on this topic, it's ceased to be a debate, and become your own personal insult-fest.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: Actually DWB you do interpet the Bible with your own bias.
Actually thats all ANYONE can do. You can find arguements for to justify anything.
Why didnt Jesus say to love everyman as you love yourself? Couldn't that be seen as endorsement for homosexuality?
Or is it just because someone in authority is uncomfortable with it its unacceptable?
Bottom line is morals do NOT belong in law. Should it be illegal not to eat pork because that in Hebrew morality?!?!?!
Good post.
But I think what you meant to say at the end there is that RELIGION should have no sway over the law, right? (And thank goodness we DO have separation of church and state in this country, or I'm certain misguided bullies like Davey would run riot over a shitload of our human and civil rights--- not the least of which would be to doom homosexuals to 2nd class citizen status indefinitely.) Of course we want our laws to be moral/ethical--- just not an out of control, devisive Theocracy.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: My views are based on many sources, as I already said Matt. Not just Christian news.
As I said earlier, you clearly have nothing to say, beyond caricaturing, oversimplifying, and deliberately misrepresenting views posted by myself and anyone else you disagree with.
In all your posts, you've made not one single intelligent statement. Since you got on this topic, it's ceased to be a debate, and become your own personal insult-fest.
Dave, I hardly need to go to the trouble of "caricaturing" ya, chum--- you do such a damn good job of that yourself. (In fact, if I didn't know you to be the genuine goofball article that you are, I would have thought that you were doing an even more demented--- but endlessly less funny--- "caricature" of Archie Bunker.)
Can everyone not see the endless circular pattern in this thread? I mean, there is no compramise on this issue, appearantly. As I stated much earlier in this discussion, I wish that people like Dave could step outside thier 'absolute truths' and just live a year in my life. I can't see any other way of getting the point across. For all of your talk of perversion and corruption, all I (and otheres like me) want is to be free of persecution. That's it. You can proclaim how gross and repulsive my life is until the end of the day...but the emptiness I lived with before coming to terms with myself is infinitely more disgusting. No God would ask this of his followers and expect devotion in return. It's just not possible. I know you cannot see this, and like I said, I think people like you would have to experience it to 'get' it.
Dave, sure some of your arguments make sense on paper...they do, I won't argue that. But I know undisputabley that you are wrong on this. I wish I could convey the entire reasoning behind my standpoint, but so much of it took years for me to see myself. I hope that someday, someone very close to you challenges you on this...not to humble you, but to help you see just how cruel your statments really are (and I know, they are not meant to be...I realize the convictions behind your stance. I used to share them myself).
That's really all I have to say. I think I've exausted my views in here, and they've been recieved with nothing more than "well, ok. But your still a sick fuck in my eye's".
And I appologize to everyone who is trying to keep this cilvil by acknowleding 'legitiamate political opinions'. Imagine if someone stood up and declared your relationship as a subject open to dispute and critique, and illegitimate in the eyes of the law. No one in thier right mind would stand for that, and yet somehow it is acceptable for me to have to? I hate the fact that day in and day out, the little things that most folks can take for granted are a bloody statement on my part. I am defined by the fact that I am gay, and everything else has to come second.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: Actually DWB you do interpet the Bible with your own bias. The story of Sodom for example you apply to todays gay people. What literaly happened in that story? A mob tries to rape some angles & are punished by God. Now if one of the villagers asked one of the angles out on a date & was punished by God I would believe your interpretation.
Because, for the 50th time, comparing the many verses of the Bible about homosexuality, and moral purity, and sexual purity, and the sanctity of marriage (clearly, between a man and a woman), the Bible clearly condemns homosexuality specifically.
quote:LEVITICUS 20:13
13 The LORD said to Moses... " 'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. "
and Romans chapter 1, verses :
quote: 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
The meaning of these words is clear and unmistakeable. There is no question of interpretation, or expiration date. The Bible is clear this is the eternal law to be preserved. God the Father/Jesus clearly condemns homosexuality as an immoral act.
For the 50th time. Indisputably. ~
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: I know it's off-topic but I would be interested in your interpretation of Jesus's view on piety?
Jesus said the most important things were to:
1. Love the Lord with all all your heart, mind and spirit. 2. Love your neighbor as your self. Show compassion and mercy, show kindness to your enemies, and pray for your enemies, treat all men (or all humankind) as brothers (i.e., the same respect as your own family) 3. Teach the good news of God's mercy, of God's love of all men and women, and of Jesus' own sacrifice, and gift of salvation to all humankind. (I'm not preaching, I was asked this question.)
Jesus was critical of the Pharisees and Saduccees (dominant Jewish sects of the time), because they were technically following the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. Jesus taught love and compassion, but not abandonment of Old Testament law. He clearly condemned sexual immorality, which homosexuality is a sub-category of as well, since what God the Father condemned in the Old Testament is what Jesus condemned with the same voice:
again,JOHN 10, VERSE 30
quote:"I and the Father are one..."
, and MATTHEW 5, VERSES 17-18:
quote: 17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man:
Arguments that have gays leading the country's slide into decadence smacks of scapegoatism. If gays are so decadent why do so many want to get married?
No one is scapegoating gays here. I've said OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER AND OVER that the same standard applies to heterosexuals who engage in sexual immorality as well. Homosexuality, AGAIN, is only ONE FORM of immorality. Its prevalence is a Biblical sign of the end times, though, and of a civilization on the eve of destruction.
Several have tried to misrepresent what I've CLEARLY SAID, that homosexuality is only ONE FORM of immorality, and not the Christian church's sole focus for some kind of witch hunt. Clearly, the message bears some repeating, if it is to sink in.
And the bible clearly contradicts itself in numerous cases most especially between the Old and New Testament. The Bible is clearly outdated in many concepts (Thou shalt not worship thy neighbor;s ass?!?!?!?) The Bible was translated to English by mere mortals who not only can have made errors but often times translations were not available or clear so they had to "fudge it".
Now in a very orginized religious way, I take the Bible for what works for me.
When Jesus was asked what the most important Commandment was He responded Love one another as you wish to be loved and treat one another as you would be treated.
So two consentual adults of any gender type having sex that is not "adultery" harms folks in what way? How is this destroying the moral fabric of society? And who the hell's business is it of ANYONE's what two people do sexually behind closed doors?
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Not being a Catholic, and seeing very clearly that vows of celibacy (i.e., an inability to marry) , are clearly NON-Biblical, I offer no defense of the Catholic church's policy on this.
But I would hasten to add that many Catholics I know are outraged by this protection of child molesters in the church, and many have denied tithe-collections and other support to the Catholic church as a result, until the Vatican changes its position. Which will really hit the Vatican where it hurts, until they do change their policy.
The Catholic clergy's position is a clear good-ol'-boy situation, where the elite of the Catholic church can thwart the will of its parishioners. But it is not just, or Biblical.
Again, Genesis 2, verses 23-25 establishes that men and women are to marry for companionship and family:
quote: 23 The man said,
"This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called 'woman,' for she was taken out of man."
24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
Christians (and specifically priests and nuns and other clergy) are not pressed to celibacy in order to serve God. I have absolutely no idea why the Catholic church does not abolish this practice. They would find far more men and women eager to become priests and nuns. And this would weed ot the abusive perverts victimizing innocent boys (and girls).
The Old Testament book SONG OF SOLOMON details a healthy, and passionate, relationship between a man and his wife. Christianity is clearly not meant to be sexlessness, or sexual repression. Or celibacy. This book is a celebration of marriage:
quote:Originally posted by klinton: Can everyone not see the endless circular pattern in this thread? I mean, there is no compramise on this issue, appearantly. As I stated much earlier in this discussion, I wish that people like Dave could step outside thier 'absolute truths' and just live a year in my life. I can't see any other way of getting the point across. For all of your talk of perversion and corruption, all I (and otheres like me) want is to be free of persecution. That's it. You can proclaim how gross and repulsive my life is until the end of the day...but the emptiness I lived with before coming to terms with myself is infinitely more disgusting. No God would ask this of his followers and expect devotion in return. It's just not possible. I know you cannot see this, and like I said, I think people like you would have to experience it to 'get' it.
Dave, sure some of your arguments make sense on paper...they do, I won't argue that. But I know undisputabley that you are wrong on this. I wish I could convey the entire reasoning behind my standpoint, but so much of it took years for me to see myself. I hope that someday, someone very close to you challenges you on this...not to humble you, but to help you see just how cruel your statments really are (and I know, they are not meant to be...I realize the convictions behind your stance. I used to share them myself).
That's really all I have to say. I think I've exausted my views in here, and they've been recieved with nothing more than "well, ok. But your still a sick fuck in my eye's".
And I appologize to everyone who is trying to keep this cilvil by acknowleding 'legitiamate political opinions'. Imagine if someone stood up and declared your relationship as a subject open to dispute and critique, and illegitimate in the eyes of the law. No one in thier right mind would stand for that, and yet somehow it is acceptable for me to have to? I hate the fact that day in and day out, the little things that most folks can take for granted are a bloody statement on my part. I am defined by the fact that I am gay, and everything else has to come second.
Klinton, I know it's difficult for you, I don't think you're sick. But at the same time I can't pretend to endorse your belief-system.
I don't think your a "sick f---", I don't have the moral purity to make that judgement. I'm only saying, "This is the Biblical standard." You're not "sick". You're a human being, with a set of personal temptations that are different than what tempts me. Not better or worse. Different. We're all equally sinful, and equally loved in the eyes of God.
And as I've said, I also struggle with the premarital/extramarital issue as a heterosexual. And I don't pretend God endorses it if I violate that standard. THAT is my major point of conflict with the gay movement, and the "inborn" mindset of homosexuality it teaches.
I've thought about you a lot in the last few days, how difficult your conflict with your father must have been. And how enduringly painful that must be. I truly wish I could take that pain away from you. I'm confident at some point, you'll be able to reconcile. No one can stay angry forever. As I said, I have gay friends. In point of fact, I have two gay family members (one lesbian, one gay and still in the closet). I don't shun them, they are still my family and friends. And there are several conversations going on at once in this topic that has made me frequently more strident than I would be if we were talking one on one.
And I know a salvation speech doesn't fill your needs, either. It never did mine ! I've often gone to church and spoken to pastors, and felt condescended and patronized to. Not everyone is equipped to answer your questions (myself included), or my questions either, it's a difficult process. One of my favorite lines is from the movie Reality Bites where Winona Ryder's character says: "I want my life to be like the Brady Bunch, where all my problems are resolved by the end of the hour."
If only.
So hang in there. And pray for guidance from God, regardless of scripture.
And my apologies for being so strident about scripture. That aspect (at least as it relates to the Biblical position on homosexuality) has been pretty abundantly explored here.
Ending on a more positive note:
quote:PHILLIPIANS 1, verses 4-6:
4 In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy 5 because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
TORONTO (Reuters) - Toronto's wedding registry office will open this weekend for the first time in its history to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples who want to take advantage of Canada's recently changed marriage laws.
The city has already issued 225 marriage licenses for same-sex couples and expects hundreds more to tie the knot this weekend. It has received about 15 inquiries a day from around the world since June 10, when an Ontario court set aside the definition of marriage as a union between a man and a woman as unconstitutional.
About a million people are expected to visit Toronto for Gay Pride this week, which finishes with a parade on Sunday.
Brad Ross, a spokesman with the city of Toronto, said 25 of the 225 gay marriage licenses issued so far have gone to U.S. couples and some couples have applied from as far as Europe, China, Cayman Islands, Israel and the West Indies.
Ross said the city will also keep its marriage chapel open over the weekend. It is making two meeting rooms available for those who wish to marry there if the chapel is occupied.
Heterosexual couples are also welcome to get licenses or tie the knot over the weekend, he said.
"It's a very convenient time for people. Everybody is in the same place (for Gay Pride Week)," said Rev. Brent Hawkes of the Metropolitan Community Church of Toronto, the majority of whose members are gay or lesbian.
He will perform six weddings this weekend and plans to marry his partner John on their 25th anniversary, in three years time.
A landmark ruling by an Ontario provincial court on June 10 included homosexual unions into the definition of marriage.
The federal government signaled its acceptance of gay marriage a week later when it decided not to appeal the provincial court's decision.
"We are now full participants in Canadian society. Apartheid is gone," said Bruce Walker, a lawyer in Toronto who plans to marry his partner of 26 years in the next six months. "It has been a 26-year struggle."
South of the border, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week struck down a Texas law banning sodomy between same-sex couples, in effect ending all anti-sodomy laws in the 13 states where they still exist.
But gay marriages are not allowed in the United States. Vermont allows gay civil unions but not full marriage.
"I am amazed to live in such a beautiful country," Walker said of Canada. "It is beyond my wildest imagination that it happened so quickly."
and...
quote:From Supreme Court AP:
Supreme Court Looking Less Conservative
By ANNE GEARAN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - In blockbuster rulings on affirmative action and gay rights and in less heralded decisions this term, a Supreme Court dominated by conservative jurists looked less conservative than it has in years.
"On vitally important issues to social conservatives, they suffered serious defeats this term," said Thomas Goldstein, a Washington lawyer who specializes in the Supreme Court. "There was not a single victory to balance it out."
Serendipity plays a role in the mix of cases the court hears in a given year, and it can be misleading to look at any one year in isolation.
Still, the 2002-2003 session will be remembered for its exceptions to the conservative rule, lawyers and law professors said.
In the term that ended last week, the high court bolted from a decade of rulings striking down or limiting racial formulas, and upheld the continued use of race as a factor in university admissions.
The justices also made an about-face on the question of whether gay men and women can be prosecuted for what they do in the privacy of their bedrooms. That caused one of the court's core conservatives, Justice Antonin Scalia, to sputter that his colleagues had "taken sides in the culture war."
No less a conservative stalwart than Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist led the majority this spring in departing from the court's march to increase state rights at the expense of federal control in a case about family leave for state workers.
The court also upheld a legal aid financing program for the poor that political conservatives called an unconstitutional government assault on private property.
"These decisions were not as conservative as might have been expected," said Emory University law professor Robert Schapiro. "The affirmative action ruling is one I'll be teaching for many years to come."
The court's work left Douglas Kmiec, a Pepperdine University constitutional law professor and former legal adviser to Republican presidents, shaking his head.
"In affirmative action, federal-state relations, and, after the sodomy case, basic — and I do mean very basic — principles of constitutional interpretation have been tossed aside, not conserved."
That is not to say the court abandoned its conservative leanings.
A string of law-and-order rulings strengthened government powers to go after suspects and punish criminals. For example, the court upheld the nation's strictest "three-strikes" law, ruling that a California man's 50-years-to-life sentence for stealing videotapes was not unconstitutionally harsh.
Those tough-on-crime rulings were in keeping with the court's rightward shift under Rehnquist's leadership, a path that has taken the court far from its progressive stance under the Civil Rights era stewardship of Chief Justice Earl Warren.
It is a mark of the current court's fundamentally conservative outlook that all nine justices voted to allow Michigan to cancel family visits for prisoners caught with drugs, and that a six-member majority said Congress can require public libraries to block objectionable material on their Internet terminals or lose federal money.
Rehnquist and fellow conservative Justices Scalia and Clarence Thomas still held sway in a large percentage of the 73 cases decided this term. The three usually vote together and prevail when they can attract one or both of the court's center-right justices, Reagan appointees Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy.
It was O'Connor who joined more liberal justices to preserve affirmative action. That vote was 5-4. It was Kennedy who provided the crucial vote in the sodomy case.
In that case, the court set out a constitutionally protected right to adults' private sexual conduct. The government has no business peeping in bedroom windows, the court said in a ruling written by Kennedy.
O'Connor also voted to strike down a Texas sodomy ban, making the overall ruling 6-3, but she would not go nearly as far as Kennedy and her more liberal colleagues.
Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson was among many conservatives who condemned the decision, which he said would take the nation "down into a moral sewer."
The nine justices closed their term without any announcement of an impending retirement.
An opening on the court had been hotly anticipated on Capitol Hill and elsewhere, since it would give President Bush his first opportunity to name a Supreme Court justice.
The anticipation peaked with release of the court's final opinions Thursday, the day the court most disappointed political and social conservatives with its gay rights ruling.
"No justice may have retired physically, but a number managed to retire intellectually," Kmiec said.
How strange--- Dave actually behaving like a halfway decent, sensitive fellow. Mucho weird.
I'm sure this rosey, heartfelt, and somewhat reasonable (for Dave, anyway) post makes up for all the other ugly, insulting, and down-right shitty things you had to say about homosexuals. Right? You didn't mean to sound so judgemental, hateful, and "strident" in all those other posts--- ya just got so carried away with your cold-blooded scripture-quoting that you forgot that these people were living, feeling human beings with just as much right to their religious faith as you. Right? Riiiiiight.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: [QUOTE] This is just a game to you, you have no serious point to make beyond slander and insults.
Bullshit. Nearly every time you open your mouth you make my "point" for me, Dave.
And I happen to take cranks like you very seriously, Bunky. You epitomize so much of what I find grotesque about humanity: willful crueltry, a readiness to pass judgement on those who are different than you at the drop of a hat ( a side effect of the "pack" mind-set, I suppose), and a sickening self-righteousness so vast and unseemly that only a human could posses it. Having grown up among many loud-mouthed, bullying, self-serving "christians" as a boy and young adult I know your type all too well.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Again, this has already been covered abundantly, but you choose to not read my previous posts.
If I lusted after 12-year-old girls, or had an inborn impulse to rape women, or to kill people, would I have a right to act on those impulses because it's an inborn part of my identity? No. Of course not.
I again stand by what I said earlier, that homosexuality is an impulse, a compulsion, an obsession, that can be controlled, redirected, or even eliminated.
They are vastly different issues.
Pedophilia, rape and murder are acts that violate the rights of others. A homosexual relationship is between two consenting people, harming nobody.
To draw a correlation between gays and the aforementioned acts is misleading and hateful.
QUOTE]Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Y'know, Dave, you say all this as if you are an impartial observer, but your opinion is as subjective as you claim that mine is. [/quote]
Oh, no, I never said it wasn't. You're just as able to attack my opinion on the basis of logical fallcy, if indeed its there.
quote:
Within the context of the Bible, my statements are objectively correct. What I've said, and quoted at length, is LITERALLY what the Bible says. It is only through omission and re-interpretation that the Bible verses (quoted extensively above) can be made to endorse homosexuality. And since you don't seem to have any faith whatsoever in the Bible's credibility as a source of law and authority, there goes your objectivity right there.
I don't disagree with that. I don't think a literal interpretation of the Bible is logical. Literal intepretation has many hurdles to negotiate. Do you include the Apocrypha, or not? Do you literally conclude God made the universe in seven days, or not? Do you think God has the identity of Yahweh Saboath, the brutal and murderous God of Armies who drowned the Egyptians chasing Moses and the Israelites, or is he the Trinity in later books as decided by the theologicans of Cappadocia in the late 300s AD? Is the Sabbath the day of rest to remind us of the Exodus as stated in Deuteronomy, or because God had a day of rest in creation as seen in Pentateuch? I of course am no theologican, but I have read a wonderful book called "A History of God" by Karen Armstrong, who demostrates in an academic yet engaging fashion that the Bible is mostly a contemporary political text. The "discovery" of the Book of Deutronomy itself is a fascinating example of the politics of the Bible. Further, by what moral right is the Bible superior to the Qu'ran? In 610, Muhammed was seized by an angel and give the command, "Iqra!" ("Recite!"), and from his lips cam the divine recital. It sounds like an equally valid religios claim to authority to me.
This does not mean that I discount the Bible out of hand: on the contrary, the Bible contains many fundamental principles which underpin notions such as the rule of law. But I certainly do not believe that it was written by God to guide human behaviour.
quote:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Examples of corruption #1,2 and 4 are each plagued by logical fallacies, which I will make clear.
Again, in your opinion. I respect that you have a different view than mine, but I don't think you've proven my statements non-factual and false. You've only STATED that my views are false, without detailing how this is untrue. For me, your OWN statements are a non-sequitor. And I say that as respectfully as I can. It just doesn't add up for me.
Well, perhaps you'd better tell me how they are a non-sequitur.
To me, yours are plain, especially the slippery slope argument in corruption example #4. No slippery slope is ever valid in logic: "Once you start using marijuana, you'll end up using heroin": "if you bend the constitution to wrongfully imprison one person, soon all persons will be wrongfully imprisoned." The link for this logical fallacy says:
quote: The slippery slope argument is also known as the thin end of the wedge or the camel's nose. The argument holds that once an exception is made to some socially accepted rule, there will be nothing holding back further exceptions to that rule.
The slippery slope argument is usually used as a commentary on social change, not as a point of logic. It is sometimes known as the slippery slope fallacy because it cannot be made to make logical implications.
Contemporary examples of the slippery slope argument in use:
If we allow women to abort their unborn children, then soon no life will be held sacred. If we allow guns to be registered, then gun confiscation will follow. Use of 'soft' drugs such as cannabis will inevitably lead to addiction to 'harder' drugs such as heroin. These arguments are often based on a perception of momentum in the change of social mores.
Which is precisely the trap you've allowed yourself to fall into. Allow gays the right to get married in a church, and soon we'll all be sleeping with animals." Its a fallacy, without logic.
quote:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Dealing with each of those in turn:
1. again, I think you're being ethnocentric. "Morality" isn't limited to just North America and the European peninsula: I assume morality and the effects of morality are global because Christianity is a universal religion.
I'm not entirely clear what your point is. As you know, I live in Florida, and I meet people here who have come from all over the world, from every continent. I almost daily come into contact with people from Europe, China, Japan, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Morrocco, Iran, Vietnam, the Phillipines, and places closer to home for you, Australia and New Zealand. I've regularly spoken to people who are Jews, Muslims, Hindu, and Buddhist. Among all these cultures, I've never heard any raise a favorable opinion of homosexuality. I see that the standard of one man/one woman is the global standard for marriage, and I've never seen ANY evidence, or any personal opinion of foreigners I know personally, to indicate otherwise. [/qb][/quote]
Ah, I see: you're not saying that homosexuals are the chief cause of the spread of AIDS. Instead, this is logic by consensus, which is another logical fallacy. Here you go:
quote:
"This is right because we've always done it this way." The appeal to tradition is a very common logical fallacy in which someone proclaims his or her accuracy by noting that "this is how it's always been done."
The assumption behind this argument is that whatever reason was used to come to the old methods of thinking is still valid today; often, this is a false assumption to make.
Humans are creatures of habit; this is the likely cause of the popularity (and, unfortunately, the success) of this argument.
Examples:
"It's always been done that way. We've never done it like that." "You're crazy! Nobody ever thought like that before!" "This precedent was set 100 years ago and has been followed many times." The opposite is the appeal to novelty, claiming something is good because it's new.
Its illogical to think that because the majority holds a view, that its right. Otherwise, we'd all be conceding that Hinduism is correct and Christianity is wrong.
quote:
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
Yet you say:
a. AIDS is predominately spread by gays b. yet only in the West, and not in the rest of the world c. therefore AIDS is a gay disease and is a form of "corruption".
Dave, you are a highly intelligent and literate person. Could you truly not see my point in what I just previously posted to you?
Nope, I wrestled with it and did not understand it. Let me go through this next explanation.
quote: I acknowledged AIDS/HIV is not an exclusively gay disease. That in most of the world heterosexual transmission [again, 1)through prostitution, and 2) through heterosexual anal sex, either for pleasure or to avoid pregnancy through vaginal sex] is the major way of contracting the disease, GLOBALLY.
But in the U.S., homosexual males, I.V. drug users, and I.V. drug user/homosexual men, account for over 75% of AIDS/HIV cases in the U.S. And that many of the 17% or so of heterosexually transmitted cases originate from a secretly bisexual gay man, who then gives it through heterosexual intercourse to a woman. But despite the source, it is sattistically labelled as "heterosexual transmission". I spoke to the CDC directly about this statistical breakdown when I wrote an article about AIDS/HIV in 1993.
But THE POINT is, heterosexual OR homosexual methods of transmitting AIDS are both through illicit sex or IV drug use. Close to 100% of AIDS/HIV cases are transmitted through (by Biblical standards) immoral behavior. As I said in my last post, homosexuality is not EXCLUSIVELY transmitting AIDS/HIV, but it is certainly a major slice of the AIDS/HIV pie, particularly in the U.S.
Finally, a concession! So its not just gays, its heterosexual but promiscuous people who are corruptive. So, I guess promiscuous people are also not allowed to get married in a church?
quote:
And while I don't single out the gay lifestyle exclusively, I have logically explained my position on homosexuality as a corruptive culture, from a Biblical perspective (detailing gay attempts to alter the obvious literal meaning of Bible scripture on homosexuality), permissiveness/promiscuity argument (which I think the media attempts to hide from the public, and only display monogamous gay couples, projecting a politically correct notion that gays are "just like us", whereas I've seen numerous reports, mostly on Christian news, that gays are far more promiscuous and risky in their behavior than heterosexuals generally are), and cultural acceptance of homosexuality opening the floodgates for a variety of perversions and abberant sexual practices. Which as has been noted, other excesses follow on the coat-tails of gay rights.
While I accept the fact that gays are probably as a broad generalisation more promiscuous than straights, does this mean that non-promiscuous gays are ok to get married in a church?
I've already dealt with your "floodgates" argument above: it can never win.
This lacks logic - its ignarato elenchi. Its also probably a circular argument or a non sequitur- AIDS is an indicator of corruption, AIDS is spread by gays, homosexuality is an indicator of corruption, therefore AIDS is an indicator of corruption, therefore homosexuality is corrupt.
"lacks logic" is your opinion of my opinion. I can as easily say that your own opinion lacks logic and doesn't add up for me. I don't see any clear and logical argument that my opinion lacks logic. I think I've made the connections clear.
Well, no. It lacks logic. Logic follows certain syllogisms. "If A, then B" is a proof. But you're saying "If A, then B/ if B, then A". Read out loud what I wrote above: its a circle.
quote:
"circular logic" is a bit insulting. I see this term as more of a label than a clear criticism. A dismissive label.
Its not dismissive: its an attack upon the lack of logic in your argument.
Look, here is something about logical fallacy for you to chew on:
quote: A fallacy is a way that a logical argument can go wrong and thereby fail to be valid or sound, or otherwise fail to properly support its claim. Arguments intended to persuade may be convincing to many listeners despite containing such fallacies, but they are nonetheless flawed. Recognizing these fallacies is sometimes difficult.
Here is an example of a bad argument. Suppose James wanted to argue for the claim that all killing is wrong. Suppose he was giving this argument to a group of people who supported the death penalty: they think that some killing is fine, as punishment of the worst murderers. So James argues as follows:
If one should never do X, all X is wrong. (X can be any action.) One should absolutely never kill. Therefore, all killing is wrong. The supporters of the death penalty would not be impressed by this argument. It commits the logical fallacy of begging the question. In the argument, James says that one should absolutely never kill. But to prove that, he would have to prove that all killing is wrong—which is what he is trying to argue for. Anyone who disagrees with the conclusion will disagree with the premise that one should absolutely never kill. One might maintain to the contrary that, indeed, in some cases one actually should kill: it is our grim duty, an unfortunate yet necessary part of justice. ...Typically, logical fallacies are invalid, but they can often be written or rewritten so that they follow a valid argument form; and in that case, the challenge is to discover the false premise, which makes the argument unsound. [/qb]
Your arguments are riddled with logical fallacies. On first inspection, they seem persuasive, but when broken down and examined, they are based on illogic. That's not an insult: its a statement of fact.
My train of logic as you describe it is not accurate. My train is more of: The Bible condemns sexual immorality, homosexuality is (Biblically a clear form of sexual immorality), like other heterosexual forms of illicit sex, homosexual immorality likewise spreads AIDS/HIV also. And not surprisingly, gays have a high ratio of HIV/AIDS infection.
OK, then. I'm not trying to denigrate you personally, but let me see if I can make this clear for you how illogical it is. You say:
1. Bible says homosexuality is immoral 2. homosexuality spreads disease conclusion: homosexuality is immoral
Assume 1 and 2 are correct. Where is your link in the logic chain between "disease" and "immorality"? What you need to say is either:
1. Bible says homosexuality is immoral Conclusion: homosexuality is immoral
(in that event you are arguing from Biblical authority)
or
1. disease is immoral 2. homosexuals carry disease Conclusion: homosexuality is immoral.
(in which case you make an illogical argument: not all disease is immoral, and even AIDS is not immoral. Unless you say it is?)
Perhaps what you are trying to say is:
1. homosexual transmission of AIDS is immoral Conclusion: homosexuality is immoral.
But why is homosexual transmission of AIDS immoral? If you say, "Because it says so in the Bible" then you are arguing from authority again.
quote:
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
2. Gay rights will lead to the downfall of civilisation - you let open the barn door, and all the cows will get out. This is a logical fallacy, too - the slippery slope.
You again label this as a logical fallacy (in your own subjective opinion) and yet do not clearly demonstrate any fallacy beyond the dismissive label.
Dealt with this, again, above. Its textbook illogic.
quote:
quote:Originally posted by Dave:
3. Interpretation of the Bible is an industry in itself.
FALSE interpretation is, but logic dictates that if you're going to be a Christian, you want a clear, factual, verifiable base for your beliefs and teachings. That logical base is the Bible. As I detailed in a previous post, there is considerable historic/archaological evidence to verify the Bible has been accurately preserved for 2,000 years, more verifiable than any other ancient document. It is therefore dismissive and illogical to dismiss the Bible as a verifiable foundation for Judao-Christan teaching and ideology. Or to put it another way, to NOT go by what the Bible says, to reject any part of it, is to defy what is clearly the "God breathed" Word of God. And logically, anyone who professes to be a Christian and IGNORES those teachings (or in the case of gays, circumvents and manipulates those teachings) clearly and simply IS NOT A CHRISTIAN. Rejecting or ignoring scripture is buffet religion, and ignorant of the clear teachings of Christianity. And logically, NOT truly representative of Christianity.
If you think that the Bible is ""God breathed" Word of God", then you place emphasis on the form, and not on the man-made history of the Bible. I cannot in good conscience accept the Bible as literal truth. Some of the reasons I have outlined above. It would be against all common sense.
quote:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: You oppose a liberal interpretation, which is just as valid as liberally interpreting the Bible so that it can co-exist with evolutionary theory. You exclude all other interpretations of the Bible save your own. This is a radical fundamentalist view.
Liberal interpretation is not equally valid. It is disingenuously manipulative toward ulterior motives, and ignores the clear direct meaning.
What is clear, and what is not? Do you accept that God did not make the world 4000 years ago within 7 days? Or do you say, "Its only an allegory: God is responsible for the creation of the universe, but its clear that the universe is actually billions of years old, so the Bible is not literally true?"
This is not disingensous: its a valuable reconciliation for some Christians.
Now, if you bend the rules on one principle, that of creationism having a place in Christianity, despite the clear and unequivocal words in Genesis, can you bend the rules on homosexuality?
quote: My example in earlier posts, of the literal as well as symbolic meaning for "the Bride" in scripture, and the value of purity. Gay sex violates that proscribed purity, just as HETEROsexual immorality does. As I've said repeatedly. I feel you're attempting to falsely imply that I hold a different standard for homosexuality, when in point of fact I've clearly and repeatedly said that both (hetero and homo) forms of extramarital sex are prohibited Biblically, and punishable by death.
OK, fair enough. The person who has extramarital sex and does not repent has no right to get married in a church, either, then?
quote:
Homosexuality (when prevalent) has the Biblical distinction of marking a society that has reached its ultimate slump into decadence, and that society's near destruction. And as quoted in scripture (particularly ROMAN 1, quoted above) that meaning is unmistakeable, except to a mind that chooses to ignore the clear meaning )
quote:Originally posted by Dave: 4. the fourth example of the corruptive nature of homosexuality suffers from the logical fallacy of the hasty generalisation. What about all of the gays who are devoted to their partners? Or the gays which are not bisexual? Or the open bisexuals who practice no deceit? You take one segment of the gay community and apply their practices against all segments.
"hasty generalization" is another emotional label that is wrapped in a fancy coat of allegedly impartial pseudo-science.
How disappointing: logical theory is a "pseudo-science". I fear I'm wasting my time. "Hasty generalisation" is part of the terminology of the science, Dave, not an "emotional label". I use this terminology in court to attack the arguments of my opponents. They use it to attack my arguments. Logical debate is accepted by judges, mathematical logicians and other scientists as being valid and rational. The terminology is the distilled essence of how someone argues a point.
If you dismiss logic, then we can't meaningfully debate this because we aren't speaking the same language: you are speaking from belief, which is not logical but intuitive.
quote: But ultimately, it is again your interpretation and your opinion, based on your own liberal preconceptions, and utter rejection of the Bible as a reasonable source of law and moral standard.
Attacking me, not my argument. Oh well. Unless you can come back and logically refute what I'm saying, I think I'll just form the opinion that you believe what you say, but do not think its appropriate to back it up with logic.
There is, after all, no point to debate in the absence of logic.
quote:A religion that professes equality for all in Jesus does not seem like a religious faith that would condemn one racial/ethnic/gender group of its faithful to slavery under another.
Nor does a religion that professes equality for all seem like the type to discriminate against someone for their own lifestyle.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Along the same path of thought, a loving court system should not convict and imprison thieves, rapists, drug dealers and murderers.
Laws are set up for a reason, for the good of society.
And the Bible is a set of laws of moral behavior. If those laws are not enforced and practiced, then why have them in the first place? And without them, it is no longer Christianity. It is decadence and sexual immorality.
Church is not state. Christian laws do not and should not influence government laws.
There is a distinction between legal marriage and Christian marriage.
Gays should have the right to a legal marriage, on an equal playing ground to straight couples.
When it comes to the Christian side of things, I don't profess myself knowledgable enough in the bible to make a judgement. While I believe the church should allow gay couples to marry (hateful tradition be damned), I'm in no position to say whether or not that's in accordance with the bible.
I still take issue with your labelling of homosexuality as immoral. If you believe this because the bible says so, then I can't really argue that. You believe in a book that I place no stock in. But you say that homosexuality is depraved and insidious. Separately from the biblical argument, you claim that it lowers moral standards and spreads disease. What two consenting adults do is not immoral. And opening up the doors to allow freedom of choice as to where one wants to stick their dick when they get home from work is NOT a lowering of moral standards. It is allowing freedom of choice, which, as long as you're not hurting anybody, is in accordance with the ideals upon which both our countries were founded. And AIDS is not strictly a gay disease. You cannot use AIDS to justify calling homosexuality insidious and corrupt.
So why do gay men on average die 6 to 7 years before smokers on average die? This statistic is a dirty little secret that most in the media rufuse to report. As for the church, I think most of the sexual crap that 1% or 2% of priests find themselves in trouble for was homosexual. Roughly 80% of the cases were sexual acts commited on males after they reached maturity (age rang or 13-17). Another well kept secret is the media does not find it news worthy to print sexual misconduct commited by gay males. I think the reason lies in the media's victum creation mentality they have used when it comes to groups like, lets say, blacks. Most race based hate crimes in this country are black on white crime. You would never know that because the media chooses not to report them. Why? Because I guess in their mind it's normal behavior.
My appologies for that last post. I'd just gotten in from work and was a little on the drunk side (read: overly emotional)...Please feel free to disregard it's sappier than shit content.
quote:Originally posted by Mr. Lesbo: So why do gay men on average die 6 to 7 years before smokers on average die? This statistic is a dirty little secret that most in the media rufuse to report.
Another well kept secret is the media does not find it news worthy to print sexual misconduct commited by gay males.
I agree. The gay community at large is a messed up, hedonistic place. That doesn't inherently make gay people all like that. There are those of us that find it just as repulsive as everyone else. Being gay is not an excuse to be immoral. I adressed this much earlier in here while explaining the various reasons for the high AIDS statistics in the community. And once again, if this is a critique on the 'morality' of homosexuality, I'd like to point out these statistics are exclusive to the male population and do not apply to lesbianism.
quote:Originally posted by Mr. Lesbo: Most race based hate crimes in this country are black on white crime. You would never know that because the media chooses not to report them. Why? Because I guess in their mind it's normal behavior.
No, actually, most race based crimes are anti-semitic. And then runner-up is black on black. That's because of the absolute horrid conditions of inner city regions, which the media, as much as I agree that they are biased, does not fabricate.
Another well kept secret is the media does not find it news worthy to print sexual misconduct commited by gay males. I think the reason lies in the media's victum creation mentality they have used when it comes to groups like, lets say, blacks. Most race based hate crimes in this country are black on white crime...
That statistic is actually based on the book "The Color of Crime" by the New Century Foundation (nice people, that). They are the ones that taught me that "blacks are as much more dangerous than whites as men are more dangerous than women." I did not know this about myself. FEAR ME!!
You'll simply love the way they come up with their numbers.
And if you like that article you should definitely pick up "Negrophobia and Reasonable Racism" by Jody Armour. She heavily endorses "The Color of Crime" as the book that finally blew the lid off the racial hoax. Another person I'd love to invite to dinner.
I leave this place for a week and this becomes a catfight. *grabs hose and waters entire forum*
So...its kind of tough to respond to eighty pages of posts. Here goes a lot of random thoughts.
I am getting sick from this Christian-bashing and overall lack of respect on this topic. 'You disagree with me...therefore you are a poo-poo head' Real mature guys, real mature.
Okay...so being a Christian brings up a sterotype of some backwoods hick that can't stand change. Or whatever the local variation is (like down here the sterotype includes a certain battle flag, but obviously that doesn't work up North).
I am real sorry that some of you think that way. As with any group, only the bad stuff makes the news, so it's no wonder the bad image Christians have. Bad things have been done in the name of religion (the Spanish Inquision and the September 11th attacks come to mind), all religious and groups have their little dark moments. We are not all white sheep, you know.
Now I am a practicing Catholic, so I would like to make a few corrections to the statements here. We do not pray to saints -- we ask them to pray for us. Its not idol-worshipping. The priest scandels have been a big deal. I am not happy with what is being done -- but neither does my priest. He would rather see a few good priests then several bad apples. He's a great man, and I am proud to have been the head alter server (they haven't been called 'alter boys' in years) and working for him.
Now look, there are all sorts of sins that are legal (or at least 'not legal') in this country. Oh well. The American Constitution was not made to enforce Christian ideas. You can say that is has Jeudo-Christian influences, but that is the extent of it. Much of it is universal ethics. Of course adultary is wrong -- it hurts the other person. That is just one example.
And I will be frank: if the US did adopt a pure Jeudo-Christian law system (how complicated would that be...Orthodox and Catholic or Reformed and Mormon...the mind boggels), I would have been stoned by now. Everyone would have been, lol. Even the resident virgin here has been guilty of many sins that have shammed me. And I'm not talking about the occasional 'shit' that comes out when I stub my toe.
Now, there are lots of Christians and lots of non-Christians that get legally married every year. Now since I am not legally married I do not know the details to what kind of benefits (in terms of taxes, credit, etc etc etc) a legal married couple get, but why should a couple that have been together for ten-years should not get those benefits? Never mind the orientation. Even in a heterosexual relationship, that may the only option for anyone not in any organized religion.
So there is a difference between a legal union and a religious marriage. Should there be? Yes. Some people want to be legal married, but not by any church. There are dozens of reasons why. As long as both people are consenting, there shouldn't be a problem.
Now, if you guys continue to piss and stomp, I will get the hose again *shakes finger*
I leave this place for a week and this becomes a catfight. *grabs hose and waters entire forum*
So...its kind of tough to respond to eighty pages of posts. Here goes a lot of random thoughts.
I am getting sick from this Christian-bashing and overall lack of respect on this topic. 'You disagree with me...therefore you are a poo-poo head' Real mature guys, real mature.
Okay...so being a Christian brings up a sterotype of some backwoods hick that can't stand change. Or whatever the local variation is (like down here the sterotype includes a certain battle flag, but obviously that doesn't work up North).
I am real sorry that some of you think that way. As with any group, only the bad stuff makes the news, so it's no wonder the bad image Christians have. Bad things have been done in the name of religion (the Spanish Inquision and the September 11th attacks come to mind), all religious and groups have their little dark moments. We are not all white sheep, you know.
Now I am a practicing Catholic, so I would like to make a few corrections to the statements here. We do not pray to saints -- we ask them to pray for us. Its not idol-worshipping. The priest scandels have been a big deal. I am not happy with what is being done -- but neither does my priest. He would rather see a few good priests then several bad apples. He's a great man, and I am proud to have been the head alter server (they haven't been called 'alter boys' in years) and working for him...
As far as knowing how it feels to be gay, no I don't know what is feels like. But that goes for a lot of things. I also don't know what it feels like to be rich. And boy would I like to feel rich ...
Just because I don't know how someone feels, can I at least still defend a group or a person? Why not.
That's true, CJ. I don't know what it feels like to be gay either (I heard it's sorta tingly, tho) so I'm in the same shoes.
Like I said, just a general statement. Seemed to fit since some of the people who are saying that gays aren't discriminated against are the same that are getting angry at certain anti-Christian remarks in this thread.
Just did the Gay Pride thing here in Minneapolis. The parade is the longest one in MN. I would say about 15 percent of it were various churches. I bring this up because the fact that there are many gay Christeans out there. Its not really two seperate groups.
I keep saying I'm not going to post to this thread, but I keep thinking of things that I feel need to be said.
Something I was thinking about earlier, while designing a logo, of all things. I find it hypocritcal (maybe not the exact word I'm looking for) of people who bash Christians and say they're right and we're wrong, they have a right to say what they want, but the second a Christian opens their mouth and defends their faith/belief, they are labled closed minded hatemongers. Yet those that label us that are the "loving ones".
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: Just did the Gay Pride thing here in Minneapolis. The parade is the longest one in MN. I would say about 15 percent of it were various churches. I bring this up because the fact that there are many gay Christeans out there. Its not really two seperate groups.
Not to nitpick, but you spelled Christian wrong. :)
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: I keep saying I'm not going to post to this thread, but I keep thinking of things that I feel need to be said.
Something I was thinking about earlier, while designing a logo, of all things. I find it hypocritcal (maybe not the exact word I'm looking for) of people who bash Christians and say they're right and we're wrong, they have a right to say what they want, but the second a Christian opens their mouth and defends their faith/belief, they are labled closed minded hatemongers. Yet those that label us that are the "loving ones".
I dont see any homosexuals going out of their way to set up rules that say if you're gay you cant be Christian...but Christians do go out of their way to bash homosexuals and their style of life.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: [QUOTE]Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: Actually DWB you do interpet the Bible with your own bias. The story of Sodom for example you apply to todays gay people. What literaly happened in that story? A mob tries to rape some angles & are punished by God. Now if one of the villagers asked one of the angles out on a date & was punished by God I would believe your interpretation.
Because, for the 50th time, comparing the many verses of the Bible about homosexuality, and moral purity, and sexual purity, and the sanctity of marriage (clearly, between a man and a woman), the Bible clearly condemns homosexuality specifically.
quote:LEVITICUS 20:13
13 The LORD said to Moses... " 'If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. "
and Romans chapter 1, verses :
quote: 26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
The meaning of these words is clear and unmistakeable. There is no question of interpretation, or expiration date. The Bible is clear this is the eternal law to be preserved. God the Father/Jesus clearly condemns homosexuality as an immoral act.
For the 50th time. Indisputably. ~
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: I know it's off-topic but I would be interested in your interpretation of Jesus's view on piety?
Jesus said the most important things were to:
1. Love the Lord with all all your heart, mind and spirit. 2. Love your neighbor as your self. Show compassion and mercy, show kindness to your enemies, and pray for your enemies, treat all men (or all humankind) as brothers (i.e., the same respect as your own family) 3. Teach the good news of God's mercy, of God's love of all men and women, and of Jesus' own sacrifice, and gift of salvation to all humankind. (I'm not preaching, I was asked this question.)
Jesus was critical of the Pharisees and Saduccees (dominant Jewish sects of the time), because they were technically following the letter of the law, but not the spirit of the law. Jesus taught love and compassion, but not abandonment of Old Testament law. He clearly condemned sexual immorality, which homosexuality is a sub-category of as well, since what God the Father condemned in the Old Testament is what Jesus condemned with the same voice:
again,JOHN 10, VERSE 30
quote:"I and the Father are one..."
, and MATTHEW 5, VERSES 17-18:
quote: 17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
OK interestingly enough (to me anyway) I revisited Romans & found that the word perversion was only in the International Standard Bible, in most of the others it's "error of their ways" Those are two very different words!
As for Mathew scripture, if you read on Jesus than goes on about the old laws. Adultry, divorce, fasting etc. etc. but absent is anything about homosexuality or eating pure or impure food. This is also where he says don't judge or you will be judged BTW. Odd to say the least that something that seems so important is neglected here.
An honest question: Would any Christians mind if the legality of Christian marriage was withdrawn, basically taking away the benefits gays are currently striving for?
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday: An honest question: Would any Christians mind if the legality of Christian marriage was withdrawn, basically taking away the benefits gays are currently striving for?
No malice intended. It's a serious question.
No malice taken, but the wording is confusing me. The 'legality of Christian marriage'? What do you mean? Christian marriages and legal marriages are two seperate things.
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: I keep saying I'm not going to post to this thread, but I keep thinking of things that I feel need to be said.
Something I was thinking about earlier, while designing a logo, of all things. I find it hypocritcal (maybe not the exact word I'm looking for) of people who bash Christians and say they're right and we're wrong, they have a right to say what they want, but the second a Christian opens their mouth and defends their faith/belief, they are labled closed minded hatemongers. Yet those that label us that are the "loving ones".
And I find it hypocritical that Christians - not all mind you but based on some of the comments on this thread certainly some - can actually be surprised when they judge people who don't follow their beliefs to the letter and call anyone who chooses a lifestyle that they are uncomfortable with "perverts" or sinner" and things less kind. Christians can defend their beliefs just like anyone else, but it seems to me that anyone who doesn't subscribe to the Christian way of thinking is immoral, a sinner or deviant on some level. And that way of thinking has been shown throughout this thread. And if people are made to feel that they are going to be labeled in an incredibly negative way because they don't subscribe to a "Christian" point of view, well, then I don't think its unreasonable that they are going to come out swinging. If you throw the first stone, don't be so surprised that it gets thrown back at you.
Listen, Christians, like anyone else practicing anyreligion, have every right to think and feel the way they do. What has surprised me though, throughout the four pages of this thread that I have read (the last four, BTW), is that quite a few times "Christian values" have been brought up as something that people should follow as if there are no other moral codes that people follow. And that's fine, if you are a Christian. You want to follow your beliefs, go right ahead, but to judge everyone by your rules and moral code is inevitably going to lead to a debate if those people don't follow your rules. What seems to be ignored is that not everyone is a Christian - and the whole "morals" thing is very subjective. I may not follow Christian values, but does that make me "immoral"? I don't think so. The values that Christians espouse are just a fraction of the different values that other people have in this country - and throughout the world - and not everyone is going to follow them.
Having said that, I was with a friend last night walking through the Village and then up through Chelsea. Clearly there had been a Gay Pride parade earlier in the day and having grown up in the City I can still say that last night was nothing I'd seen before. Couples were out in droves (my friend and I stood out like sore thumbs) and they were celebrating the Supremes decision earlier this week. It was really lovely to see. Now, I realize that not everyone agrees with this - for whatever their reasons - and that is fine, but throwing my 2 cents in at this late date - whether I agree with this lifestyle or not really doesn't matter - what I believe it comes down to is that what 2 consenting adults do behind closed doors is none of my damned business. Who am I to tell them what they can and cannot do? I would hate to think that the government can police what I chose to do in my bedroom with my b-friend.
When I was married in a Catholic Church, we were legally married immediately afterwards (we exited the Church hall, walked into a smaller room, signed some papers, and were legally married). The priest was allowed to provide the final signature that legally bound us.
What I'm asking, is what if the two were arbitrarily separated. What if two people who were married under the Christian faith were not allowed a legal marriage? Would anyone here fight this on legal grounds?
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: I find it hypocritcal (maybe not the exact word I'm looking for) of people who bash Christians and say they're right and we're wrong, they have a right to say what they want, but the second a Christian opens their mouth and defends their faith/belief, they are labled closed minded hatemongers. Yet those that label us that are the "loving ones".
The difference is that I will never argue that you be denied basic freedoms. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. When you 'loving' christians open your mouths in debates like this, it's to deny me mine. Is the difference so hard to see? I believe you have the right to worship God as you see fit, where as you seem to feel that your religious convictions should stand as a valid argument against my freedoms.
I guess ultimately we're not debating Christianity, the moral appropriateness of homosexuality, the separation of Church and State, or whether or not people should come into a thread halfway through and start flaming everyone without giving a substantial argument of their own. All this thread was intended to do was inform us that someone somewhere was thinking about legalizing gay marriage. Ultimately, it's the government's call, since any legal, financial, or other material benefits for any marriage are sanctioned by the government anyway. If you've got an opinion, the best place to voice it is at your ballot box or in a letter to your local legislators.
The polls and court decisions will be the final judge of what's legal. As has been seen here, it's pointless to try and convince anyone of what we think is right or wrong. I'm saving anything else I might have to say on this for other threads - if I feel like it. I'd honestly rather see Rob close this topic and have someone else fire up a thread for the stuff we're discussing somewhere else than watch this thread continue to descend into mindless flame wars.
No malice taken, but the wording is confusing me. The 'legality of Christian marriage'? What do you mean? Christian marriages and legal marriages are two seperate things. [/QB]
Actually, CJ brings up a good point - there is a difference between a Christian marriage and a legal marriage. I don't think that there is any problem with a legal marriage between gay couples, however I do think that there is a problem with a Christian gay marriage. With the latter, you would be asking the entire religion to change a core belief to suit the individual. While I am not a devout Jew, I would be hard pressed to be accepting of anything that would alter a core foundation of Judiasm. And it is here that I can understand a Christian being resistant to having gay couples wanting a Christian marriage, as it goes against something so fundamental in the beliefs of Christians. And you can't expect the Church - or any other religion - to change to suit you as an individual.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: or whether or not people should come into a thread halfway through and start flaming everyone without giving a substantial argument of their own.
...however I do think that there is a problem with a Christian gay marriage. With the latter, you would be asking the entire religion to change a core belief to suit the individual. While I am not a devout Jew, I would be hard pressed to be accepting of anything that would alter a core foundation of Judiasm. And it is here that I can understand a Christian being resistant to having gay couples wanting a Christian marriage...
And no one here is asking for that.
What IS being asked for is the legalization of same-sex marriage with the same benefits and responsibilities bestowed on same-sex couples that are given to female-male couples.
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday: True. I'll clarify.
When I was married in a Catholic Church, we were legally married immediately afterwards (we exited the Church hall, walked into a smaller room, signed some papers, and were legally married). The priest was allowed to provide the final signature that legally bound us.
What I'm asking, is what if the two were arbitrarily separated. What if two people who were married under the Christian faith were not allowed a legal marriage? Would anyone here fight this on legal grounds?
Ah okay. I was confused because at my sister's wedding, it was me, not the celebrant (he was not Catholic, my family is also Baptist and Protestant) that signed the marriage contract. And I know several couples that were legally married and years later were married in a church wedding.
Well you would probably need a legal marriage for several reasons (tax benefits, legal issues, children custody, etc etc etc). So it would make sense to have the legal marriage contract. Isn't the divorce rate around %50? I hope I don't ever get divorced (screwed up too many loved ones as of late) but you need legal protection.
(Does anyone know in detail the good/bad things about legal marriages? I'd like to learn more.)
...however I do think that there is a problem with a Christian gay marriage. With the latter, you would be asking the entire religion to change a core belief to suit the individual. While I am not a devout Jew, I would be hard pressed to be accepting of anything that would alter a core foundation of Judiasm. And it is here that I can understand a Christian being resistant to having gay couples wanting a Christian marriage...
And no one here is asking for that.
What IS being asked for is the legalization of same-sex marriage with the same benefits and responsibilities bestowed on same-sex couples that are given to female-male couples.
And I think I was just responding to an interesting difference that CJ pointed out.
As to the legalization of a same-sex marriage, if I wasn't clear before then let me say now that I think there's nothing wrong with two people who love each other to be legally married regardless of gender.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: or whether or not people should come into a thread halfway through and start flaming everyone without giving a substantial argument of their own.
Whoa. I don't think that's what I did at all.
Dawson didn't mean you, Harley--- he was talking about me.
No malice taken, but the wording is confusing me. The 'legality of Christian marriage'? What do you mean? Christian marriages and legal marriages are two seperate things.
Actually, CJ brings up a good point - there is a difference between a Christian marriage and a legal marriage. I don't think that there is any problem with a legal marriage between gay couples, however I do think that there is a problem with a Christian gay marriage. With the latter, you would be asking the entire religion to change a core belief to suit the individual. While I am not a devout Jew, I would be hard pressed to be accepting of anything that would alter a core foundation of Judiasm. And it is here that I can understand a Christian being resistant to having gay couples wanting a Christian marriage, as it goes against something so fundamental in the beliefs of Christians. And you can't expect the Church - or any other religion - to change to suit you as an individual. [/QB]
No church is ever going to be forced to change their policies--- if they don't want to accept gays or perform church weddings for them that is their right. And that's the way things should be.
But many churches DO accept gays--- and I'm sure more than a few churches WILL perform weddings for gays one day (some already do). Like Matter-Eater Lad mentioned earlier, a win-win situation for ALL parties. EVERYONE has the right to their faith in this country regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation.
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: I find it hypocritcal (maybe not the exact word I'm looking for) of people who bash Christians and say they're right and we're wrong, they have a right to say what they want, but the second a Christian opens their mouth and defends their faith/belief, they are labled closed minded hatemongers. Yet those that label us that are the "loving ones".
The difference is that I will never argue that you be denied basic freedoms. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. When you 'loving' christians open your mouths in debates like this, it's to deny me mine. Is the difference so hard to see? I believe you have the right to worship God as you see fit, where as you seem to feel that your religious convictions should stand as a valid argument against my freedoms.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Your arguments are riddled with logical fallacies. On first inspection, they seem persuasive, but when broken down and examined, they are based on illogic. That's not an insult: its a statement of fact.
I acknowledge that debate is something of a science, with a set of debate rules. But a courtroom or debate event has an impartial judge (one hopes), and I feel that you're a biased judge in this debate essentially. And that skews the "scientific" rules of debate here.
I've answered a number of points, and I don't think my detailed and well-thought out answers have been given fair weight by you. And often, quite frankly, my views have been misrepresented and paraphrased in a biased way.
( for example, you come back again and again and allege that I single out homosexuality but excuse heterosexual immorality, and I've answered AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN that the Bible has the same standard for both. And then you come right back and make the same allegation that I single out homosexuality for selective enforcement. Which is simply not true, in your --by all appearances-- deliberate misrepresentation of my views and Bible interpretation. )
( For a second example, you allege that I say that AIDS/HIV is a gay disease and is proof that homosexuality is immoral. I've come back AGAIN AND AGAIN and explained otherwise, that homosexuality is ONE FORM of immoral behavior that spreads the virus, that it is a manifestation that homosexuality is not a "victimless crime". But each time you come back and allege that I'm ignorantly saying that AIDS is only spread by gays. )
Again, you're smart, Dave, you're an attorney, you know how to read the fine print. And I could understand if ONE time you misrepresented what I was saying. But for you to do it repeatedly indicates that you either subconsciously want to believe I'm wrong, or are consciously misrepresenting what I've clearly said, OVER AND OVER. In either case, I don't buy your contention that yours is at this point an unbiased evaluation of the facts. Your opinions are self-appointed as facts, and mine, no matter how logical, dismissed as opinion.
I reject the "logic" of this court.
Logic, in your subjective opinion, which rejects a spiritual Biblical perspective (i.e., the Bible is inspired by God, and the ultimate authority on human behavior) OUT OF HAND. The subject of Gay marriage is regarding religious faith and Bible interpretation, and the overwhelmingly accepted interpretation is very relevant, and not to be easily dismissed, in any fair and impartial review of the issue. And yet it IS dismissed, so how can you fairly evaluate?
Dave, I could go through your posts point-by-point and clarify the fallacy of each point you raised, but I've already answered 98% of the issues you've raised already in my prior posts, 4 and 5 times. And I'm frankly tired of spending 2 and 3 hours going through your posts point-by-point, giving logical and consistent arguments in favor of the Biblical position, only to have you repeatedly ignore my logical responses and again imply ignorance, when I've clearly made a factual argument. My points are dismissed by you arbitrarily, based on a pseudo-factual argument that unquestionably favors your liberal/secular point of view. You're not an impartial judge. And yet you set yourself up as both the prosecution and the judge. That's a loaded verdict.
The cornerstone of my position is the Bible I believe in as a Christian. If not for the Bible, then anything goes, and virtually the entire argument for not allowing gay marriage can be dismissed as "just opinion", and gay marriage would therefore be permissible. Without that clear Biblical standard, then I would probably acquiesce to political correctness, and say "sure, whatever, if you want to."
My argument's cornerstone is the Bible.
And basically, your rules of "logic" instantly reject at the outset that the Bible is a valid basis for opinion, even within the Christian community. (You allege that my opinion is logic by consensus(a.k.a., the "this is how it's always been done." fallacy. You ALLEGE that my opinion is basically a consensus of the ignorant, that just because many people believe it, that doesn't make it true. But in point of fact, my opinion is based on a consensus of Bible scholars, who have translated and approved the NIV, American Standard and King James versions of the Bible, who are familiar with the original greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, who have prepared the study Bibles that are commonly used. It is not a consensus of the ignorant, it is a CONSENSUS OF THOSE WHO BEST UNDERSTAND THE BIBLE. By your allegation, if only one person disputes that interpretation, then the consensus of scholars means nothing, no matter how specious and contrived the dissenting single view is. I don't consider that a "logical" standard to use. )
THAT is bias. And is certainly not to be confused with an impartial debate.
Even within the INTERNAL CONTEXT OF THE BIBLE (cross referencing verses for a consistent theme, which I used with my quoted passages), you defy logic and refuse to accept that what the Bible says about homosexuality is consistently and unquestionably a condemnation of the practice. Well, in no uncertain terms, that's your evasiveness against logical evidence to the contrary.
You CHOOSE not to acknowledge the true Biblical position on homosexuality, despite the abundance of passages, and common themes that run CONSISTENTLY through the Bible, in the contexts of sexual purity, spiritual purity, sexual immorality,phrases "the Bride", "the Whore", ad infinitum. MY ARGUMENT is consistent with recurring Biblical themes. Yours is NOT.
And I found your latest characterization rather insulting:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Which is precisely the trap you've allowed yourself to fall into. Allow gays the right to get married in a church, and soon we'll all be sleeping with animals." Its a fallacy, without logic.
I never said this. You presented it as if that were part of a "logic" argument that I'd written. It is an oversimplified and mocking misrepresentation. I only said that allowing gay marriage, and the legal precedent it would set, would open the door to rights and legal precedents for other sexual/moral abberations. You have attempted to FABRICATE a "slippery slope" in my argument, where one does not exist.
Similarly, other paraphrases of my opinion, that you have skewed to favor your liberal position, and ridicule/oversimplify my own:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Finally, a concession! So its not just gays, it's heterosexual but promiscuous people who are corruptive. So, I guess promiscuous people are also not allowed to get married in a church?
It's not "finally", I've been proclaiming the same standard for heterosexual and homosexual immorality since this topic began. And it's not a concession, it's what I've been saying over and over and over. Either you're not reading my posts, or you're deliberately misrepresenting what I've said.
And I never said that "promiscuous people are not allowed to get married in a church". I ALSO never said "gay people are never allowed to get married in a church". But I did say that, CONSISTENT WITH BIBLICAL STANDARDS OF FORGIVENESS, AND ALSO BIBLICAL STANDARDS OF SEXUAL PURITY, that they can be forgiven, and begin practicing premarital abstinence in line with Christian pre-marital behavior, and THEN marry in a Christian church.
There are so many other points I'd like to respond to, but what's the point?
I'm not mad or anything, Dave . But it is frustrating for you hold yourself as prosecutor, judge and jury, and expect me to consider that "logical" and impartial. Especially when you've bypassed and compelled me to repeat myself so often, and you STILL come back with the same misrepresentative allegations (see the two parenthetical examples above. )
quote:Originally posted by Wednesday: An honest question: Would any Christians mind if the legality of Christian marriage was withdrawn, basically taking away the benefits gays are currently striving for?
No malice intended. It's a serious question.
Marriage is by definition: one man/one woman, for life.
Gay marriage is never stated or implied in the Bible. And as I've said endless times, chapter and verse (LEVITICUS 20, ROMANS 1, GENESIS 18 and 19) clearly and indisputably condemned, literally, symbolically, and cross-freference thematically. Gay marriage, based on the Bible, is polar opposite what the Bible says about homosexuality.
You and others keep talking as if the Bible endorses gay marriage, and that gay and heterosexual forms of marriage have equal weight, Biblically. They clearly do not.
If you abolish heterosexual marriage, you might as well abolish Christianity. And I believe that is what is being attempted by those who advocate homosexual marriage: Deliberate undermining and confusion of what Christianity is, to the point it ceases to exist popularly in accordance with Biblical teachings. It is an attempt to turn Christianity into a "buffet religion" and destroy its sanctity and meaning. And the sanctity and meaning of Christian marriage as well.
I think, in your hypothetical situation, Wednesday, if Christian marriage and benefits were banned, that Christian marriage would just be driven underground. It would not be recognized as sacred and substantial to the state, obviously, but it would remain valid and sacred to Christians.
But as I said one man/one woman is arguably the entire world's standard (Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, whatever)and so I think is not a parallel with the concept of gay marriage. The two are not the same in the eyes of a majority on the planet.
quote:Originally posted by harleykwin: And I find it hypocritical that Christians - not all mind you but based on some of the comments on this thread certainly some - can actually be surprised when they judge people who don't follow their beliefs to the letter and call anyone who chooses a lifestyle that they are uncomfortable with "perverts" or sinner" and things less kind... Listen, Christians, like anyone else practicing anyreligion, have every right to think and feel the way they do.
You must mean me. I've only quoted what the Bible says. As I've said on pretty much every page of this topic, repeatedly, it's NOT my/our judgement. We are all imperfect in different ways (i.e., we are ALL sinners, whether Christians or non-Christians, homosexuals or HETEROsexuals, all are imperfect in the eyes of God.) I've only clarified what the Bible ITSELF says. I've pointed out the STANDARD, not passed judgement. Judgement is reserved for God alone.
quote:Originally posted by harleykwin: What has surprised me though, throughout the four pages of this thread that I have read (the last four, BTW), is that quite a few times "Christian values" have been brought up as something that people should follow as if there are no other moral codes that people follow. And that's fine, if you are a Christian. You want to follow your beliefs, go right ahead, but to judge everyone by your rules and moral code is inevitably going to lead to a debate if those people don't follow your rules.
But again, as I've said endlessly, gays have a right to their beliefs, OUTSIDE of Christianity. But to attempt the idea of gay marriage under the facade that Christianity endorses it, is to warp the meaning of Christianity out from under the Christians who practice it. It is a violation of Christian ideology and teaching. To me, it's like a black guy trying to join the Klu Klux Klan. Or a Klansman trying to join the N.A.A.C.P. Or a bunch of Christians getting together and creating a new denomination "Islam". Or a bunch of radical Palestinians getting together and forming a new denomination, calling it "Judaism".
The polar difference in ideology in all of these examples would make any of these occurrences justifiably threatening to the given pre-existing organizations and religions.
Again, gays have a right to their lifestyle. They do NOT have the right to distort the meaning and traditions of Christianity.
I find it amazing that people have a problem with "wrong" and "right". I refuse to force anything upon anyone. The "gay" movement forces their morality upon me. I think they are wrong but at the same time I do not look for rights and other things to advance my sexual taste upon others. I just look at the facts and do not let them confuse my judgement. Or my opinion. A mom and a dad is the best reality for a child to grow up in. How is that such a bad thing?
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Your arguments are riddled with logical fallacies. On first inspection, they seem persuasive, but when broken down and examined, they are based on illogic. That's not an insult: its a statement of fact.
I acknowledge that debate is something of a science, with a set of debate rules. But a courtroom or debate event has an impartial judge (one hopes), and I feel that you're a bised judge in this debate essentially. And that skews the "scientific" rules of debate here.
Let me be clear: I'm not acting as a judge. I'm acting as an adversary (in the non-Biblical sense!). Of course I'm biased. But I'm attacking your arguments on the basis of non-biased logic.
I mean, playing devil's advocate, you could easily use logic to argue against the most vulernable argument presented against you.
1. All people can get married 2. The Christian Church is a place to get married 3. All people includes homosexuals as a subset. Conclusion: all people can get married in a Church including homosexuals
Except of course only Christians can get married in a Church, not "all people".
quote: I've answered a number of points, and I don't think my detailed and well-thought out answers have been given fair weight by you. And often, quite frankly, my views have been misrepresented and paraphrased in a biased way.
( for example, you come back again and again and allege that I single out homosexuality but excuse heterosexual immorality, and I've answered AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN that the Bible has the same standard for both. And then you come right back and make the same allegation that I single out homosexuality for selective enforcement. Which is simply not true, in your --by all appearances-- deliberate misrepresentation of my views and Bible interpretation. )
That is the topic at hand though - homosexuality. So I keep reverting to it.
quote:
( For a second example, you allege that I say that AIDS/HIV is a gay disease and is proof that homosexuality is immoral. I've come back AGAIN AND AGAIN and explained otherwise, that homosexuality is ONE FORM of immoral behavior that spreads the virus, that it is a manifestation that homosexuality is not a "victimless crime". But each time you come back and allege that I'm ignorantly saying that AIDS is only spread by gays. )
No, I'm trying to ascertain why you are saying AIDS is spread by immoral behaviour, but only gays are targetted as immoral enough not to get married in a Church.
quote: Again, you're smart, Dave, you're an attorney, you know how to read the fine print. And I could understand if ONE time you misrepresented what I was saying. But for you to do it repeatedly indicates that you either subconsciously want to believe I'm wrong, or are consciously misrepresenting what I've clearly said, OVER AND OVER. In either case, I don't buy your contention that yours is at this point an unbiased evaluation of the facts. Your opinions are self-appointed as facts, and mine, no matter how logical, dismissed as opinion.
I reject the "logic" of this court.
Logic, in your subjective opinion, which rejects a spiritual Biblical perspective (i.e., the Bible is inspired by God, and the ultimate authority on human behavior) OUT OF HAND. The subject of Gay marriage is regarding religious faith and Bible interpretation, and the overwhelmingly accepted interpretation is very relevant, and not to be easily dismissed, in any fair and impartial review of the issue. And yet it IS dismissed, so how can you fairly evaluate?
Actually, I've tried to keep my bias against the Bible as a source of authority out of it, and attack your arguments purely on the basis of a lack of logic. Otherwise, I'd have spent more time looking at the source of authority to the Bible. But that woudl open up another can of worms, and we already have enough worms as it is.
quote:
Dave, I could go through your posts point-by-point and clarify the fallacy of each point you raised, but I've already answered 98% of the issues you've raised already in my prior posts, 4 and 5 times. And I'm frankly tired of spending 2 and 3 hours going through your posts point-by-point, giving logical and consistent arguments in favor of the Biblical position, only to have you repeatedly ignore my logical responses and again imply ignorance, when I've clearly made a factual argument. My points are dismissed by you arbitrarily, based on a pseudo-factual argument that unquestionably favors your liberal/secular point of view. You're not an impartial judge. And yet you set yourself up as both the prosecution and the judge. That's a loaded verdict.
Its not a "pseudo-factual argument". Its the application of logical principles.
quote: The cornerstone of my position is the Bible I believe in as a Christian. If not for the Bible, then anything goes, and virtually the entire argument for not allowing gay marriage can be dismissed as "just opinion", and gay marriage would therefore be permissible. Without that clear Biblical standard, then I would probably acquiesce to political correctness, and say "sure, whatever, if you want to."
My argument's cornerstone is the Bible.
OK, so you're arguing from a position of faith, not logic. That's fine.
quote: And basically, your rules of "logic" instantly reject at the outset that the Bible is a valid basis for opinion, even within the Christian community. (You allege that my opinion is logic by consensus(a.k.a., the "this is how it's always been done." fallacy. You ALLEGE that my opinion is basically a consensus of the ignorant, that just because many people believe it, that doesn't make it true. But in point of fact, my opinion is based on a consensus of Bible scholars, who have translated and approved the NIV, American Standard and King James versions of the Bible, who are familiar with the original greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, who have prepared the study Bibles that are commonly used. It is not a consensus of the ignorant, it is a CONSENSUS OF THOSE WHO BEST UNDERSTAND THE BIBLE. By your allegation, if only one person disputes that interpretation, then the consensus of scholars means nothing, no matter how specious and contrived the dissenting single view is. I don't consider that a "logical" standard to use. )
No, my consensus poitn was addressed to your statement that you have met people of all nationalities, and none of them have good things to say about homosexuality. Therefore, homosexuality is wrong. That is logic by consensus.
quote:
THAT is bias. And is certainly not to be confused with an impartial debate.
Even within the INTERNAL CONTEXT OF THE BIBLE (cross referencing verses for a consistent theme, which I used with my quoted passages), you defy logic and refuse to accept that what the Bible says about homosexuality is consistently and unquestionably a condemnation of the practice. Well, in no uncertain terms, that's your evasiveness against logical evidence to the contrary.
You CHOOSE not to acknowledge the true Biblical position on homosexuality, despite the abundance of passages, and common themes that run CONSISTENTLY through the Bible, in the contexts of sexual purity, spiritual purity, sexual immorality,phrases "the Bride", "the Whore", ad infinitum. MY ARGUMENT is consistent with recurring Biblical themes. Yours is NOT.
You're missing my point on this. I accept your argument that the Bible has numerous references about homosexuality being a sin. I'm not arguing with you on that. I'm arguing with you on the point that the Bible is open to something other than strict interpretation. And I contend that it has to be considered an allegory, in order to allow Genesis to be acceptable in light of atsrophysics and evolutionary theory.
quote:
And I found your latest characterization rather insulting:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Which is precisely the trap you've allowed yourself to fall into. Allow gays the right to get married in a church, and soon we'll all be sleeping with animals." Its a fallacy, without logic.
I never said this. You presented it as if that were part of a "logic" argument that I'd written. It is an oversimplified and mocking misrepresentation. I only said that allowing gay marriage, and the legal precedent it would set, would open the door to rights and legal precedents for other sexual/moral abberations. You have attempted to FABRICATE a "slippery slope" in my argument, where one does not exist.
No, I gave an example of a conduct you would considered immoral. You say open condonement would open the door to allowing other sexual/ moral aberrations to be acceptable. This is a slippery slope.
quote: Similarly, other paraphrases of my opinion, that you have skewed to favor your liberal position, and ridicule/oversimplify my own:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Finally, a concession! So its not just gays, it's heterosexual but promiscuous people who are corruptive. So, I guess promiscuous people are also not allowed to get married in a church?
It's not "finally", I've been proclaiming the same standard for heterosexual and homosexual immorality since this topic began. And it's not a concession, it's what I've been saying over and over and over. Either you're not reading my posts, or you're deliberately misrepresenting what I've said.
And I never said that "promiscuous people are not allowed to get married in a church". I ALSO never said "gay people are never allowed to get married in a church"[/i]. But I did say that, CONSISTENT WITH BIBLICAL STANDARDS OF FORGIVENESS, AND ALSO BIBLICAL STANDARDS OF SEXUAL PURITY, that they can be forgiven, and begin practicing premarital abstinence in line with Christian pre-marital behavior, and THEN marry in a Christian church.
OK, so non-repentant homosexuals and non-repetant promiscuous heterosexuals are EQUALLY not permitted to get married in a church?
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: I acknowledge that debate is something of a science, with a set of debate rules. But a courtroom or debate event has an impartial judge (one hopes), and I feel that you're a bised judge in this debate essentially. And that skews the "scientific" rules of debate here.
Let me be clear: I'm not acting as a judge. I'm acting as an adversary (in the non-Biblical sense!). Of course I'm biased. But I'm attacking your arguments on the basis of non-biased logic.
I mean, playing devil's advocate, you could easily use logic to argue against the most vulernable argument presented against you.
1. All people can get married 2. The Christian Church is a place to get married 3. All people includes homosexuals as a subset. Conclusion: all people can get married in a Church including homosexuals
Except of course only Christians can get married in a Church, not "all people".
quote: ...( for example, you come back again and again and allege that I single out homosexuality but excuse heterosexual immorality, and I've answered AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN that the Bible has the same standard for both. And then you come right back and make the same allegation that I single out homosexuality for selective enforcement. Which is simply not true, in your --by all appearances-- deliberate misrepresentation of my views and Bible interpretation. )
That is the topic at hand though - homosexuality. So I keep reverting to it.
quote:
( For a second example, you allege that I say that AIDS/HIV is a gay disease and is proof that homosexuality is immoral. I've come back AGAIN AND AGAIN and explained otherwise, that homosexuality is ONE FORM of immoral behavior that spreads the virus, that it is a manifestation that homosexuality is not a "victimless crime". But each time you come back and allege that I'm ignorantly saying that AIDS is only spread by gays. )
No, I'm trying to ascertain why you are saying AIDS is spread by immoral behaviour, but only gays are targetted as immoral enough not to get married in a Church.
quote: ...Logic, in your subjective opinion, which rejects a spiritual Biblical perspective (i.e., the Bible is inspired by God, and the ultimate authority on human behavior) OUT OF HAND. The subject of Gay marriage is regarding religious faith and Bible interpretation, and the overwhelmingly accepted interpretation is very relevant, and not to be easily dismissed, in any fair and impartial review of the issue. And yet it IS dismissed, so how can you fairly evaluate?
Actually, I've tried to keep my bias against the Bible as a source of authority out of it, and attack your arguments purely on the basis of a lack of logic. Otherwise, I'd have spent more time looking at the source of authority to the Bible. But that would open up another can of worms, and we already have enough worms as it is.
quote:
...My points are dismissed by you arbitrarily, based on a pseudo-factual argument that unquestionably favors your liberal/secular point of view. You're not an impartial judge. And yet you set yourself up as both the prosecution and the judge. That's a loaded verdict.
Its not a "pseudo-factual argument". Its the application of logical principles.
quote: The cornerstone of my position is the Bible I believe in as a Christian. If not for the Bible, then anything goes, and virtually the entire argument for not allowing gay marriage can be dismissed as "just opinion", and gay marriage would therefore be permissible. Without that clear Biblical standard, then I would probably acquiesce to political correctness, and say "sure, whatever, if you want to."
My argument's cornerstone is the Bible.
OK, so you're arguing from a position of faith, not logic. That's fine.
quote: And basically, your rules of "logic" instantly reject at the outset that the Bible is a valid basis for opinion, even within the Christian community. (You allege that my opinion is logic by consensus(a.k.a., the "this is how it's always been done." fallacy. You ALLEGE that my opinion is basically a consensus of the ignorant, that just because many people believe it, that doesn't make it true. But in point of fact, my opinion is based on a consensus of Bible scholars, who have translated and approved the NIV, American Standard and King James versions of the Bible, who are familiar with the original greek, Hebrew and Aramaic, who have prepared the study Bibles that are commonly used. It is not a consensus of the ignorant, it is a CONSENSUS OF THOSE WHO BEST UNDERSTAND THE BIBLE. By your allegation, if only one person disputes that interpretation, then the consensus of scholars means nothing, no matter how specious and contrived the dissenting single view is. I don't consider that a "logical" standard to use. )
No, my consensus poitn was addressed to your statement that you have met people of all nationalities, and none of them have good things to say about homosexuality. Therefore, homosexuality is wrong. That is logic by consensus.
quote:
THAT is bias. And is certainly not to be confused with an impartial debate.
Even within the INTERNAL CONTEXT OF THE BIBLE (cross referencing verses for a consistent theme, which I used with my quoted passages), you defy logic and refuse to accept that what the Bible says about homosexuality is consistently and unquestionably a condemnation of the practice. Well, in no uncertain terms, that's your evasiveness against logical evidence to the contrary.
You CHOOSE not to acknowledge the true Biblical position on homosexuality, despite the abundance of passages, and common themes that run CONSISTENTLY through the Bible, in the contexts of sexual purity, spiritual purity, sexual immorality,phrases "the Bride", "the Whore", ad infinitum. MY ARGUMENT is consistent with recurring Biblical themes. Yours is NOT.
You're missing my point on this. I accept your argument that the Bible has numerous references about homosexuality being a sin. I'm not arguing with you on that. I'm arguing with you on the point that the Bible is open to something other than strict interpretation. And I contend that it has to be considered an allegory, in order to allow Genesis to be acceptable in light of atsrophysics and evolutionary theory.
quote:
And I found your latest characterization rather insulting:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Which is precisely the trap you've allowed yourself to fall into. Allow gays the right to get married in a church, and soon we'll all be sleeping with animals." Its a fallacy, without logic.
I never said this. You presented it as if that were part of a "logic" argument that I'd written. It is an oversimplified and mocking misrepresentation. I only said that allowing gay marriage, and the legal precedent it would set, would open the door to rights and legal precedents for other sexual/moral abberations. You have attempted to FABRICATE a "slippery slope" in my argument, where one does not exist.
No, I gave an example of a conduct you would considered immoral. You say open condonement would open the door to allowing other sexual/ moral aberrations to be acceptable. This is a slippery slope.
quote: Similarly, other paraphrases of my opinion, that you have skewed to favor your liberal position, and ridicule/oversimplify my own:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Finally, a concession! So its not just gays, it's heterosexual but promiscuous people who are corruptive. So, I guess promiscuous people are also not allowed to get married in a church?
It's not "finally", I've been proclaiming the same standard for heterosexual and homosexual immorality since this topic began. And it's not a concession, it's what I've been saying over and over and over. Either you're not reading my posts, or you're deliberately misrepresenting what I've said.
And I never said that "promiscuous people are not allowed to get married in a church". I ALSO never said "gay people are never allowed to get married in a church"[/i]. But I did say that, CONSISTENT WITH BIBLICAL STANDARDS OF FORGIVENESS, AND ALSO BIBLICAL STANDARDS OF SEXUAL PURITY, that they can be forgiven, and begin practicing premarital abstinence in line with Christian pre-marital behavior, and THEN marry in a Christian church.
OK, so non-repentant homosexuals and non-repetant promiscuous heterosexuals are EQUALLY not permitted to get married in a church? This is the concession I thought we had.
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: I find it hypocritcal (maybe not the exact word I'm looking for) of people who bash Christians and say they're right and we're wrong, they have a right to say what they want, but the second a Christian opens their mouth and defends their faith/belief, they are labled closed minded hatemongers. Yet those that label us that are the "loving ones".
The difference is that I will never argue that you be denied basic freedoms. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. When you 'loving' christians open your mouths in debates like this, it's to deny me mine. Is the difference so hard to see? I believe you have the right to worship God as you see fit, where as you seem to feel that your religious convictions should stand as a valid argument against my freedoms.
The specific point in question here is gay marriage.
Gays have a right to work, date, live together, and otherwise live their lifestyle. Even have some kind of equivalent of marriage, calling it legal union or somesuch. Which gives spousal benefits in a secular/state framework.
The only right they do NOT have is to change the clear Biblical meaning of marriage, and warp the meaning of Christianity, sexual purity, marriage, Biblical terms such as "the Bride", etc., out from under Christians.
Another parallel example I thought of is the Former Yogoslavian province that broke off and named itself Macendonia. Which is very threatening to the Greek province of Macedonia. When you change people's traditions arbitrarily, you're asking for trouble.
When Salmon Rushdie wrote The Satanic Verses the Ayatollah put out a contract for his death, because the book, however good or bad, ias arguably a blasphemous attack on the religion of Islam. I certainly don't endorse putting a contract out on Rushdie, I do understand the anger that Muslims felt for someone messing with their religion.
I'll note that The Last Temptation of Christ came out about the same time, and no one put out a contract on its actors, writers and producers. But no doubt, Christians (including myself) felt outrage at the obvious and pointless blasphemies and distortions.
I don't see these as expressions of freedom. I see them as comtemptuously urinating on someone's sacred ground.
Gays attempting to change the meaning of Christianity is not a "freedom". It is a violation of another group's freedom and cultural integrity.
quote:Originally posted by harleykwin: Actually, CJ brings up a good point - there is a difference between a Christian marriage and a legal marriage. I don't think that there is any problem with a legal marriage between gay couples, however I do think that there is a problem with a Christian gay marriage. With the latter, you would be asking the entire religion to change a core belief to suit the individual. While I am not a devout Jew, I would be hard pressed to be accepting of anything that would alter a core foundation of Judiasm. And it is here that I can understand a Christian being resistant to having gay couples wanting a Christian marriage, as it goes against something so fundamental in the beliefs of Christians. And you can't expect the Church - or any other religion - to change to suit you as an individual.
Thank you so much for posting this. I'm glad to see someone in the Center of this discussion (as opposed to the Left or Right) understands the point I'm making.
[QUOTE]You must mean me. I've only quoted what the Bible says. As I've said on pretty much every page of this topic, repeatedly, it's NOT my/our judgement. We are all imperfect in different ways (i.e., we are ALL sinners, whether Christians or non-Christians, homosexuals or HETEROsexuals, all are imperfect in the eyes of God.) I've only clarified what the Bible ITSELF says. I've pointed out the STANDARD, not passed judgement. Judgement is reserved for God alone.
Actually, I didn't mean you specifically. I wrote that without anyone in particualr in mind, but with some of the things I had read two nights ago still in my head - who said what wasn't what I was thinking about. I was trying to respond to Batwoman's comment about Christians defending themselves. My point was only that if Christians (or for that matter, anyone really) called someone something negative, they cannot then be surprised that someone responds by defending themselves. That's all.
However, I do now have a question based on the above comment. You state that this is not your judgment - or rather, a Christian judgment - but just a standard that is established. But the standard sets the bar that people should follow and so it becomes clear that if you do "A" you're good, but if you do "B," then you are not. Yes, that's oversimplifying it, but my question is, isn't that a judgment? And if so, then people following these tenents set by religion do judge based on the standard. Yet, you claim its not your judgment. How can you separate the two?
Dave TWB, I realize that this being the internet tone and inflection are lost, so let me just say that I don't mean this to be rude, I am curious even though it's wandered off the original topic.
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: I find it hypocritcal (maybe not the exact word I'm looking for) of people who bash Christians and say they're right and we're wrong, they have a right to say what they want, but the second a Christian opens their mouth and defends their faith/belief, they are labled closed minded hatemongers. Yet those that label us that are the "loving ones".
The difference is that I will never argue that you be denied basic freedoms. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. When you 'loving' christians open your mouths in debates like this, it's to deny me mine. Is the difference so hard to see? I believe you have the right to worship God as you see fit, where as you seem to feel that your religious convictions should stand as a valid argument against my freedoms.
Actually klinton (and everyone else that didn't actually read what I said), if you read what I wrote, you'd see that not once did I say anything about denying you anything. I said Christian bashers, or anyone that just doesn't agree with what we have to say (no matter what that is) can say whatever they want, yet the second a Christian says anything about their faith, or is called to defend their beliefs, they are labled as hatemongers or close minded.
But of course you'd never read what I wrote. Why would you? According to anyone that disagrees with me, I'm a close minded hatemonger who judges everyone because I don't agree with the homosexual lifestyle, not the person. I've had plenty of homosexual bosses and coworkers and we got along great. Not once did we ever get did they call me close minded or a hatemonger because I'm a Christian. A fact that I never hide, online or offline. When I worked at a dotcom, where about half of my bosses were/are gay, I listened to Christian music all day long, I'd talk about stuff I've done with church groups, etc. Did they every say anything against my faith or me for being a Christian? No.
Should point out there are already gay marriages, it's really a matter of legalizing them.
I don't think anyone has posted saying any churchs should be forced to marry gays. In fact I think everyone has said their against that. Of course there are churchs that would & do marry gays.
Totally can't see how anyone can force morality on somebody. If you could force morality it wouldn't be morality anymore.
quote:Originally posted by harleykwin: [QUOTE]You must mean me. I've only quoted what the Bible says. As I've said on pretty much every page of this topic, repeatedly, it's NOT my/our judgement. We are all imperfect in different ways (i.e., we are ALL sinners, whether Christians or non-Christians, homosexuals or HETEROsexuals, all are imperfect in the eyes of God.) I've only clarified what the Bible ITSELF says. I've pointed out the STANDARD, not passed judgement. Judgement is reserved for God alone.
Actually, I didn't mean you specifically. I wrote that without anyone in particualr in mind, but with some of the things I had read two nights ago still in my head - who said what wasn't what I was thinking about. I was trying to respond to Batwoman's comment about Christians defending themselves. My point was only that if Christians (or for that matter, anyone really) called someone something negative, they cannot then be surprised that someone responds by defending themselves. That's all.
I've already re-explained what I said so I wont bother to repeat myself. I will say this, however, not once did I say anything about Christian's bashing anyone, or saying anything negative against anyone. My point was, Christians can't say anything about their faith or beliefs with out someone coming over and calling us closed minded hatemongers, yet anyone that isn't a Christian, or doesn't agree with us, can say whatever they want. Now tell me that's not hypocritical. And before anyone will say I'm lying I'll tell you a true story that happened in my journal.
For those that have never ready my journal, I don't hide the fact that I'm a Christian, in fact, I often talk about it and what was said in church or what my church group has done, etc. So one day I did a post that mentioned nothing of Christianity, not the fact that I'm a Christian, not the words Bible or church, nothing, and yet some troll decided to come over, post anonimously(sp) and say something to the extent of how my God hates people, or is wrong, or something. I don't remember what was said exactly, but I did do a screen caputre of it, right after I closed my journal to anoymous(sp)posts which sucked because there are plenty of people that don't have a live journal but read my journal and sometimes post to it. Granted that's a rare time, but still.
quote:My point was, Christians can't say anything about their faith or beliefs with out someone coming over and calling us closed minded hatemongers, yet anyone that isn't a Christian, or doesn't agree with us, can say whatever they want. Now tell me that's not hypocritical.
I think many people's problems with conservative Christianity is that its a closed shop to "alternative" (but increasingly mainstream) lifestyles: it concentrates more on orthodoxy (the "close-midedness" you refer to) than the pragmatic reality that there are gay Christians, there is science which disproves many aspects of the Bible, and there are problems in the priesthood (not least of which is the right of women to become priests).
In marginalising honorable and decent members of the community, it will eventually become marginalised itself, if indeed this has not already happened.
I still feel that, whether deliberately or by misinterpretation, you have not accurately portrayed my views in your counterpoints.
I keep seeing interpretations of what I've said that contradict what I've actually said many times in multiple posts. based on that, I don't feel compelled to explain any further. If you want, you can review what I've already written. Because the points you keep raising are ones I've already answered, and I keep repeating what I've already said, which is frustrating because you keep misinterpreting what I said, and paraphrasing it in terms that I think oversimplify or otherwise reinterpret innacurately what I've already said. It's crystal clear what my position is on the points I've answered (again, my parenthetical examples above, for openers, as examples.) I sincerely feel re-reading what I posted previously would be equally productive to my repeating myself.
On a minor point:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: OK, so non-repentant homosexuals and non-repentant promiscuous heterosexuals are EQUALLY not permitted to get married in a church? This is the concession I thought we had.
Gays can get married to persons of the OPPOSITE sex, once they give up sexual immorality, and change to a Bible-based Christian lifestyle.
Heterosexuals who have engaged in premarital/extramarital sex can marry in a church, once they give up sexual immorality and change to a Bible-based Christian lifestyle.
I paraphrased only slightly, but what I've said is exactly the same as in many of my posts where I answered the same question previously. I fail to understand what is so difficult to grasp in this stated position.
You seem to imply each time that they're forever banned by their past or present behavior. Whereas I think it's clear in each time I've posted that once someone changes to a Christian lifestyle, all is forgiven.
And in this hypothetical scenario, I'm speaking of the official view, not what really occurs. Real-life Christian practice is a bit more complicated, in any individual or church. No doubt many in church are having sexual affairs (hetero or homo) and in other ways violating Christian standards. For some, church is just a social event, and they have no second thought about their extra-Christian sex life. For others they are having a temporary lapse, and become devout again later. Some began as devout, and lose faith completely, and leave the Church. Or possibly just leave spiritually, but still attend for social reasons. Some are coming from a decadent lifestyle (by Biblical standards), and continue having illicit sex for a while, but eventually become devout, and completely leave their past extra-Biblical life behind. Which may sound like an unnecessary and common sense thing to point out, but I feel it's relevant to say that I know "faithful" and "unfaithful" is not so cut and dry. There are fluctuations and inner conflicts of right and wrong that each individual has to sort out, and only God can judge fairly. It's not for me to say "This one stays, this one goes..." We're speaking hypothetically and ideally about certain isolated specified situations, and what the Bible/Christianity specifies as the appropriate Christian standard for conciliation with God and the Church.
But recognizing that daily struggles with religious purity by any given individual can have many lapses, and that said person, after many mistakes, can still be faithful in the end, shouldn't be a rationalization for just letting slide someone's daily immorality, over days, years, or a lifetime. There have to be standards to adhere to, or why have Christian faith at all? I advocate the standard and the ideal, while recognizing the reality.
quote:My point was, Christians can't say anything about their faith or beliefs with out someone coming over and calling us closed minded hatemongers, yet anyone that isn't a Christian, or doesn't agree with us, can say whatever they want. Now tell me that's not hypocritical.
I think many people's problems with conservative Christianity is that its a closed shop to "alternative" (but increasingly mainstream) lifestyles: it concentrates more on orthodoxy (the "close-midedness" you refer to) than the pragmatic reality that there are gay Christians, there is science which disproves many aspects of the Bible, and there are problems in the priesthood (not least of which is the right of women to become priests).
In marginalising honorable and decent members of the community, it will eventually become marginalised itself, if indeed this has not already happened.
To my knowledge, Cathlics are the only ones that deny women the right to become priests. Granted I've never seen a female pastor myself, but I have never once heard anything from any of the pastors at any of the churches I've attended in my life, that have said women can't beome pastors. And those problems in the priesthood you keep speaking of, is again the Catholic faith. If you insist on trying to point out that what I have to say is wrong, that I suggest you get your facts right before you post. Sorry if that came across as short or harsh, it wasn't meant to.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: I think many people's problems with conservative Christianity is that its a closed shop to "alternative" (but increasingly mainstream) lifestyles: it concentrates more on orthodoxy (the "close-midedness" you refer to) than the pragmatic reality that there are gay Christians, there is science which disproves many aspects of the Bible, and there are problems in the priesthood (not least of which is the right of women to become priests).
I disagree with all these points. To answer them:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: I think many people's problems with conservative Christianity is that its a closed shop to "alternative" (but increasingly mainstream) lifestyles: it concentrates more on orthodoxy (the "close-midedness" you refer to) than the pragmatic reality that there are gay Christians...
1. Christianity is open to all who will believe. Those who violate Biblical teachings are, by definition, non-believers. It's the choice of those who break the Biblical law of Christian behavior, not the Christians or the God who live by them. Your example is like saying that it's society's fault that an armed robber is in prison for 25 years, not the fact that he held up a liquor store and shot someone. "Society is hateful for putting him in prison, why do they have to enforce the laws?" Because those are the rules of society, and if you do not obey those rules, you are excluded for the good of all who believe in and obey the rules. Those who don't obey destroy it with actions and counter-ideology. Every organization and culture has to have rules and a standardized ideology to preserve itself.
quote:Originally posted by Dave:... there is science which disproves many aspects of the Bible...
2. Calls into question perhaps, but not disproves. As I said earlier, there are a number of books that explore the archaological and historical evidence for the Bible and its accuracy. For all we know, the universe could have been created in 7 days. I've read news articles in the recent past that confirm Biblical statements about the time of the fall of Jericho, that the Biblically prescribed number of days after birth for an infant's circumcision coincides with the most recent biological findings of when an infant's blood development makes him physically ready for that ritual, the forseen "army in the east" of 300 million men, which is foretold, and China now boasts a reserve of exactly that number. And that there are plans for damming of the river Euphrates, exactly as predicted for the end times, that would make an invasion of Israel possible from the far East. So who is to say that the world wasn't created in 7 days? My attitude on this fact has been, despite the fact that it doesn't seem possible with my present knowledge, that it should be taken as literal until proven beyond a doubt to be only symbolic. For me, the Bible and evolution are not mutually exclusive. I hold them as two theories, until one can be proven absolutely over the other. But science has not disproven the Bible.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: ....and there are problems in the priesthood (not least of which is the right of women to become priests).
3. I don't see women as priests as a major problem. Many are now Protestant pastors. There's no moral issue there. That will continue to develop very quickly, I think. It is far different from the gay marriage issue.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: In marginalising honorable and decent members of the community, it [the Christian church] will eventually become marginalised itself, if indeed this has not already happened.
4. I don't think the Christian church marginalizes anyone. It is open to all who will believe, as I said.
If you change the rules of a volleyball club to rules of basketball, you no longer have a volleyball club. It has become a basketball club, by any other name. The same thing with Christianity.
It should not be expected to change its teachings which have worked just fine for over 2000 years, just because non-Christians want to re-make it in their own secular humanist image.
Using the example of gays: It is HATEFUL of Christianity to expect gays to change, to Biblical laws of morality.
And yet it is NOT hateful for gays to expect Christianity to change, to conform to the gay concept of "morality".
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: How strange--- Dave actually behaving like a halfway decent, sensitive fellow. Mucho weird.
I'm sure this rosey, heartfelt, and somewhat reasonable (for Dave, anyway) post makes up for all the other ugly, insulting, and down-right shitty things you had to say about homosexuals. Right? You didn't mean to sound so judgemental, hateful, and "strident" in all those other posts--- ya just got so carried away with your cold-blooded scripture-quoting that you forgot that these people were living, feeling human beings with just as much right to their religious faith as you. Right? Riiiiiight.
You really take the cake, Davey.
All I've EVER said here was to quote Biblical scripture to clarify what it truly says, and in what context. A high level of denial and disinformation has forced me to dwell on scripture longer than I wanted to.
It is not "hateful" to clarify what the truth is. Nothing ugly, nothing insulting. These are just more slanderous emotional labels that you're well known for here.
( I find it wildly funny that you could accuse ANYONE else of being "ugly" and "insulting", given the foulness and vitriol you spew in just about every post. )
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Dave,
I still feel that, whether deliberately or by misinterpretation, you have not accurately portrayed my views in your counterpoints.
That is called a "strawman" argument, and is a very unfair way to debate: I don't think I've done that, but have merely tried to get at the crux of what you've been saying.
quote:
On a minor point:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: OK, so non-repentant homosexuals and non-repentant promiscuous heterosexuals are EQUALLY not permitted to get married in a church? This is the concession I thought we had.
Gays can get married to persons of the OPPOSITE sex, once they give up sexual immorality, and change to a Bible-based Christian lifestyle.
Heterosexuals who have engaged in premarital/extramarital sex can marry in a church, once they give up sexual immorality and change to a Bible-based Christian lifestyle.
I paraphrased only slightly, but what I've said is exactly the same as in many of my posts where I answered the same question previously. I fail to understand what is so difficult to grasp in this stated position.
You seem to imply each time that they're forever banned by their past or present behavior. Whereas I think it's clear in each time I've posted that once someone changes to a Christian lifestyle, all is forgiven.
Yes, you've made this plain. What I was trying to get at is that the promiscuous heterosexual and the homosexual are treated differently in your paradigm - which you have refuted. You say you have to have overcome your heterosexual promiscuity before being allowed to marry.
quote:My point was, Christians can't say anything about their faith or beliefs with out someone coming over and calling us closed minded hatemongers, yet anyone that isn't a Christian, or doesn't agree with us, can say whatever they want. Now tell me that's not hypocritical.
I think many people's problems with conservative Christianity is that its a closed shop to "alternative" (but increasingly mainstream) lifestyles: it concentrates more on orthodoxy (the "close-midedness" you refer to) than the pragmatic reality that there are gay Christians, there is science which disproves many aspects of the Bible, and there are problems in the priesthood (not least of which is the right of women to become priests).
In marginalising honorable and decent members of the community, it will eventually become marginalised itself, if indeed this has not already happened.
To my knowledge, Cathlics are the only ones that deny women the right to become priests. Granted I've never seen a female pastor myself, but I have never once heard anything from any of the pastors at any of the churches I've attended in my life, that have said women can't beome pastors. And those problems in the priesthood you keep speaking of, is again the Catholic faith. If you insist on trying to point out that what I have to say is wrong, that I suggest you get your facts right before you post. Sorry if that came across as short or harsh, it wasn't meant to.
Fortunately for the two of us, I get may facts straight. The only place in the world a woman can be an Anglican/Protestant priest right now is in Australia.
quote:1. Christianity is open to all who will believe. Those who violate Biblical teachings are, by definition, non-believers. It's the choice of those who break the Biblical law of Christian behavior, not the Christians or the God who live by them. Your example is like saying that it's society's fault that an armed robber is in prison for 25 years, not the fact that he held up a liquor store and shot someone. "Society is hateful for putting him in prison, why do they have to enforce the laws?" Because those are the rules of society, and if you do not obey those rules, you are excluded for the good of all who believe in and obey the rules. Those who don't obey destroy it with actions and counter-ideology. Every organization and culture has to have rules and a standardized ideology to preserve itself.
The problem with your analogy is that armed robbers cause violence and disruption to society. Homosexuality does not. Yes, I know you think it is corruptive because gays spread AIDS, try to re-interpret the Bible, try to get rights, and are not well-regarded by any other culture. I think I've made it plain that none of these satisfy any definition of "corruption". Armed robbery is not merely re-ditributing wealth: it is an act of violence which society needs to take steps against.
A ban against homosexuality is entirely arbitrary.
I have to go now and give a seminar, and I'll not be back until tomorrow, when I'll address your other points.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: ...you allege that I say that AIDS/HIV is a gay disease and is proof that homosexuality is immoral. I've come back AGAIN AND AGAIN and explained otherwise, that homosexuality is ONE FORM of immoral behavior that spreads the virus, that it is a manifestation that homosexuality is not a "victimless crime".
The argument there is flawed. Unprotected homosexual sex is one form of behaviour that spreads the virus, true. As is unprotected heterosexual sex (and sharing needles, etc, etc). The implication here is not that homosexuality isn't a victimless crime. The implication is that unprotected sex while one is infected isn't a victimless crime; whether straight or gay. The sexual orientation is irrelevant.
quote: My argument's cornerstone is the Bible.
And all I am saying is that the Bible should have no bearing on government laws.
I do not wish to take away the faith you place in the bible. While I may disagree with it, if it works for you, cool. I have no desire to undermine your religious beliefs.
I do think that the bible is not a good place to source one's argument in a discussion of law, as I've stated. In a discussion of morals, the argument becomes somewhat murkier. You take your moral standard from the bible; fine. But when you start using it as a way to impede someone else's rights (ie: the right to wed), that I have a problem with (please keep in mind that when I say 'wed' I mean legal marriage, not church marriage. As has been made abundantly clear in this thread, they are two different things).
quote:I only said that allowing gay marriage, and the legal precedent it would set, would open the door to rights and legal precedents for other sexual/moral abberations.
My only counter to this is that I believe homosexuality is not a moral abberation. The argument that allowing gay marriage leads to softening views on things that actually do have victims (the oft mentioned rape, pedophilia, etc) is a flawed one, as homosexual marriage is a consenting act that hurts nobody.
quote:Originally posted by Mr. Lesbo: I find it amazing that people have a problem with "wrong" and "right". I refuse to force anything upon anyone. The "gay" movement forces their morality upon me. I think they are wrong but at the same time I do not look for rights and other things to advance my sexual taste upon others. I just look at the facts and do not let them confuse my judgement. Or my opinion. A mom and a dad is the best reality for a child to grow up in. How is that such a bad thing?
"The facts?" Forgive me if I'm misreading, but is the implication here that Straight=Right, Gay=Wrong is The Facts?
And Gays are not seeking to force anything on people. They are not seeking to undermine your morality. They simply want the same right the rest of us get (ie, the right to a legal, recognised marriage). In what way does this harm you? In what way is equality for all offensive to you?
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: You must mean me. I've only quoted what the Bible says. As I've said on pretty much every page of this topic, repeatedly, it's NOT my/our judgement. We are all imperfect in different ways (i.e., we are ALL sinners, whether Christians or non-Christians, homosexuals or HETEROsexuals, all are imperfect in the eyes of God.) I've only clarified what the Bible ITSELF says. I've pointed out the STANDARD, not passed judgement. Judgement is reserved for God alone.
quote:Originally posted by harleykwin: Actually, I didn't mean you specifically. I wrote that without anyone in particualr in mind, but with some of the things I had read two nights ago still in my head - who said what wasn't what I was thinking about. I was trying to respond to Batwoman's comment about Christians defending themselves. My point was only that if Christians (or for that matter, anyone really) called someone something negative, they cannot then be surprised that someone responds by defending themselves. That's all.
However, I do now have a question based on the above comment. You state that this is not your judgment - or rather, a Christian judgment - but just a standard that is established. But the standard sets the bar that people should follow and so it becomes clear that if you do "A" you're good, but if you do "B," then you are not. Yes, that's oversimplifying it, but my question is, isn't that a judgment? And if so, then people following these tenents set by religion do judge based on the standard. Yet, you claim its not your judgment. How can you separate the two?
Dave TWB, I realize that this being the internet tone and inflection are lost, so let me just say that I don't mean this to be rude, I am curious even though it's wandered off the original topic.
No offense taken, Harleykwin.
I think that in general, whether Christian or non, people when they're younger have a tendency to see things in stark black and white ideals, right or wrong, and as you get older, you're more sympathetic to people's individual quirks and vulnerabilities that make them have affairs, do drugs, become alcoholic, and so forth.
Christians are no different in this. And it really takes a lot of Biblical reading on your own to see how consistent, and logical, and loving the Bible is. I find what is taught in church to be very different from reading the Bible on your own. Most of the characters in the Bible are flawed people, who struggle to serve god anyway, despite their flaws and vulnerabilities: King David, for example, or Moses, or Jacob, or Solomon, or Jonah, or Paul. Or Mary Magdalin. The Bible doesn't teach condescension and prejudicial judgement. It teaches understanding and forgiveness.
As I quoted earlier, it says that
quote:"All fall short of the glory of God. It is by faith you are saved, not works, so no man should boast"
By biblical standards, all fail to live up to the standard of the 10 Commandments ("the Law") and all are equally sinful (sin was originally an archery term, meaning "to miss the mark"). And therefore, since all are sinful, no one has the right to judge. Only God has the wisdom to judge. We're to know the Biblical standard and teach the Biblical standard, but judgement is reserved for God alone.
When I see someone who makes me angry, or who I initially don't like for whatever reason, I try and think to myself This person is struggling with insecurities and frustrations and anger and peer pressure, just like me, and in that moment I feel common ground with them, and am more sympathetic. But like anyone else, when I'm under pressure and things aren't going well, I have more tendency to think "What an asshole !" And maybe have sympathy for them later, if I remember it.
I think we're all kids basically. We become adults, but we still have a playfulness, boredom, sense of adventure, insecurity, or temper that can make us do irresponsible things. Not just so-called "bad" people, ALL of us. And that boredom/quest for adventure/loneliness/insecurity --whatever childlike intuitive impulse-- it can make us do unpredictable and irrational things, even when we're adult enough to know intellectually what the right thing is. And a person who is into drug addiction, or prostitution, or has a violent temper, or is self-destructively promiscuous, they can be good people in many ways, and still be dangerous, to themselves and others. And it's not necessarily condescension or hate or judgement, as it is recognition that a person's emotionally driven impulsive behavior can be dangerous. To others, or self-destructive.
So knowing the Biblical standard is not teaching condescension and judgement, it's recognizing the destructiveness of the behavior, to themselves and to others, and instructing them to pursue a more fulfilling path.
I think American culture, beyond just Christianity, has this Brady Bunch/Leave-It-to-Beaver image of what a family is supposed to be where you have a perfect mother and father, and no one has any shameful problems like teen pregnancy, or drugs, or homosexuality, or marital infidelity. And we all like to fool ourselves that our family is perfect, and perhaps think "Oh, no one in our family would ever do that..." UNTIL THEY DO !! Believe me, my family is not perfect.
And I think Christian families are perhaps a bit more so, driven to be perfect, or APPEAR perfect. Because everyone expects them to be perfect. And for some reason, a lot of people love to see a Christian take a fall.
I think we all believe everyone else's family is perfect, and so there's greater shame, among your peers --who all SEEM to be perfect-- that you don't want to appear to have problems. So when some Christians ARE judgemental, I think it's a defense mechanism, and in professing perfection, they are actually trying to reassure themselves that they fit the moral profile they see themselves in.
Two movies that deal with families, and unraveling preconceptions of families that are normal or "perfect" are Pleasantville and Ed T.V..
But although I don't think many really consciously believe most families in America are The Brady Bunch, they still secretly feel like their family is a little more twisted than everyone else's. And again, when you're the Christian family on the block, and you feel like you're supposed to be the perfect one, you tend to put up a bit more of a front of being perfect. Maybe someday we'll learn how to talk to each other.
quote:Originally posted by Mr. Lesbo: I find it amazing that people have a problem with "wrong" and "right". I refuse to force anything upon anyone. The "gay" movement forces their morality upon me. I think they are wrong but at the same time I do not look for rights and other things to advance my sexual taste upon others. I just look at the facts and do not let them confuse my judgement. Or my opinion. A mom and a dad is the best reality for a child to grow up in. How is that such a bad thing?
"The facts?" Forgive me if I'm misreading, but is the implication here that Straight=Right, Gay=Wrong is The Facts?
And Gays are not seeking to force anything on people. They are not seeking to undermine your morality. They simply want the same right the rest of us get (ie, the right to a legal, recognised marriage). In what way does this harm you? In what way is equality for all offensive to you?
quote:2. Calls into question perhaps, but not disproves. As I said earlier, there are a number of books that explore the archaological and historical evidence for the Bible and its accuracy. For all we know, the universe could have been created in 7 days. I've read news articles in the recent past that confirm Biblical statements about the time of the fall of Jericho, that the Biblically prescribed number of days after birth for an infant's circumcision coincides with the most recent biological findings of when an infant's blood development makes him physically ready for that ritual, the forseen "army in the east" of 300 million men, which is foretold, and China now boasts a reserve of exactly that number.
Uh, what are we talking about now? The prophetic vision of the Bible?!?
quote:
And that there are plans for damming of the river Euphrates, exactly as predicted for the end times, that would make an invasion of Israel possible from the far East. So who is to say that the world wasn't created in 7 days? My attitude on this fact has been, despite the fact that it doesn't seem possible with my present knowledge, that it should be taken as literal until proven beyond a doubt to be only symbolic.
Whereas I prefer a "balance of probabilities" rule. The Earth is certainly more than 4,000 years old or whatever the Bible says on the subject... hang on let me find it. Here we go:
quote: A simple, straightforward reading of the biblical record indicates that the Cosmos was created in six days only a few thousand years ago. Standing in firm opposition to that view is the suggestion of atheistic evolutionists, theistic evolutionists, progressive creationists, and so-called “old-Earth creationists” that the current age of the Universe can be set at roughly 8-12 billion years, and that the Earth itself is almost 5 billion years old. Further complicating matters is the fact that the biblical record plainly indicates that living things were placed on the newly created Earth even before the end of the six-day creative process (e.g., plant life came on day three). The evolutionary scenario, however, postulates that early life evolved from nonliving chemicals roughly 3.5-4.0 billion years ago, and that all other life forms gradually developed during the alleged “geologic ages” (with man arriving on the scene, in one form or another, approximately 1-2 million years ago).
Even to a casual observer, it is apparent that the time difference involved in the two models of origins is significant. Much of the controversy today between creationists, atheistic evolutionists, theistic evolutionists, progressive creationists, and old-Earth creationists centers on the age of the Earth. The magnitude of the controversy is multiplied by three factors. First, atheistic evolution itself is impossible to defend if the Earth is young. Second, the concepts mentioned above that are its “theistic cousins” likewise are impossible to defend if the Bible is correct in its straightforward teachings and obvious implications about the age of the Earth. Third, there is no possible compromise that will permit the old-Earth/young-Earth scenarios to coexist; the gulf separating the biblical and evolutionary views in this particular area simply is too large...
Thus the Biblical chronology is about a million times shorter than the evolutionary chronology. A million-fold mistake is no small matter, and Biblical scholars surely need to give primary attention to resolving this tremendous discrepancy right at the very foundation of our entire Biblical cosmology. This is not a peripheral issue that can be dismissed with some exegetical twist, but is central to the very integrity of scriptural theology (1984, p. 115). In the earlier quote from Dr. Wysong, it was suggested that “we must query if vast time is indeed available.” That is exactly what I intend to do in this series of articles. Indeed, a million-fold mistake is no small matter. How old is the Earth according to God’s Word?
...Arphaxad begat Salah in his thirty-fifth year; however, Luke 3:36 complements the chronological table of Genesis 11 with the insertion of Cainan between Arphaxad and Salah, which indicates that likely Arphaxad was the father of Cainan. Proceeding forward, one observes that Terah was born in 1879 A.A., and bore Abraham 130 years later (in the year 2009 A.A.). Simple arithmetic—2166 B.C. added to 2009 A.A.—would place the creation date at approximately 4175 B.C. The Great Flood, then, would have occurred around 2519 B.C. (i.e., 1656 A.A.).
....There have been those who have objected to the suggestion that God is concerned with providing information on the age of the Earth and humanity. But the numerous chronological tables permeating the Bible prove that theirs is a groundless objection. God, it seems, was very concerned about giving man exact chronological data and, in fact, was so concerned that He provided a precise knowledge of the period back to Abraham, plus two tables—with ages—from Abraham to Adam. The ancient Jewish historians (1 Chronicles 1:1-27) and the New Testament writers (Luke 3:34-48) understood the tables of Genesis 5 and 11 as literal and consecutive. The Bible explains quite explicitly that God created the Sun and Moon to be timekeepers (Genesis 1:16) for Adam and his descendants (notice how Noah logged the beginning and the ending of the Flood using these timekeepers, Genesis 7:11; 9:14).
This article then goes on to dismiss geological theories as inaccurate in ways that would enrage my sister's father in law (a professor of geology).
But lets pick an example which you might have more acceptance of: the earth's movement through space.
1 Chronicles 16:30: “He has fixed the earth firm, immovable.”
Psalm 93:1: “Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm ...”
Psalm 96:10: “He has fixed the earth firm, immovable ...”
Psalm 104:5: “Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken.”
Isaiah 45:18: “...who made the earth and fashioned it, and himself fixed it fast...”
Or astrophysics: we contend that the stars are merely burning balls of hydrogen:
"...the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted aloud (Job 38:7).”
Deuteronomy 4:15-19 recognizes the god-like status of stars, noting that they were created for other peoples to worship. In the Apocrypha, specifically, 1 Enoch 88:1, a star that fell from the sky is seized, bound hand and foot, and thrown into an abyss. A few verses later, other stars “whose sexual organs were like the organs of horses” are likewise bound hand and foot and cast “into the pits of the earth (1 Enoch 88:3).”
Some stars never set, and Enoch was shown their chariots (1 Enoch 75:8). Stars that do rise and set do so through openings in dome, just like the sun and moon. God, according to 1 Enoch, runs a tight universe, and stars that do not rise on time are thrown into the celestial slammer. Showing Enoch a hellish scene, the angel Uriel explains:
This place is the (ultimate) end of heaven and earth: it is the prison house for the stars and the powers of heaven. And the stars which roll over upon the fire, they are the ones which have transgressed the commandments of God from the beginning of their rising because they did not arrive punctually (1 Enoch 18:14-15). Enoch was not told the sentence for tardy rising, but Uriel later shows him other stars “which have transgressed the commandments of the Lord,” for which they were doing ten million years of hard time (1 Enoch 21:6). Enoch also was shown an even more terrible place, a fiery prison house where fallen angels were detained forever (1 Enoch 21:10).
Bear in mind that the Book of Enoch was only thrown out of the canon in 325AD by the Council of Nicea (not God, but humans editing His work): it has been found amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls, and is considered canon by Coptic Christians.
There is a lot on the internet about the inaccuracies of the Bible. To be honest, I never really looked into it: I figured that all Christians save for radical fundamentalists would simply see the Bible as allegorical, not literal.
quote: For me, the Bible and evolution are not mutually exclusive. I hold them as two theories, until one can be proven absolutely over the other. But science has not disproven the Bible.
You've cited Occam's Razor before as a logic tool: how does the Bible fare against the razor?
God himself generally doesn't do well: the Bible, with its detailed history of development, does even more poorly. Why believe it is the word of God when it has been so thoroughly edited on so many occasions?
quote:Originally posted by Mr. Lesbo: I find it amazing that people have a problem with "wrong" and "right". I refuse to force anything upon anyone. The "gay" movement forces their morality upon me. I think they are wrong but at the same time I do not look for rights and other things to advance my sexual taste upon others. I just look at the facts and do not let them confuse my judgement. Or my opinion. A mom and a dad is the best reality for a child to grow up in. How is that such a bad thing?
"The facts?" Forgive me if I'm misreading, but is the implication here that Straight=Right, Gay=Wrong is The Facts?
And Gays are not seeking to force anything on people. They are not seeking to undermine your morality. They simply want the same right the rest of us get (ie, the right to a legal, recognised marriage). In what way does this harm you? In what way is equality for all offensive to you?
Good points Danny
I agree. Well put, Danny. Gays do not seek to imppose their morality upon you: they seek acknowledgement that they are entitled to the same rights as you.
quote: A mom and a dad is the best reality for a child to grow up in.
A broad generalisation. Aren't two gay parents who are lving and devoted better than two physically or mentally abusive straight parents?
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Fortunately for the two of us, I get may facts straight. The only place in the world a woman can be an Anglican/Protestant priest right now is in Australia.
this site refers to female priests in the netherlands, switzerland, south africa, and more.
it certainly is still a "shocking" concept to most "old school" religious individuals, but the suprise is fading. i think its kinda silly that its still being upheld as rigorously as it is -- especially at a time when the catholic church is claiming low numbers.
Using Aids as part of the con side against gays marrying always bugs me. If the disease was some sort of condemnation on homosexuality than logic would dictate that those most immune to it were not being condemned. So roughly half the gay population being lesbians are very much immune. But those using it as an argument only apply what fits their argument. Diseases don't discriminate & I don't think God does either.
The argument that Christians somehow own the concept of marriage doesn't work for me either. Marriage has not been a static institution. It has changed & evolved over history. Women were property, multiple wives, arranged marriages, all have been a part of the institution. (all of these still are) The argument that 2 people of the same sex wrecks the sanctity of marriage only rings true for the choir & the haters.
I don't have time to talk right now (I'm at work), but there is an interesting op-ed piece on nytimes.com today that may be of interest to some. It's written by William Safire entitled "The Bedroom Door" that deals with some of what has been discussed in this thread.
The Supreme Court has just slammed America's bedroom door. Sodomy — defined in the new 11th edition of Merriam-Webster's Collegiate as "anal or oral copulation with a member of the same or opposite sex" — when practiced between consenting adults, straight or gay, is none of the government's business.
Libertarian conservatives like me who place a high value on personal freedom consider Lawrence v. Texas a victory in the war to defend everyone's privacy. Homosexuals hail the decision as the law's belated recognition of fairness, which it is, but some would escalate that to American society's acceptance of their lifestyle, which is at least premature.
Traditionalist conservatives put forward a concern that officially decriminalizing sodomy might undermine state laws against adult incest (as between grown-up siblings). But that universal taboo is driven as much by the genetic dangers of inbreeding as by morality or law.
Of more immediate concern to traditionalists is the dramatic warning issued from the Supreme Court bench by dissenting Justice Antonin Scalia. He predicted that this legal triumph for gays would lead to the next big antidiscrimination item on the homosexual agenda: legal sanction of the marriage of two people of the same sex.
Scalia is right about that. We can now expect this question to be asked of every candidate for political office. Because polls will show a majority of voters are uncomfortable with the notion, the issue of same-sex marriage will be evaded or fudged by those primary candidates with an eye on the general election campaign. But the s-s-m issue is now seriously in play.
Don't underestimate the depth of feeling about this on the religious right. Not just fundamentalists, but many churchgoers and congregants see this as a perversion of the institution of marriage and an assault on our standards of morality. Branding them as mindless bigots for holding these views, or for daring to argue that a child's sexual orientation may be influenced by that of his or her parents, is unfair and divisive.
Sooner or later, one of our states — perhaps Vermont, which already has "civil unions," or Massachusetts or some other liberal bastion — will get in step with Canadian trends and make it legally possible for gays to marry, with all the tax breaks, insurance benefits and spousal visitation rights and protections that appertain.
What about all the other states that anticipated this cultural battle and passed laws refusing to recognize any such marriages? The coming dispute among states will go to the Supreme Court, and even if the next three appointees are Scalia clones, I'll bet the court will hold that the laws of one state that do not offend the U.S. Constitution must be recognized by all other states.
After that decision, some wedding guests will be hard pressed to forever hold their peace. One reason is that straight marriage is showing signs of strain. More nubile women are postponing weddings to pursue careers. More eligible men dither along into uncommitted cohabitation. More of our marriages are ending in divorce, as no-fault life doth us part. Now marriage isn't even between one man and one woman, the way it's been for thousands of years. Traditionalists despair: What's happening to the idea of the rock-solid, procreative, mutually supportive family?
Rather than wring our hands and cry "abomination!", believers in family values should take up the challenge and repair our own house.
Why do too many Americans derogate as losers those parents who put family ahead of career, or smack their lips reading about celebrities who switch spouses for fun? Why do we turn to the government for succor, to movie porn and violence for sex and thrills, to the Internet for companionship, to the restaurant for Thanksgiving dinner — when those functions are the ties that bind families?
I used to fret about same-sex marriage. Maybe competition from responsible gays would revive opposite-sex marriage.
Last week I misquoted Walt Whitman as writing "Very well then I am inconsistent." What he wrote, in "Song of Myself," was "Very well then I contradict myself." Best of a torrent of corrections came from Prof. James Bloom of Muhlenberg College: "Whitman knew that using an active-voice transitive verb always beats a copula-and-adjective-complement combo."
quote:Originally posted by Dave: But lets pick an example which you might have more acceptance of: the earth's movement through space.
1 Chronicles 16:30: “He has fixed the earth firm, immovable.”
Psalm 93:1: “Thou hast fixed the earth immovable and firm ...”
Psalm 96:10: “He has fixed the earth firm, immovable ...”
Psalm 104:5: “Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken.”
Isaiah 45:18: “...who made the earth and fashioned it, and himself fixed it fast...”
Or astrophysics: we contend that the stars are merely burning balls of hydrogen:
"...the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted aloud (Job 38:7).”
Earth is fixed on its axis, and fixed in orbit around the sun.
What you say does not prove Biblical innacuracy.
Regarding the apocryphal verses, they are by definition apocryphal, not Biblical. They were rejected from the Bible because they were discovered over time to be thematically and structurally inconsistent with the themes of the accepted 66 books of the Bible. Communication in ancient times was not what it is in modern times and the Christian church arguably did not have control over all the things said in the name, or even in the mainstream, of Christianity. And come to think of it, even in modern times, things can be alleged (the acceptance of gay marriage, for example) in the name of Christianity that is not representative of the vast majority of Christians.
Regarding the age-of-the-Earth/geophysics argument you raised, I know there are Christians who claim the Earth is only 6,000 years old. I AM NOT ONE OF THEM. I don't believe for certain that evolution, and the Creation account in Genesis, are mutually exclusive. The Bible does not say specifically that the Earth is only 6,000 years old, or that it is 6 billion years old. This aspect is open to interpretation. I certainly don't argue for the "Earth is only 6,000 years old" camp. I also don't argue for Evolution. Pending further evidence, the actual creation acount could be Creation, Evolution, or a combination of both.
quote:Originally posted by BigOl'Willie: Interesting take on the whole matter.
It is funny how many conservatives are calling the law horrendous.
It reminds you that there are two major wings to the GOP: the libertarian conservatives and the moral majority.
quote:Originally posted by Cowgirl Jack: Yeah...but where the heck am I...
I know how you feel, C.J. I haven't been fully comfortable with the Republican party for about 12 years. I was a very comfortable Reaganite, but since then the Republicans have not provided the candidates or the ideology that made the 1980's such an era of Republican pride.
I prefer the current Republcian party to the special interest/victim-culture whining of the Democrat party, but the Republicans in recent years have, for me, been the only-slightly-better of two bad alternatives. I voted Perot in 1992 and 1996(less enthusiastically), and Nader in 2000. Which has often been more of a protest vote, for an alternative in the two major parties.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: You've cited Occam's Razor before as a logic tool: how does the Bible fare against the razor?
God himself generally doesn't do well: the Bible, with its detailed history of development, does even more poorly. Why believe it is the word of God when it has been so thoroughly edited on so many occasions?
You will have to prove this. I've already said that there are many books to prove that the Bible is more verifiable, with more exisiting manuscripts, than any other ancient document.
~
Also, I consider your repeated use of the term Radical Fundamentalist to be another stereotyping pejorative label, which again skews the stated objectivity.
I will admit that I am a fundamentalist (meaning I think Christianity should be practiced with the Bible it is sourced from as its sole authority for practicing Christianity).
But to add the phrase "radical" to me attempts to paint fanaticism. The phrase "Radical Fundamentalism" summons to mind Ayatollahs and murderous repressive Islamic governments. And despite the fact that conservative Christians peacefully protest and express outrage at decadent social changes such as gay marriage, there is not a pattern of violence that follows that belief. Please point to me one Christian government in the world that opresses and forces Christianity on its population, or slaughters or imprisons dissenters. It is a misleading stereotyping label.
quote:Originally posted by Mr. Lesbo: I find it amazing that people have a problem with "wrong" and "right". I refuse to force anything upon anyone. The "gay" movement forces their morality upon me. I think they are wrong but at the same time I do not look for rights and other things to advance my sexual taste upon others. I just look at the facts and do not let them confuse my judgement. Or my opinion. A mom and a dad is the best reality for a child to grow up in. How is that such a bad thing?
"The facts?" Forgive me if I'm misreading, but is the implication here that Straight=Right, Gay=Wrong is The Facts?
And Gays are not seeking to force anything on people. They are not seeking to undermine your morality. They simply want the same right the rest of us get (ie, the right to a legal, recognised marriage). In what way does this harm you? In what way is equality for all offensive to you?
Good points Danny
Yeah, good post.
Dave & Franta: Did you guys know that me and Danny are the "Dingo" twins? It's true--- I knit cute lil' pink sweaters for the Dingos, and he eats 'em (the Dingoes, not the sweaters ).
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: How strange--- Dave actually behaving like a halfway decent, sensitive fellow. Mucho weird.
I'm sure this rosey, heartfelt, and somewhat reasonable (for Dave, anyway) post makes up for all the other ugly, insulting, and down-right shitty things you had to say about homosexuals. Right? You didn't mean to sound so judgemental, hateful, and "strident" in all those other posts--- ya just got so carried away with your cold-blooded scripture-quoting that you forgot that these people were living, feeling human beings with just as much right to their religious faith as you. Right? Riiiiiight.
You really take the cake, Davey.
It is not "hateful" to clarify what the truth is. Nothing ugly, nothing insulting. These are just more slanderous emotional labels that you're well known for here.
Your so-called "truth" and what comes out of my asshole bear a remarkable resemblence, Chief.
In one sense of the word, yes, I am a fan. I'm hoping to get more votes with my anaolgy pic. I would have taken a better picture, but I couldn't find my rubber gloves. Oh well, whatcha gonna do.
quote:Regarding the apocryphal verses, they are by definition apocryphal, not biblical. They were rejected from the Bible because they were discovered over time to be thematically ans structurally inconsistent with the themes of the accepted 66 books of the bible. Communication in ancient times was not what it is in modern times and the Christian church arguably did not have control over all the things said in the name, or even in the mainstream, of Christianity. And come to think of it, even in modern times, things can be alleged (the acceptance of gay marriage, for example) in the name of Christianity that is not representative of the vast majority of Christians.
Rejected by who though? Not God. He didn't edit His works: humans did. I have read somewhere that Revelations and the Book of Solomon were also almost thrown out during he Council of Nicea.
quote: Please point to me one Christian government in the world that opresses and forces Christianity on its population, or slaughters or imprisons dissenters.
The last one I know of was Franco's government in Facist Spain. I think Salazar's Portugal was also a Christian facist government, from memory. So its been around 30 years since we've seen such a government.
1 Samuel 18 1 And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. 2 And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. 3 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. 4 And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.
Later on Saul gets a bit pissed about this "friendship" that his son is in.
30 Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said unto him, Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion, and unto the confusion of thy mother's nakedness? 31 For as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom. Wherefore now send and fetch him unto me, for he shall surely die.
They even kiss at some point in there. Friends or Lovers?
Yeah, Sideways IS in love with me--- he's like a lonely lil' puppy starved for my attention and approval. (patting Sideways on his balding pate) Good boy, S. Now fetch daddy his slippers and I'll give you a nice "chew-bone" to munch on...
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: Dave, what are you thinking posting actual content on here? Can't you see there's a mindless flame (npi) war going on?
Sammitch, what are you thinking showing your pretty little bleeding twat around here? We vicious, immoral, decadent hound dogs will rip you apart like the poor, defenseless mother's lil' darling that you are!
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: Yeah.
I need some of you guys to write stuff for my website so I have some diverse opinions.
I bet Batwoman would let you borrow that wicked bitchin' christian rock song she so kindly shared with all of us here a while back for your snazzy lil' website, Dawson.
And Wonder Davey would probably contribute a few Jack T. Chick comics from his personal collection, too! :lol:
[/qb][/QUOTE][/qb][/QUOTE]You do seem to have a fan there with Sideways [/qb][/QUOTE]Yeah, Sideways IS in love with me--- he's like a lonely lil' puppy starved for my attention and approval. (patting Sideways on his balding pate) Good boy, S. Now fetch daddy his slippers and I'll give you a nice "chew-bone" to munch on... [/QB][/QUOTE]
:lol: One of those high maintenance twinks in the making! Thank goodness for cats!
You know, if I didn't think it before, I'm sure of it now. You are on some serious drugs Mater. That scripture you just posted, clearly is about friendshipNOT homosexual lovers as your aluding to. They talked about that in church not too long ago. The message was called "Becomming a Selfless Friend". The Bible does not say these two men were lovers. That's just a fine example of how you are reading into things. And that kiss that you're reading into was on the cheek as in a common thing with people of the Middle East. I should know.
quote: ------------------------------ John Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible
1 Samuel 18
This chapter gives an account of the respect shown to David by Saul and Jonathan, by the servants of Saul, and all the people, and of what was said in his praise in the songs of the women, 1 Samuel 18:1; which latter gave Saul a great offence, and upon which he envied him, and eyed him, and indeed sought his life, and removed him from him; and yet still he continued the darling of the people, behaving wisely among them, which greatly embarrassed Saul, that be knew not what to do, 1 Samuel 18:8; he proposed his eldest daughter to him in marriage, which he had a claim to by killing the Philistine, and then he cheated him by giving her to another, 1 Samuel 18:17; and then he offered his youngest daughter to him, on condition that he would bring him an hundred foreskins of the Philistines, execution of which he thought his life would be exposed to danger, which yet he performed, 1 Samuel 18:20; and having the affection of his wife, and the good esteem of the servants of Saul, Saul was more afraid of him, and became his enemy, 1 Samuel 18:28.
Verse 1. And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul,.... In answer to his questions about his descent and family, and doubtless more things were talked of than are recorded:
that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David: he won his heart, made a conquest of his affections, these went out towards him, and cleaved unto him; such were the comeliness of his person, his graceful mien and deportment, his freedom and fluency of expression, his courage and undauntedness, joined with prudence, modesty, and integrity, that they strongly attached him to him:
and Jonathan loved him as his own soul; not only according to the excellency of David's soul, and the greatness of it, as that deserved respect and love, as Abarbinel suggests, but he loved him as he loved himself. There was a similarity in their persons, in their age, in the dispositions of their minds, in their wisdom, courage, modesty, faithfulness, and openness of soul, that attracted them to each other, that they became as another self; as one soul, as Aristotle speaks {r} of true friends: instances of very cordial friendship are given by Plutarch {s}, as in Theseus and Pirithous, Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Pythias and Damon, Epaminondas and Pelopidas; but none equal to this.
Verse 2. And Saul took him that day,.... Not only into his favour, and into his service, but into his court; even on that very day he slew the Philistine, or however as soon as it could be done:
and would let him go no more home to his father's house; as he used to do before; when he only served as a musician to him, then he was only at court when Saul was in a melancholy disposition, and wanted him, and so was going and returning, and in the intervals kept his father's sheep, 1 Samuel 17:15; but now he would not suffer him to attend such business any longer, since he was not only to become a courtier, and be made a prince or noble, but to marry his daughter, according to the declaration he had made, with respect to any man that should kill Goliath.
Verse 3. Then Jonathan and David made a covenant,.... A covenant of friendship; entered into a solemn agreement to keep up and maintain a cordial respect to each other, and to support each other's interest both in life and after death, whoever was the survivor; and in consequence of this David had a friend at court, when Saul fell out with him, and who pleaded his cause, and discovered his father's plots, and was the means of preserving David's life:
because he loved him as his own soul; so that this covenant was not founded in mere words, but in sincere and cordial affection, and was lasting and inviolable.
Verse 4. And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that [was] upon him,.... As a token of his hearty love and true friendship, and that David might appear at court not in the habit of a shepherd, but in that of a prince:
and gave it to David, and his garments; his other garments besides his robe, and so clothed him from tip to toe, and which fitted him; for as there was a similarity in their souls, and the disposition of them, so in the make and hulk of their bodies, and in the stature of them:
even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle; these he gave him to accoutre himself with, that he might appear as a soldier, as well as like a prince, and as another Jonathan, or rather the same; that they might seem as one, as alike in body, so in garb and habit.
Verse 5. And David went out whithersoever Saul sent him,.... About any business whatsoever, especially about martial affairs, for which he was abundantly qualified:
[and] behaved himself wisely; in the management of them, using great prudence and discretion, and so failed not of success, and of recommending himself; the Targum renders it "prospering"; he was prosperous and successful in whatsoever he engaged, for the Lord was with him, and blessed him:
and Saul set him over the men of war; that is, of some of them, gave him the command of a troop; for Abner was captain or general of the army, and continued so:
and he was accepted in the sight of all the people; of all the people in the land in general, of all that knew or heard of him; being looked upon as a wise, valiant, and successful commander, and which gained him the esteem and affection of the people:
and also in the sight of Saul's servants; which was very much, and a rare thing, for servants are too apt to envy such as are rising in their credit and reputation; though this must not be understood of all, without exception; but of the generality of them; nor is the word "all" used of them, as is of the people; for some of them took the part of Saul afterwards against David, and were secretly his enemies, see 1 Samuel 18:22.
Verse 6. And it came to pass, as they came,.... The armies of Israel, with their commanders at the head of them:
when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine; either from the slaughter of Goliath, with his head in his hand, going to Jerusalem, and Saul accompanying him; or rather from the slaughter of the Philistines at some other time, the singular being put for the plural; since, according to the order of the history, this seems to be done after David was brought to court, and had been made a captain, and had been sent out on military expeditions, and had been successful therein, and from one of which he now returned:
that the women came out of all the cities of Israel; through which they passed:
singing and dancing; as were usual after great victories obtained, and deliverances wrought, the female sex being generally greatly affected with such things; since when things go otherwise they suffer much, and their fears rise high in time of battle; and when victory goes on their side, it gives them great joy, and which they used to express in this way:
to meet King Saul; the commander-in-chief, with his other officers, and David among the rest:
with tabrets, with joy, and with instruments of music; with pipes or flutes, which they both blew with their mouths, and played on with their hands, and other musical instruments exciting joy; the last word is, by the Targum, rendered, "with cymbals;" and so the Septuagint version; it signifies a musical instrument of three cords, according to Kimchi; and others, as Ben Gersom, understand it of principal songs, in which things wonderful, excellent, and honourable, were spoken of: see Exodus 15:20. Such sort of women were among the Romans called Cymballatriae and Tympanistriae {t}, who shook the cymbals, and beat upon tabrets and drums at times of rejoicing.
Verse 7. And the women answered [one another] as they played,.... They sung vocally to their instruments, and that by turns, one rehearsing one line or verse in the song, and then the other another:
and said, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands; which, if to be referred to the battle in the preceding chapter, as it commonly is, must be understood thus, that though Saul, in pursuit of the Philistines, slew many thousands of them, and David but one, even Goliath; yet the slaying of him was the occasion of slaying ten thousands, and therefore it is ascribed to him: but it seems rather that in some after battles David had been more prosperous and victorious than Saul, and therefore superior commendations are given him by the author of the song the women sung; which, however just it might be to give them, was not wise, since it served to irritate their king, as follows.
Verse 8. And Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him,.... Partly because they called him plain Saul, and not King Saul; did not give him his royal title, which might serve to strengthen his suspicion, after suggested; and chiefly because they attributed a greater number of slain to David than to him, as follows:
and he said, they have ascribed unto David ten thousands, and to me they ascribed [but] thousands; and so had given more honour to an inferior officer than to the commander-in-chief, more to a subject than to a sovereign:
and [what can] he have more but the kingdom? there is nothing left out of their song, and nothing remains to be given him but that; some think that Saul knew, by the prudent behaviour of David, and the favour he was in with God and men, and by these commendations of the women, that the kingdom would be his; and that the words of Samuel were true, and would be confirmed, that the kingdom would be rent from him, and given to his neighbour better than he. This clause, with 1 Samuel 18:9, is left out of the Greek version, according to the Vatican copy.
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: Yeah, Sideways IS in love with me--- he's like a lonely lil' puppy starved for my attention and approval. (patting Sideways on his balding pate) Good boy, S. Now fetch daddy his slippers and I'll give you a nice "chew-bone" to munch on...
A bit harsh there Batwoman. I would hardly call it clearly friendship. They love each other more than their own souls =2 guys = Friends (?) Yeah well anytime I've seen that, the 2 friends end up buying a home together.
Best friends.....you've never hugged or cried for a best friend? In america we don't kiss but elsewhere they do. And it didn't say jonathan dropped his loin cloth.
They were torn by family, by god's blessing on david, and their friendship was basically doomed..as Jonathan said basically that their families would never be able to co-exist and they wept...The love those two shared is contrasted to the evil Saul had in his heart...
quote:Originally posted by Pig Iron: Best friends.....you've never hugged or cried for a best friend? In america we don't kiss but elsewhere they do. And it didn't say jonathan dropped his loin cloth.
They were torn by family, by god's blessing on david, and their friendship was basically doomed..as Jonathan said basically that their families would never be able to co-exist and they wept...The love those two shared is contrasted to the evil Saul had in his heart...
If this story occurred outside the Bible would you be surprised to see loin cloths coming off? Hugging as a greeting yes but beyond that its usually foreplay IMHO
Your reading of these verses from 1 Samuel , Matter Eater Man, are, again, false and misrepresentative.
Saul was then king of Israel. Jonathan his son.
David is a shepherd, and Jesse is David's father.
Jonathan had a close friendship with David, DEFINITELY not to be confused with a homosexual relationship, as you imply. What possible scholarly justification do you have for such a skewed interpretation?
Jonathan's giving of his tunic and personal items to David, and particularly his weapons, including his sword, indicates submission and loyalty to David's authority, and symbolically (as well as literally) indicates that he recognizes David's authority over King Saul's, and points to David as the future king of Israel.
Jonathan has made this manifestation of loyalty, despite the fact that it undermines Jonathan's own accession to the throne of Jonathan's father, King Saul.
Saul is outraged and jealous, because Jonathan has chosen David over Saul as the rightful authority, even at the loss of Jonathan's own accession to the throne. Saul was interested in his own personal ambition, not serving God, and in contrast, David's courage and selflessness earned Jonathan's loyalty, even over his own legagy to be king, and even over Jonathan's loyalty to his own father, King Saul.
A kiss between men in ancient times, and even in many parts of the world today (on the cheek usually) is often a sign of friendship and not sexual in nature. When Judas betrayed Jesus to the Romans, he did so with a kiss as the signal, and when the Romans saw the kiss, it identified which was Jesus, so the Romans could swarm in and arrest him. It certainly didn't indicate that Jesus and Judas had a homosexual relationship, any more than David and Jonathan were homosexuals.
You also --to the misrepresentative advantage of your flawed argument-- omit sections within the same paragraph of 1 Samuel that discuss David's courtship and marriage to one of Saul's daughters (verses 20-27)
Verses 12-16 make clear the reason for Saul's jealousy is clearly NOT a belief that his son is a homosexual. It is because David is popular and favored and revered, by all of Israel, by God, and by Saul's own son Jonathan.
quote:Samuel 18, verses 12-16: 12 Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with David but had left Saul. 13 So he sent David away from him and gave him command over a thousand men, and David led the troops in their campaigns. 14 In everything he did he had great success, because the LORD was with him. 15 When Saul saw how successful he was, he was afraid of him. 16 But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he led them in their campaigns.
Once again, your reading of this as homosexual in nature goes against scripture throughout the Bible, that CONSISTENTLY makes clear the Bible's (and God the Father's, and Jesus') condemnation of homosexuality, in both the Old and New Testaments.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: A bit harsh there Batwoman. I would hardly call it clearly friendship. They love each other more than their own souls =2 guys = Friends (?) Yeah well anytime I've seen that, the 2 friends end up buying a home together.
Actually it's not considering how many pages you and other have sat here and twisted scripture to suit your own needs. Do you honestly think we're not sick and tired of it by now? You're kidding yourself if you think otherwise.
quote:Originally posted by Pig Iron: Best friends.....you've never hugged or cried for a best friend? In america we don't kiss but elsewhere they do. And it didn't say jonathan dropped his loin cloth.
They were torn by family, by god's blessing on david, and their friendship was basically doomed..as Jonathan said basically that their families would never be able to co-exist and they wept...The love those two shared is contrasted to the evil Saul had in his heart...
If this story occurred outside the Bible would you be surprised to see loin cloths coming off? Hugging as a greeting yes but beyond that its usually foreplay IMHO
Believe it or not, there are people in this day and age that are best friends, same sex, and NOT homosexual. Again you're reading things into the Bible that only your own little gay agenda.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: If this story occurred outside the Bible would you be surprised to see loin cloths coming off? Hugging as a greeting yes but beyond that its usually foreplay IMHO
But it DID occur in the Bible, and the context is clear, to anyone not deliberately attempting a selective interpretation.
Again, the "gay couple" reading you present here is not only untrue, but also completely inconsistent with the rest of the Bible.
~
Pig Iron and Batwomanamy, I just wish to acknowledge you answered some of the points I raised in my response. I was reading from page 16 then, and am now up to date with your responses as well.
[/qb][/QUOTE]You do seem to have a fan there with Sideways [/qb][/QUOTE]Yeah, Sideways IS in love with me--- he's like a lonely lil' puppy starved for my attention and approval. (patting Sideways on his balding pate) Good boy, S. Now fetch daddy his slippers and I'll give you a nice "chew-bone" to munch on... [/QB][/QUOTE]
:lol: One of those high maintenance twinks in the making! Thank goodness for cats! [/QB][/QUOTE] :lol:
As for me, I've come to realise that there is no point in arguing this further.
Having thought about it, there is no reason to accept the Bible as an authority over the Tale of Gilgamesh (which is more ancient), the Qu'ran (which at least was delivered by on angel's command, rather than subject to human edit), or the latest Incredible Hulk tpb (which has fewer inconsistencies).
At the end of the day, the fundamental argument the Christian debaters mount is "Because the Bible says so". Lacking faith, I can't accept this as a valid or convincing proposition.
In any event, I think Dave has said that he sees no reason why a gay legal marriage shouldn't be allowed, just not a Christian gay marriage.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Fortunately for the two of us, I get may facts straight. The only place in the world a woman can be an Anglican/Protestant priest right now is in Australia.
this site refers to female priests in the netherlands, switzerland, south africa, and more.
it certainly is still a "shocking" concept to most "old school" religious individuals, but the suprise is fading. i think its kinda silly that its still being upheld as rigorously as it is -- especially at a time when the catholic church is claiming low numbers.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: Gay or not gay?
1 Samuel 18 1 And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. 2 And Saul took him that day, and would let him go no more home to his father's house. 3 Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul. 4 And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle.
Later on Saul gets a bit pissed about this "friendship" that his son is in.
30 Then Saul's anger was kindled against Jonathan, and he said unto him, Thou son of the perverse rebellious woman, do not I know that thou hast chosen the son of Jesse to thine own confusion, and unto the confusion of thy mother's nakedness? 31 For as long as the son of Jesse liveth upon the ground, thou shalt not be established, nor thy kingdom. Wherefore now send and fetch him unto me, for he shall surely die.
They even kiss at some point in there. Friends or Lovers?
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: A bit harsh there Batwoman. I would hardly call it clearly friendship. They love each other more than their own souls =2 guys = Friends (?) Yeah well anytime I've seen that, the 2 friends end up buying a home together.
Actually it's not considering how many pages you and other have sat here and twisted scripture to suit your own needs. Do you honestly think we're not sick and tired of it by now? You're kidding yourself if you think otherwise.
Look out, gang--- Batwoman is getting pissed.
Here's my imitation of Batwoman throwing a hissy fit (just think of Ned Flanders and his family from "The Simpsons" and you'll be pretty close):
"Fiddlesticks!" Batwoman's brow furrows in righteous anger as she looks up from her 800 piece jigsaw puzzle of "The Last Supper".
"Those bunch of awful, immoral... immoral... oh, i'll just come out and say it, 'cuz the truth will stand when the world is gone, praise gawd! Those bunch of awful, immoral booty-bandits are making me so mad by actually having the cheek to think that THEY can serve God, too! The nerve of those hell-bound sissies! I mean, really!" Batwoman stomps her foot down with authority, nods her head at no one in particular, and then resumes working on her puzzle.
Ta-Dahhhh!
My next performance will be a scene involving Davey and his Mail-Order Bride. (Wonder-Load has given up on "modern" American women--- they're just too darn opinionated and sassy for him! )
At the end of the day, the fundamental argument the Christian debaters mount is "Because the Bible says so". Lacking faith, I can't accept this as a valid or convincing proposition.
Bingo.
I said pretty much the same thing a few pages ago, in fact.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: Yeah.
I need some of you guys to write stuff for my website so I have some diverse opinions.
I bet Batwoman would let you borrow that wicked bitchin' christian rock song she so kindly shared with all of us here a while back for your snazzy lil' website, Dawson.
And Wonder Davey would probably contribute a few Jack T. Chick comics from his personal collection, too! :lol:
:lol:
Are you trying to piss me off? :lol: You're almost as much of a failure there as you are at proving a point! You're nothing but a pathetic little nuisance. Spout your filth all you want, because I am sitting here laughing my head off the whole time.
I seriously considered calling you out, but then I realized you wouldn't have any idea what to do. It might be too much for you to handle. I actually listen to what klinton, Matter-Eater Man, and the others have to say, because they're actually not a waste of my time.
Oh, no! He called me Dawson and insulted my website! I'm crushed! I better go away before he taunts me a second time!
Get over yourself, you little punk. I've got better things to do than bother with pseudointellectual gutter trash like you.
[/QUOTE]I've already re-explained what I said so I wont bother to repeat myself. I will say this, however, not once did I say anything about Christian's bashing anyone, or saying anything negative against anyone. My point was, Christians can't say anything about their faith or beliefs with out someone coming over and calling us closed minded hatemongers, yet anyone that isn't a Christian, or doesn't agree with us, can say whatever they want. Now tell me that's not hypocritical. And before anyone will say I'm lying I'll tell you a true story that happened in my journal.
[/QUOTE]
Generally speaking when one defends their religion/G-d somewhere along the line one ends up putting another group down or judging the lifestyle another leads, etc. because it doesn't fall in line with the dictates of one's particular religion. And while the intent may or may not be to insult or hurt, it usually ends up doing that nonetheless. That is what people are usually responding to or defending themselves from.
And as for your belief that people who disagree with Christianity saying whatever they want and getting away with it scot free - I beg to differ. Anytime anyone says anything against or contraversial about anyorganized religion there is bound to be a backlash or at the very least some labelling involved. The degree of what happens all depends on the forum in which one chooses to speak.
matt, silly, relax a lil. or at least bring the more harshities over to the offensive forum.
y'dont havta agree with anyone or even make sense (lookit animalman!), but at least try n'keep things a tad more civil in hizzah.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: In any event, I think Dave has said that he sees no reason why a gay legal marriage shouldn't be allowed, just not a Christian gay marriage.
which, i think, is the best point (cuz its mine, from page 1!)
a religion is a private club -- they're allowed to make up the rules of their organization like that. somethings bad? ... god says so! pork is the devil? ok! pray on this mat 11 times a day? sure! whatever. if thats what they think god said, so be it. its their choice.
but, with the gubment (specifically the US's), i can't see a legal justification to disallow same sex marriages. the US gov doesn't have the luxury of assigning what god you believe in, if you believe in one at all.
they shouldn't be allowed to disallow marriages anymore than they're allowed to disallow friendships.
One thing I learned from reading this is that I originally thought Matt just flamed christians. But no he flames everyone who doesn't agree with either him or his message delivery style . Atleast matt's consistennt...
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: Yeah.
I need some of you guys to write stuff for my website so I have some diverse opinions.
I bet Batwoman would let you borrow that wicked bitchin' christian rock song she so kindly shared with all of us here a while back for your snazzy lil' website, Dawson.
And Wonder Davey would probably contribute a few Jack T. Chick comics from his personal collection, too! :lol:
:lol:
Are you trying to piss me off? :lol: You're almost as much of a failure there as you are at proving a point! You're nothing but a pathetic little nuisance. Spout your filth all you want, because I am sitting here laughing my head off the whole time.
I seriously considered calling you out, but then I realized you wouldn't have any idea what to do. It might be too much for you to handle. I actually listen to what klinton, Matter-Eater Man, and the others have to say, because they're actually not a waste of my time.
Oh, no! He called me Dawson and insulted my website! I'm crushed! I better go away before he taunts me a second time!
Get over yourself, you little punk. I've got better things to do than bother with pseudointellectual gutter trash like you.
Trying to piss you off??? Not at all! Dude, isn't it obvious that I just love you to pieces?!!?
You are such a brave, wonderful, and special little man. (pinching one of Dawson's sweet apple-blossom cheeks) kootchie-koo!
quote:Originally posted by Rob Kamphausen: my oh my, lookit this lil thread here.
matt, silly, relax a lil. or at least bring the more harshities over to the offensive forum.
y'dont havta agree with anyone or even make sense (lookit animalman!), but at least try n'keep things a tad more civil in hizzah.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: In any event, I think Dave has said that he sees no reason why a gay legal marriage shouldn't be allowed, just not a Christian gay marriage.
which, i think, is the best point (cuz its mine, from page 1!)
a religion is a private club -- they're allowed to make up the rules of their organization like that. somethings bad? ... god says so! pork is the devil? ok! pray on this mat 11 times a day? sure! whatever. if thats what they think god said, so be it. its their choice.
but, with the gubment (specifically the US's), i can't see a legal justification to disallow same sex marriages. the US gov doesn't have the luxury of assigning what god you believe in, if you believe in one at all.
they shouldn't be allowed to disallow marriages anymore than they're allowed to disallow friendships.
quote:Originally posted by Pig Iron: One thing I learned from reading this is that I originally thought Matt just flamed christians. But no he flames everyone who doesn't agree with either him or his message delivery style . Atleast matt's consistennt...
Word up, Piggie! You're right--- I AM a consistent asshole.
WASHINGTON - President Bush said Wednesday that a constitutional ban on gay marriage that has been proposed in the House might not be needed despite a Supreme Court decision that some conservatives think opens the door to legalizing same-sex marriages.
"I don't know if it's necessary yet," Bush said. "Let's let the lawyers look at the full ramifications of the recent Supreme Court hearing. What I do support is a notion that marriage is between a man and a woman."
Bush's words were aimed at calming members of the GOP's right wing, who are upset about the Supreme Court decision, said Patrick Guerriero, director of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay advocacy group. "I think what you're seeing is a momentary time-out from the radical right's temper tantrum," he said.
In striking down a Texas law that made homosexual sex a crime, the Supreme Court on June 26 overturned its earlier ruling that said states could punish homosexuals for having sex.
Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia fired off a blistering dissent of the ruling.
The "opinion dismantles the structure of constitutional law that has permitted a distinction to be made between heterosexual and homosexual unions, insofar as formal recognition in marriage is concerned," Scalia wrote. The ruling specifically said that the court was not addressing that issue, but Scalia warned, "Do not believe it."
The Supreme Court's decision was a broad ruling addressing privacy, and gay rights groups are saying they will use it to push for more legal rights.
"We have a powerful new weapon in our legal battles on behalf of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people, but the impact of this ruling also stretches well beyond the walls of our nation's courtrooms," Kevin Cathcart, director of New York-based Lambda Legal, a gay rights advocacy group, said Wednesday in announcing a new online resource that maps out how the group will use the ruling to win full recognition of same-sex relationships, among other things.
Legal authorities are also combing the decision to see what its impact will really be on other gay rights issues.
"I don't know that there is any clear assessment — that anybody has at this point — about the legal ramifications of a just-made decision," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said.
The president was asked about whether he supported a federal constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman during an impromptu news conference that followed his announcement of a new global AIDS ambassador.
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., was the main sponsor of the proposal offered May 21 to amend the Constitution. It was referred on June 25 to the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution.
To be added to the Constitution, the proposal must be approved by two-thirds of the House and the Senate and ratified by three-fourths of the states.
On Sunday, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said the Supreme Court's decision on gay sex threatens to make the American home a place where criminality is condoned. He said he supported the proposed constitutional amendment to ban homosexual marriage in the United States.
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: Look out, gang--- Batwoman is getting pissed.
Here's my imitation of Batwoman throwing a hissy fit (just think of Ned Flanders and his family from "The Simpsons" and you'll be pretty close):
"Fiddlesticks!"...
No, I think Batwoman will just kick your ass. In fact, I'll help. Hosing everyone off failed, now it is time for violence.
You got that right. After all, there's a reason why we call my older brother Batman. And he and I fought like cats and dogs growing up. So I know how to fight and I dogged bullets in high school. So I'm not a sissy girl like Kennedy thinks I am. I'm just ignoring him.
Rob if it was a case of legal gay marriages being OK with everybody but not forcing any churches to do them this wouldn't be a zillion pages long. Wednesday's latest post goes to show this isn't going to happen soon. Lots of time & money is going to be spent on this issue that should really only concern those who want to step up & make a commitment to their spouse.
Dave, really enjoyed what you had to say. Some really thoughtful intelligent stuff. Far better than I could come up with. If only this was some how Legion Trivea
Batwoman if your going to slander me, a suggestion. Try to use MK's style I think it's more entertaining & you have to keep in mind that we've had pages of gay people (me) going to hell, leading everyone else into hell, spreading disease, faking scientific results & being categorized as a fetish & so on. Being called a druggie, while original, doesn't really register on the insultameter.
Samuel revisited, minus the insults you guys did provide some insights I hadn't considered. Thanks Pig Iron for taking the time & sticking with a nice clear response. Now to be honest I'm still stuck on the line about loving each other more than their own souls. Love is a really abused word these days as well as soul to a lesser extent. So reading it in a 21st century frame of mind I could just figure their love for each other is just being overstated. But it is the Bible & this is where we're finding out just how good of friends these two guys are. OK so what's a soul in the Bible? I figure we're talking that immortal thing that we have that either goes to heaven or hell. It's more important than your own life. In fact it's such a big thing that I can't imagine loving somebody more than what the Bible is saying these two guys did. OK so where I need a little help with is if that's just a good friendship how could a love any mightier between a man & woman? I honestly can't top a soul.
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: Batwoman if your going to slander me, a suggestion. Try to use MK's style I think it's more entertaining & you have to keep in mind that we've had pages of gay people (me) going to hell, leading everyone else into hell, spreading disease, faking scientific results & being categorized as a fetish & so on. Being called a druggie, while original, doesn't really register on the insultameter.
I wasn't competing with MK, nor do I want you to compare me to him in any way.
Well it was just a suggestion for any future personal attacks on my character. If you don't like the comparison maybe skip the personal attacks?
As for what I was getting at, friends might love each other but it's always been a love that is less than what I have for my partner. So the line in the Bible to me is expressing a sort of ultimate love that would be hard to top. If two friends loved each other that much how could they love their spouses more?
Uh I don't think I attacked you personally or your character. I have commented on scripture not you. Also didn't say you couldn't insult me personally. Just pointing out if your going to do it, it might as well be spetacular. Again I refer you to the list a couple of posts above.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: In any event, I think Dave has said that he sees no reason why a gay legal marriage shouldn't be allowed, just not a Christian gay marriage.
which, i think, is the best point (cuz its mine, from page 1!)
a religion is a private club -- they're allowed to make up the rules of their organization like that. somethings bad? ... god says so! pork is the devil? ok! pray on this mat 11 times a day? sure! whatever. if thats what they think god said, so be it. its their choice.
One thing wrong with that: its discriminatory. You have a private golf club which won't let black guys play? The government can intervene - its discrimination, isn't it? Or a private restaurant which won't allow women? Government can step in and compel them to let in female patrons.
You have a church which won't let gay guys get married? Why, here is the government with a key to that particular door.
All pissing in the wind - as if any government is going to upset the Christian heartland - but still, that's what it boils down to.
This is indeed comparable to Dave's cracker golf club analogy. It's saying that this particular group of people (blacks, gays, midgets, etc) is not equal to you, and does not have the same rights as you, because of one aspect of them. One aspect that is in no way morally wrong, but simply how they are.
quote:Originally posted by THE Franta: HOW ABOUT A HETEROSEXUAL GROUP HUG for some and A HOMOSEXUAL GROUP HUG for others?!?
Dave & Danny it might be discrimination but it would certainly fall under Freedom of Religion. And it should but likewise the government doesn't/shouldn't have the right dictating to churches that they can't marry gays.
quote:Originally posted by Rob Kamphausen: [QUOTE]
a religion is a private club -- they're allowed to make up the rules of their organization like that. somethings bad? ... god says so! pork is the devil? ok! pray on this mat 11 times a day? sure! whatever. if thats what they think god said, so be it. its their choice.
One thing wrong with that: its discriminatory. You have a private golf club which won't let black guys play? The government can intervene - its discrimination, isn't it? Or a private restaurant which won't allow women? Government can step in and compel them to let in female patrons.
No, the government can't. Not always. I'm assuming that you are talking specifically about the American government? The government can only intervene if there is federal or state funding going to a particular group/club, i.e, it's one of the reasons that VMI and the Citadel were forced to open their doors to women, but why the government could not force that golf club (can't remember the name, don't follow golf) to admit women. Both discriminate, but under different circumstances. One is an institution using public funds, the other a private club using private funding. There's more to it than that, but that is a big component that is considered.
Also, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment states that, "no state shall ... deny any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws." The topics usually dealt with when regarding constitutional violations like this are: race discrimination (highest level of scrutiny given by the courts), sex discrimination and socio-economic discrimination (least level of scrutiny). I haven't heard of a case where religion has come under the gun (legally, not morally or under negative public opinion, which are separate issues). It may get scrutiny if a class (ex. women, African-Americans) brings a case under the 14th against a religious institution, but I think the Supremes would be loathe to touch it because of the whole separation of church and state issue.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: In any event, I think Dave has said that he sees no reason why a gay legal marriage shouldn't be allowed, just not a Christian gay marriage.
quote:Originally posted by Rob Kamphausen: which, i think, is the best point (cuz its mine, from page 1!)
a religion is a private club -- they're allowed to make up the rules of their organization like that. somethings bad? ... god says so! pork is the devil? ok! pray on this mat 11 times a day? sure! whatever. if thats what they think god said, so be it. its their choice.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: One thing wrong with that: its discriminatory. You have a private golf club which won't let black guys play? The government can intervene - its discrimination, isn't it? Or a private restaurant which won't allow women? Government can step in and compel them to let in female patrons.
You have a church which won't let gay guys get married? Why, here is the government with a key to that particular door.
All pissing in the wind - as if any government is going to upset the Christian heartland - but still, that's what it boils down to.
I find this argument flawed. Homosexuality is not a racial or physical feature that can be singled out to exclude someone from a club. A club is just a group of people who have shared beliefs. You can't bust up every group of people with individual beliefs, just because other people don't share those beliefs.
It's like if heterosexuals were to enter a gay organization and say We're heterosexual, but we have the right to call ourselves gay, and form our own version of homosexuality. We all know plainly what homosexuality is, and such an act would be deliberately disruptive of the gatherings and beliefs of homosexuals.
Similarly, Christianity is clearly defined. Christian beliefs ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY are clearly defined in the Bible, and Christianity views homosexuality with clear disfavor. So Christians have the right to those teachings, which have existed for 2,000 years in the New Testament, and far longer than that in the Old Testament. It's interesting, though, Dave, because the argument you're pressing is what you previously dismissed as an unproveable "slippery slope" argument, alleging that legalizing gay marriage does not lead to an avalanche of other decadent legislation. But here you are arguing that the Christian ability to publicly teach that homosexuality is immoral, IS DISCRIMINATORY, and should therefore BE BANNED. Because it excludes gays. Which is precisely the direction that gay activists are headed, if they can make gay marriage legal, and push it to the next level. Gay activists themselves say they will not stop with legalizing gay marriage, but will push on for further legislation. As will other fringe groups who will ride on the coat-tails of gay legislation.
As I've said since this topic began: As laws stand at the moment, gays have a right to their lifestyle, and Christians (and others who disagree with gay marriage) have a right to their lifestyle. Neither one is banned from practicing their own beliefs. I advocate maintenance of that balance, not legislation that will stomp on religious freedom of Christians to follow the Old and New Testaments as they were written, and a maintained balance that will allow Christianity to maintain their own clear perspective of homosexuality. Despite what homosexuals and liberals think, that is the right of Christians under the law, and that right should be maintained.
I might add that I already answered these points on page 15 of this topic:
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: I disagree with all these points. To answer them:
quote:Originally posted by Dave: I think many people's problems with conservative Christianity is that its a closed shop to "alternative" (but increasingly mainstream) lifestyles: it concentrates more on orthodoxy (the "close-midedness" you refer to) than the pragmatic reality that there are gay Christians...
1. Christianity is open to all who will believe. Those who violate Biblical teachings are, by definition, non-believers. It's the choice of those who break the Biblical law of Christian behavior, not the Christians or the God who live by them. Your example is like saying that it's society's fault that an armed robber is in prison for 25 years, not the fact that he held up a liquor store and shot someone. "Society is hateful for putting him in prison, why do they have to enforce the laws?" Because those are the rules of society, and if you do not obey those rules, you are excluded for the good of all who believe in and obey the rules. Those who don't obey destroy it with actions and counter-ideology. Every organization and culture has to have rules and a standardized ideology to preserve itself.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: In marginalising honorable and decent members of the community, it [the Christian church] will eventually become marginalised itself, if indeed this has not already happened.
4. I don't think the Christian church marginalizes anyone. It is open to all who will believe, as I said.
If you change the rules of a volleyball club to rules of basketball, you no longer have a volleyball club. It has become a basketball club, by any other name. The same thing with Christianity.
It should not be expected to change its teachings which have worked just fine for over 2000 years, just because non-Christians want to re-make it in their own secular humanist image.
Using the example of gays: It is HATEFUL of Christianity to expect gays to change, to Biblical laws of morality.
And yet it is NOT hateful for gays to expect Christianity to change, to conform to the gay concept of "morality".
That's quite a double standard.
Another example of my logic being ignored, and the same false allegations being pointlessly resurrected again and again.
And answered previously again, on page 14 of the topic:
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
quote:Originally posted by harleykwin: What has surprised me though, throughout the four pages of this thread that I have read (the last four, BTW), is that quite a few times "Christian values" have been brought up as something that people should follow as if there are no other moral codes that people follow. And that's fine, if you are a Christian. You want to follow your beliefs, go right ahead, but to judge everyone by your rules and moral code is inevitably going to lead to a debate if those people don't follow your rules.
But again, as I've said endlessly, gays have a right to their beliefs, OUTSIDE of Christianity. But to attempt the idea of gay marriage, under the facade that Christianity endorses it, is to warp the meaning of Christianity out from under the Christians who practice it. It is a violation of Christian ideology and teaching. To me, it's like a black guy trying to join the Klu Klux Klan. Or a Klansman trying to join the N.A.A.C.P. Or a bunch of Christians getting together and creating a new denomination "Islam". Or a bunch of radical Palestinians getting together and forming a new denomination, calling it "Judaism".
The polar difference in ideology in all of these examples would make any of these occurrences justifiably threatening to the given pre-existing organizations and religions.
Again, gays have a right to their lifestyle. They do NOT have the right to distort the meaning and traditions of Christianity.
Raising the same allegations doesn't make them any less flawed than the first time they were raised.
The argument seems to be that Christianity is a club whose rights can be violated, while homosexuality is a club whose rights cannot.
I know it bothers a lot of people here, but Christians DO have a right to follow the Bible as it is written.
a religion is a private club -- they're allowed to make up the rules of their organization like that. somethings bad? ... god says so! pork is the devil? ok! pray on this mat 11 times a day? sure! whatever. if thats what they think god said, so be it. its their choice.
One thing wrong with that: its discriminatory. You have a private golf club which won't let black guys play? The government can intervene - its discrimination, isn't it? Or a private restaurant which won't allow women? Government can step in and compel them to let in female patrons.
No, the government can't. Not always. I'm assuming that you are talking specifically about the American government? The government can only intervene if there is federal or state funding going to a particular group/club, i.e, it's one of the reasons that VMI and the Citadel were forced to open their doors to women, but why the government could not force that golf club (can't remember the name, don't follow golf) to admit women. Both discriminate, but under different circumstances. One is an institution using public funds, the other a private club using private funding. There's more to it than that, but that is a big component that is considered.
Also, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment states that, "no state shall ... deny any person within its jurisdiction equal protection of the laws." The topics usually dealt with when regarding constitutional violations like this are: race discrimination (highest level of scrutiny given by the courts), sex discrimination and socio-economic discrimination (least level of scrutiny). I haven't heard of a case where religion has come under the gun (legally, not morally or under negative public opinion, which are separate issues). It may get scrutiny if a class (ex. women, African-Americans) brings a case under the 14th against a religious institution, but I think the Supremes would be loathe to touch it because of the whole separation of church and state issue.
Fair enough. My knowledge of US constitutional law is certainly haphazard.
quote: I find this argument flawed. Homosexuality is not a racial or physical feature that can be singled out to exclude someone from a club.
No, its a type of behaviour. Why do you draw an arbitrary difference?
quote:
A club is just a group of people who have shared beliefs. You can't bust up every group of people with individual beliefs, just because other people don't share those beliefs.
quote:It is HATEFUL of Christianity to expect gays to change, to Biblical laws of morality.
And yet it is NOT hateful for gays to expect Christianity to change, to conform to the gay concept of "morality".
That's quite a double standard.
With respect, that's a false distortion of the facts.
Gays will accept Christians. That's tolerance. Gays have no problem with Christians being gay.
Christians won't accept gays. Christians have a problem with gays being Christian. That's intolerance.
I love the way you try to reverse my own use of the word distortion, when it is your interpretation that is clearly liberally biased and distorted.
Gays, having no ideology beyond what rationalizes their lifestyle, can make that claim. But PROVE to me that homosexuality is inborn. YOUR OWN argument is based on a fallacious logic by consensus argument that blindly accepts the gay notion that their behavior is inborn, when there is not scientific evidence to back that up. That, again, is bias.
Homosexuality is a belief system. With no scientific evidence to back it up. But you accept it whole as absolute fact in your argument. Christianity is a belief system, with a number of characteristics that confirm its truth, despite the fact you keep trying to circumnavigate, dismiss or otherwise dodge my point about the Bible as the only valid cornersone for Christianity (a point VERY RELEVANT to your attempts to dismiss the validity of the Bible's verses about homosexuality being an enduring standard for Christians today) :
a Bible that (Old and New Testaments) were written over a 1500-year period, from the time of Moses to about 100 A.D., that have remarkably consistent themes, despite the wide range of men --rich and poor, highly educated and shepherds, soldiers, kings, rabbis, peasants, Jews and Gentiles, who wrote these books, "God breathed" inspired by God (as I already confirmed with scripture).
The fact that 40 different authors wrote 66 books of the Old and New Testaments (over a 1500-year period) with the thematic consistency that it has, the historical facts that cannot be disproven, fulfilled prophecies of ancient times (the destruction of the ancient capital of Babylon, for example, the many conditions foretold of the coming Messiah that were fulfilled in Jesus being the most cited fulfilled prophecies), as well as the foretold Babylonian captivity of the Jews, to more modern prophecies about the rebirth of Israel in modern times, and other prophecies that are being fulfilled in modern times.
a Bible where about 60,000 manuscripts exist for comparison, and as I said, is more verifiable than any other ancient document(the distortions of scripture in this topic by gays are obvious, but you choose to ignore them in your arguments, Dave )
If the Bible COULD be disproven, the secular humanists and other cynics would have done so by now. It is CRYSTAL clear that gays are attempting to warp scripture, to whitewash the gay lifestyle, despite what scripture clearly says in opposition to this.
Your having an opinion otherwise is fine, you don't have to agree with me. But you clearly are a liberal, and clearly dismiss the Bible as evidence, despite the overwhelming evidence of scripture I began posting on page 4 of this topic, that proves BEYOND ANY DOUBT that the Bible condemns homosexuality.
You allege that there are "other interpretations" but Bible scholars are in total agreement that THIS IS WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS ABOUT HOMOSEXUALITY. Even most liberal churches (who do not follow scripture, I might add) will not deny that the Bible condemns homosexuality, but (against scripture) they will argue that it is time to "modernize" scripture to gel with the times (despite that the Bible repeatedly says never to change "a mark or a letter" of scripture, and evidence over millenia indicates tremendous care to preserve its accuracy).
I dislike how you throw out phrases like "slippery slope" argument, or "logic by consensus" or similar rhetorical labels, but beyond the high-sounding phrase, you frequently don't detail precisely HOW my argument is fallacious by these standards. So ultimately, again, they are just dismissive labels, that fail to address the issues I've raised. This is pseudo-objectivity. Dismissive labels, not clear arguments.
I could just as easily go through your arguments and slap dismissive labels on them, either using your own legal argument terms (one example in the above paragraph ) or other dismissive terms. But I've endeavored to more precisely address the issues.
I also dislike how you occasionally take a cheap shot at me, while maintaining a veneer of neutral objectivity and politeness.
With all due respect, you've clearly rejected the Bible as evidence out of hand, refused to acknowledge that the Bible CLEARLY condemns homosexuality.
And that based on Christian belief that the Bible is the inspired word of God (with considerable internal literary, historical, and prophetic evidence, and vast numbers of manuscripts to base that belief on), Christians have VALID REASON not to have that Bible scripture distorted, and to not allow marriage, as the Bible describes it, to be perverted.
Gays do NOT accept Christians' right to practice Christianity as it is Biblically written. Gays seek to undermine it, and as I've said repeatedly, pervert the Bible's very meaning. (If I felt the need, I could describe gay pressure to impose gay marriage on the church as contemptuous of Christianity, deliberately disruptive, and ultimately hateful. But I've preferred to simply say this is a double standard that gays and liberals have argued here. )
Your argument distorts the issue. Bible-believing Christians are not hateful, they are truthful: True to the Bible as it is written and verifiable, even at the highest levels of Bible scholarship. I resent this "hate" characterization, and fail to see it as anything other than a cheap shot based in your own liberal bias.
I've been polite, Dave, and I've only made sharp statements to you about liberal misrepresentation and bias after my words and arguments have been paraphrased and distorted over and over. It is not a charge I make lightly.
I feel you've consistently taken one side in this discussion, and while for the most part polite, I resent your arguing the liberal side, and then claiming to objectively evaluate my arguments, essentially appointing yourself the status of neutral judge in this topic. Your "judgements", are not neutral. And even in your just arguing the liberal side, there have been too many points where I've been paraphrased, and my clear and valid points ignored by you. Particularly on scripture related to homosexuality, and its indisputable literal meaning. And your ignoring the fact that Christianity is open to all who believe, and that one who practices homosexuality is clearly not following Biblical teachings. And continuing to argue that Christian idiological objection to homosexuality is "hateful". What the hell kind of objective argument is that. "Hateful" is an emotional label, not an objective argument.
If we were debating the issues, okay, I'd be glad to discuss it in a friendly fashion, however much we might disagree, but for many pages, I've just been repeating myself, clarifying what I actually said, in the face of repeated distortions of my true arguments. And many of your comments have made it too personal. I'm sick of it.
I find this argument flawed. Homosexuality is not a racial or physical feature that can be singled out to exclude someone from a club.
quote:Originally posted by Dave : No, its a type of behaviour. Why do you draw an arbitrary difference?
Because gambling is a type of behavior. Bestiality is a type of behavior. Incest is a type of behavior. Why do we render illegal any of these activities? And pedophilia, and murder, and rape, and adultery, all are behaviors the Bible condemns.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
A club is just a group of people who have shared beliefs. You can't bust up every group of people with individual beliefs, just because other people don't share those beliefs.
quote:Originally posted by Dave :
I'm sure the Klan agrees with you.
This was your final cheap shot. I mentioned the Klan in my above examples. For the second time, I might add. I don't condone the Klan, but similar to homosexuality, while I disagree with them, I grudgingly acknowledge that in a free country they have a right to believe what they want to. When it doesn't step on and threaten my own rights.
My comment about the Klan was designed to show you how wrong your argument was. It is an argument the Klan could use: "A club is just a group of people who have shared beliefs."
Secondly, of course I'm partisan in my arguments. I have never said otherwise - in fact, I think I've said just the opposite at least once, if not twice. I think you mistake "a veneer of neutral objectivity" for sheer politeness. The only veneer here is the one over my incredulous disbelief that an obviously educated person can be so misconceived.
In relation to my comments on your slippery slope arguments and the use of other terminology which you clearly do not understand, I realise that you are I are talking a different language here. If you have no appreciation or understanding of principles of logic, I really don't feel the need to take you through the syllogisms backing them up. I think it was sufficient that I provided you with links to a basic explanation of the terms. But, especially your slippery slope "We let the gays have rights to get married, who knows what sort of perversion we'll spawn" is just a classic fallacy. A slippery slope is just never true of itself. You can never prove it to be so. At best, its speculation.
Next,
quote: I love the way you try to reverse my own use of the word distortion, when it is your interpretation that is clearly liberally bised and distorted.
Gays, having no ideology beyond what rationalizes their lifestyle, can make that claim. But PROVE to me that homosexuality is inborn. YOUR OWN argument is based on a fallacious logic by consensus argument that blindly accepts the gay notion that their behavior is inborn, when there is not scientific evidence to back that up. That, again, is bias.
When did I say homosexuality is "inborn"?
In fact, I think I've said on at least 3 occasions that homosexuality is a choice. "Choice" is not an "inborn" characteristic.
You aren't reading what I say, Dave. You're subsitituting what you think I'm saying, based upon my "liberal biases".
Next,
quote:
a Bible where about 60,000 manuscripts exist for comparison, and as I said, is more verifiable than any other ancient document(the distortions of scripture are obvous, but you choose to evade them in your arguments, Dave )
"Verifiable" for what? Verifiable against what? Truth?
"Distortions of scripture"? I evaded what?
Next,
quote: If the Bible COULD be disproven, the secular humanists would have done so by now.
Oh, yes. It makes perfect sense that a large omniscient being created the Earth in seven days. Much more sense than the earth being the debris of creation of the sun. Pardon my sarcasm. If you choose to believe this, then fine. Its a belief choice you make, and I won't challenge it. But is it objective truth? Not a chance.
quote: It is CRYSTAL clear that gays are attempting to warp scripture to whitewash the gay lifestyle, despite what scripture clearly says in opposition to this.
I think more to the point Christian gays choose to ignore it as obsolete, but anyway.
quote:
And the fact that Christianity is open to all who believe, and that one who practices homosexuality is clearly not following Biblical teachings.
And that is intolerance. If someone believes Jesus died for our sins, and that he is the son of God, its a disgrace that any person who honestly believes that can be ostracised by the Church.
quote: Because gambling is a type of behavior. Bestiality is a type of behavior. Incest is a type of behavior. Why do we render illegal any of these activities? And pedophilia, and murder, and rape, and adultery, all are behaviors the Bible condemns.
Gambling is not illegal in many parts of even your own country.
I think I'm arguing in circles. I could now say, "How is homosexuality a sin?" and you'd say, "Because the Bible tells me so."
Anyway, Dave has said he's had enough. Personally, I feel I've come away from this argument more vindicated than ever. The only reason Christians ostracise gays from their church is because it is specifically mentioned in the Bible that homosexuality is a sin, and because the promiscuous gays spread disease (as do the promiscuous straights). If the Church prevented promiscuous people regardless of their seuxal gender choice entry into the Church, and didn't pick on gays in particular, I'd feel some sympathy for their position. But in barring relationship-committed gays because its an arbitrary sin according to the Bible, I have no sympathy at all.
The Earth isn't fixed (setting Dave's disingenuous arguments to the contrary aside) and homosexuality isn't immoral.
I feel vindicated in my conservative views as well, by your own posted views, and those of other gays and liberals here. I feel you evade the issues, and dismiss contemptuously the Bible's authenticity. Meanwhile, it is the cornerstone of Christianity, and also of American Democracy. Despite the best attempts to hide the fact that "ignorant" Christianity is the basis of our government and freedom and Western culture, and the foundation of America's public schools and universities.
Your views of Christianity are dismissive of its freedom, compassion, and enlightening aspects, despite arguments clearly made by myself, Captain Sammitch and a few others.
So be it. You're entitled to your opinion. I just wish you didn't have to paint me as ignorant in order to voice your own perspective.
My views are as thought out as yours. You just choose to ignore that perspective, and slap labels on me.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: I feel vindicated in my conservative views as well, by your own posted views, and those of other gays and liberals here. I feel you evade the issues, and dismiss contemptuously the Bible's authenticity.
I don't dismiss it with contempt. I dismiss it with the utmost respect. But, at the end of the day, you are right in observing that I do dismiss it.
That is the nature of belief. You choose to believe that it is the word of God. I choose instead to believe that it is a valuable manuscript containing many life-guiding principles. I also choose to believe that it is fallible - it must be, as it was edited by men - whereas you do not.
quote:
Meanwhile, it is the cornerstone of Christianity, and also of American Democracy. Despite the best attempts to hide the fact that "ignorant" Christianity is the basis of our government and freedom and Western culture, and the foundation of America's public schools and universities.
Now you raise an interesting point. While I agree it is the fundament for Western culture, I hesitatingly doubt it is the fundament of Western freedom. But that is an argument for another day.
quote: Your views of Christianity are dismissive of its freedom, compassion, and enlightening aspects, despite arguments clearly made by myself, Captain Sammitch and a few others.
No, I've no doubt that Christianity possesses those values, which is why its all the more sad that some Christians cannot extend those to gays.
quote:
So be it. You're entitled to your opinion. I just wish you didn't have to paint me as ignorant in order to voice your own perspective.
My views are as thought out as yours. You just choose to ignore that perspective, and slap labels on me.
A shame that your failure to convince me of the merits of your argument have led you to that conclusion.
quote:Originally posted by Batwoman: Oh, so you can say anything you want to whomever, but they can't say anything to you? And in justifying this you compare them to mk?
Main Entry: 1Chris·tian Pronunciation: 'kris-ch&n, 'krish- Function: noun Etymology: Latin christianus, adjective & n., from Greek christianos, from Christos Date: 1526 1 a : one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ b (1) : DISCIPLE 2 (2) : a member of one of the Churches of Christ separating from the Disciples of Christ in 1906 (3) : a member of the Christian denomination having part in the union of the United Church of Christ concluded in 1961 2 : the hero in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress
A Fundamentalist Christian is not the same as a Methodist or a Catholic. Lots of different churches using one book as it's source material. Each believe they are correct.
America was founded on Christian ideals yes but not Fundamental Christian ideals. That's not an attack on that religion just pointing out the obvious.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: I feel vindicated in my conservative views as well, by your own posted views, and those of other gays and liberals here. I feel you evade the issues, and dismiss contemptuously the Bible's authenticity.
I don't dismiss it with contempt. I dismiss it with the utmost respect. But, at the end of the day, you are right in observing that I do dismiss it.
That is the nature of belief. You choose to believe that it is the word of God. I choose instead to believe that it is a valuable manuscript containing many life-guiding principles. I also choose to believe that it is fallible - it must be, as it was edited by men - whereas you do not.
quote:
Meanwhile, it is the cornerstone of Christianity, and also of American Democracy. Despite the best attempts to hide the fact that "ignorant" Christianity is the basis of our government and freedom and Western culture, and the foundation of America's public schools and universities.
Now you raise an interesting point. While I agree it is the fundament for Western culture, I hesitatingly doubt it is the fundament of Western freedom. But that is an argument for another day.
quote: Your views of Christianity are dismissive of its freedom, compassion, and enlightening aspects, despite arguments clearly made by myself, Captain Sammitch and a few others.
No, I've no doubt that Christianity possesses those values, which is why its all the more sad that some Christians cannot extend those to gays.
quote:
So be it. You're entitled to your opinion. I just wish you didn't have to paint me as ignorant in order to voice your own perspective.
My views are as thought out as yours. You just choose to ignore that perspective, and slap labels on me.
A shame that your failure to convince me of the merits of your argument have led you to that conclusion.
Fuckin' beautiful, man! All joking aside, I just have to tip my hat to T-Dave for the way he has handled himself in this little "debate". You blew (oops! Bad choice of words ) ol' Davey away and still managed to be completely respectful/civil. Very well done, counselor.
I may be a vile, ad hominem asshole myself, but at least I WAS pretty entertaining. :lol: (Thanks for the props back on page 18, Matter-Eater Man! :) )
And I'm ready for that "spanking" now Cowgirl, Harpie, and Batwoman! Bring it on, ladies!!!
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Having Matt Kennedy defend Dave's position is hardly an affirmation of any kind.
I made my arguments, they were bypassed in favor of labels and namecalling. I feel no need to pursue this any further.
You were arguing that two people of the same sex getting married somehow infringed upon your rights. You went ahead & presented a case that it offended your religious views. And you win that one. But you didn't have anything else to support your real claim.
If it's any consolation I'm sure if the tables were turned & your rights were in danger of being diminished MK would be insulting that side. Same thing here. I just want what's fair, no more no less.
Um...can I just say EVERYONE on the thread has been flinging mud? Whatever. Everyone hear has made two or three good points. And then mud-slining. Well screw it all, I'll join in.
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: And I'm ready for that "spanking" now Cowgirl, Harpie, and Batwoman! Bring it on, ladies!!!
Oh I don't spank. I prefer long-distance weapons. SIG, S&W, crossbow, bow and arrow. You saw the gun thread. Your big head is a big enough target. 'Wabbit season' indeed...
Oh by the way...here's some info on the rabbit behind your avator. Dakota hates guys. Any guy that comes over and annoys me has been attacked in the jewels but this two-pound furball (they never call back at least...). So maybe me and Batwoman will stand back and let him rip you apart and make you cry home to momma.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Having Matt Kennedy defend Dave's position is hardly an affirmation of any kind.
I made my arguments, they were bypassed in favor of labels and namecalling. I feel no need to pursue this any further.
You were arguing that two people of the same sex getting married somehow infringed upon your rights. You went ahead & presented a case that it offended your religious views. And you win that one. But you didn't have anything else to support your real claim.
I made the points I wanted to make, my perspective is clear, Dave's perspective is clear, klinton's perspective is clear, Matter Eater Man's perspective is clear, Captain Sammitch's perspective is clear. And Cowgirl Jack's, and Batwomanamy's, and harleykwin's, and Pig Iron...
I don't think several pages of having my clear statements paraphrased and redirected represents my views accurately, or is at this point productive.
You're all welcome to continue. The floor is open to anyone else who wants to voice the conservative viewpoint, or liberal, or any voice of moderation in between.
This is from page 4..I'm gonna bow out of this one and leave my thoughts again.... I think these succinctly show my opinion...
quote:Originally posted by Pig Iron: Oh boy, where to start...???
First, let me say I'm a very horrible Christian..I'm not good at it but I try. This is where my opinions are coming from...
While, I understand the words seperation of church and state have become a cliche in our culture that has been falsely propagated...I also know that our country is a secular one at heart and always has been. Yes, we have practiced various religions, mostly christian, from the onset and were basically created out of Christian ideals. We still do not, and have never had a state sponsored religion. Our leaders have always been vague about GOD, and what GOD they were talking about. They never mentioned Jesus in the Constitution, nor did they mention Jahweh. They couldn't because there is a thing called freedom of religion. That also falls to people who are agnostic or atheistic or satanist.
Many states have sodomy laws, prostitution laws, and age consent laws...but mostly they are state laws..not federal laws. I do not believe or agree with the practice of homosexuality, but that is my belief and opinion, and I believe one shared by my Bible and God. That said, there are many other practices that my bible does not agree with as well. And I'm sure these practices are looked upon just as sharply. After all, even if you like calling homosexuality an abomination or a desolation or whatever...It's still a sin. And I can only remember 1 unforgivable sin..that's calling a work of the devil a work of god, and debatably suicide.
A sin is a sin folks. And most people here are probably all sinners with a capital S. Do you honestly believe God sits upstairs and thinks... " AAh, those two guys can't ever get into Heaven because they had sex with each other."?? No, only if they never repent of it. And that's strictly from a judeo-christian viewpoint. I'm sure God looks on 98% just as disdainfully...Those of us who are always watching R rated movies, watching porn, lusting after women, drinking beer, having sex freely, commiting adultery, stealing, envying, being back-stabbers, gambling, wasting money, not tithing properly, lacking faith, being mean-spritted, etc, etc, etc, etc...... Let him/her who is without sin cast the first stone... yes, God hates homosexuality, but he hates almost everything else about western lifestyles as well... Sins aren't weighted..you're forgiven or you aren't. Any pastor, rabbi, clergyman, or reverand worth his salt would never marry 2 homosexual men or women...so can there ever truly be a godly sponsored wedding..no, because the person performing the ceremony couldn't really be a Christian.
I don't like the idea of same sex partners being able to get married, but this is 21st century secular America. A place where all traditional "christian" values have become distorted and ramrodded. The thing I find most shocking is that after all the desensitizations we have endured is that people actually seem to be shocked by the idea of same sex marriage. I for one am the last person to sit here and say exactly what 2 free adult citizens can do and what rights the state affords them. I wish Christians would worry more about telling and showing homosexual people how they should live rather than demanding it of them. I wish people would quite thinking of the Bible as hate literature, because basically it disdains us all- not exclusively homosexuals. We cannot change what is wrong or evil in the eyes of God to suit our own wishes. We have to recognize the wrong we are commiting and ask forgiveness for it.
Never forget that we are indeed living in a secular nation as much as christians want to claim it is a christian one. So we should try to live a holy life and live by example. After all, if we can't be responsible for ourselves how can we help to be instruments to help others? Gay marriage in the US will happen and it will happen sooner rather than later. So be responsible for yourself and your family. And try to be a positive example and influence for everyone else and help when you can. Yes, a person can oppose this and oppose that and try to ban this or ban that, but most laws don't modify behavior..they may limit it, but they don't stop it.
Quite honestly, the only thing I am concerned about is that Pedophiles are always riding on the coat tails of the homosexual movement...as they are doing marvelously at in Canada. I'm fearful that the legitimaztion and recognition of homosexual marriage will lead to the recognition of pedophiles as a legitimate group as well. You think it won't happen.You might laugh at me now, but wait 8-10 years and you'll see the cultural changes and the lawyers, psychiatrists, lobbyists and politicians all seeking to protect this "misunderstood" group. So my advice is to take the energy you have against homosexual marriage and start early on the pedophilia movement and age of consent laws. There you may be able to make a difference, and protect something that the "christian" God holds so dear..namely children.
Klinton and anyone else. I have several homosexual acquantances and often hang out with them and have an interesting time. While I won't lie and say they are my best friends I do like them and am glad to know them. So I hope that makes me just a little less of a Bastard...
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Having Matt Kennedy defend Dave's position is hardly an affirmation of any kind.
I made my arguments, they were bypassed in favor of labels and namecalling. I feel no need to pursue this any further.
Light a fart then eat the match, Bunky. You are clearly insane: having the "Matt Kennedy seal of approval" is the highest honor in the land, for fuck's sweet sake! :)
quote:Originally posted by Cowgirl Jack: Um...can I just say EVERYONE on the thread has been flinging mud? Whatever. Everyone hear has made two or three good points. And then mud-slining. Well screw it all, I'll join in.
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: And I'm ready for that "spanking" now Cowgirl, Harpie, and Batwoman! Bring it on, ladies!!!
Oh I don't spank. I prefer long-distance weapons. SIG, S&W, crossbow, bow and arrow. You saw the gun thread. Your big head is a big enough target. 'Wabbit season' indeed...
Oh by the way...here's some info on the rabbit behind your avator. Dakota hates guys. Any guy that comes over and annoys me has been attacked in the jewels but this two-pound furball (they never call back at least...). So maybe me and Batwoman will stand back and let him rip you apart and make you cry home to momma.
No worries, Cowgirl. There will be no need for mighty Dakota to defend your "honor" from me--- I'm not really into frigid Catholic girls.
Hardly a 'friendly jest'. You know, I've been pretty open-minded during this whole disscussion. Why? I am just a big a sinner as others here. Why should I slam gays or any other group condemned by the Bible? Why should a country that has no official religion stop a group of 'sinners' from getting legal marriage. A prositute is a 'sinner' and she can be legally married. Heck, I'm a sinner and I can be legally married.
You know, I am willing to debate this with anyone else on this thread. I disagree with just about everyone here, but at least I respect their opinions and under normal circumstances I don't go to your level. You have hardly contributed anything of intelligence here -- just pissing in the wind.
And how fuck do you call me frigid? 'Oh....I can't make a logical arguement against the Queen Bitch, so I'll call her names'.
Well here's hoping there is a Purgatory and God understands 'civil disobedience'. GO FUCK YOURSELF!
quote:Originally posted by Cowgirl Jack: Hardly a 'friendly jest'. You know, I've been pretty open-minded during this whole disscussion. Why? I am just a big a sinner as others here. Why should I slam gays or any other group condemned by the Bible? Why should a country that has no official religion stop a group of 'sinners' from getting legal marriage. A prositute is a 'sinner' and she can be legally married. Heck, I'm a sinner and I can be legally married.
You know, I am willing to debate this with anyone else on this thread. I disagree with just about everyone here, but at least I respect their opinions and under normal circumstances I don't go to your level. You have hardly contributed anything of intelligence here -- just pissing in the wind.
And how fuck do you call me frigid? 'Oh....I can't make a logical arguement against the Queen Bitch, so I'll call her names'.
Well here's hoping there is a Purgatory and God understands 'civil disobedience'. GO FUCK YOURSELF!
i COMPLETELY AGREE WITH YOU. I've tried to avoid posting on this thread because over time, i've found little tolerance on my part to responding to the bigotry of others. I'll just let them be. They aern't going to influence my beleifs and hopefully the beleifs and laws of our SECULAR nation over their justifications for hate that they derive from an ancient manuscript. If I recall, that same manuscript was also used to justify slavery for a while. The world changes and becomes more enlightened and sadly some of us are going to get left behind clinging on to our bigotry and our own sense of moral superiority and justice. In a country that embraces the seperation of church and state, there is absolutely NO REASON why two people who are committed to each other shouldn't enjoy the same rights as everyone else.
Romans 3:23: "...all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Because gambling is a type of behavior. Bestiality is a type of behavior. Incest is a type of behavior. Why do we render illegal any of these activities? And pedophilia, and murder, and rape, and adultery, all are behaviors the Bible condemns.
Those other activites are rendered illegal (or at least immoral in the case of adultery) because they harm others. They infringe upon others' rights. Religion has no bearing on law. Homosexuality harms nobody. You cannot draw comparisons between homosexuality and behaviours like murder and rape.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: I don't think several pages of having my clear statements paraphrased and redirected represents my views accurately, or is at this point productive.
A shot at me? I was trying to clarify where you draw the line. If they were paraphrased, they were done so for the sake of debate, and accurately, too.
The big problem in arguing this point with you, Dave, is that as a relgious conservative your ultimate argument is that the Bible tells you what your position is. Unfortunately you think this is logical. As I've been trying to point out, you can have faith in something which can defy logic, and that's fine. But don't try and call it logical.
While I can understand the attraction of Christianity and think that it is overall the most tolerant religion practiced today, there is nothing logical in having your views on homosexual marriage dictated to you by a 2000- 3000 year old document.
I'm done here. I'll be gone this week having fun and I would rather not have to deal with this. Dave, DTWB, M-E M, Piggy, klinton, Ceej, whomod, it's been fun. MK, all is forgiven, unless you wanna keep up the verbal assholery from earlier, in which case, fuck you.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: The big problem in arguing this point with you, Dave, is that as a relgious conservative your ultimate argument is that the Bible tells you what your position is. Unfortunately you think this is logical. As I've been trying to point out, you can have faith in something which can defy logic, and that's fine. But don't try and call it logical.
While I can understand the attraction of Christianity and think that it is overall the most tolerant religion practiced today, there is nothing logical in having your views on homosexual marriage dictated to you by a 2000- 3000 year old document.
In your opinion. Mine has abundantly been made as well, and has been repeated quite a bit over the last 20 pages now.
I don't feel a need to ridicule and harrass you for holding a different view. Whereas I think you've crossed that line. You can allege that you've made the argument for gay marriage and Christian ignorance, but I'm not buying it, and you make your case by ignoring the factual points I've made (specifically among them, the Bible clearly says what it says about homosexuality's immorality, and that marriage is, at least in the Unites States, and the rest of the Judao-Christian world, as well as the Muslim world and the Asian world, a ceremony before God joining a man and a woman. In religious law as well as secular law, for at least 6000 years. "Gay marriage" is a contrivance of the last two decades of human law, with no basis in long-established theology or longstanding marriage law.)
And I'm far from alone in that view, however much you attempt to distort and ridicule that view.
You have an opinion, to which you're entitled. I hold an opinion as well, which I've laid out at considerable length. If you feel a need to label me "illogical" by your subjective interpretation, so be it. But I've laid out my case, and it's ultimately your opinion -vs- my opinion. You choose to circumvent and dismiss the Bible as a valid source of opinion on the subject. I don't.
quote:Originally posted by Cowgirl Jack: Hardly a 'friendly jest'. You know, I've been pretty open-minded during this whole disscussion. Why? I am just a big a sinner as others here. Why should I slam gays or any other group condemned by the Bible? Why should a country that has no official religion stop a group of 'sinners' from getting legal marriage. A prositute is a 'sinner' and she can be legally married. Heck, I'm a sinner and I can be legally married.
You know, I am willing to debate this with anyone else on this thread. I disagree with just about everyone here, but at least I respect their opinions and under normal circumstances I don't go to your level. You have hardly contributed anything of intelligence here -- just pissing in the wind.
And how fuck do you call me frigid? 'Oh....I can't make a logical arguement against the Queen Bitch, so I'll call her names'.
Well here's hoping there is a Purgatory and God understands 'civil disobedience'. GO FUCK YOURSELF!
My, my. Cowgirl, have you completely lost your mind? Bejabbers! My little jibe at your expense earlier was pretty tame ( and only in response to you flinging an insult my way first, as a matter of fact ), but you are literally frothing at the mouth like a grade A whack-job here. What gives???
Guess I'll just have to chock it up to sexual frustration on your part and leave it at that...
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Ignore Matt Kennedy as the idiot he is, C.J.
Completely unworthy of our attention.
Bleat, blather, bleat. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you have got to be one of the most silly, self-righteous windbags that I have ever "met" online, Davey. And one of the biggest cry-babies, too. Considering the sheer number of fuck-heads out there in cyber-land, that's no small feat.
You amuse and sicken me in pretty much equal measure, champ. Here at Rob's Damn Board you're comedy relief for the people who actually have 2 brain cells to rub together, but out in the real world it's blind, self-serving bullies like you that help to make the world such an ugly, senseless mess.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: I'm done here. I'll be gone this week having fun and I would rather not have to deal with this. Dave, DTWB, M-E M, Piggy, klinton, Ceej, whomod, it's been fun. MK, all is forgiven, unless you wanna keep up the verbal assholery from earlier, in which case, fuck you.
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: My, my. Cowgirl, have you completely lost your mind? Bejabbers! My little jibe at your expense earlier was pretty tame ( and only in response to you flinging an insult my way first, as a matter of fact ), but you are literally frothing at the mouth like a grade A whack-job here. What gives???
Guess what? I didn't take it as a jibe. You know exactly what buttons to push. Congrates. Well, does it hurt when someone pushes back?
Maybe my anger is a result of your behavior. I fine until you started pissing on everyone. Your making everyone made. I since I do agree you on some points, having you make stupid comments makes my case look bad.
quote:Guess I'll just have to chock it up to sexual frustration on your part and leave it at that...
Well pardon me for placing my education before sex. Sexual frustrarion? Please. Everyone else here knows by now its that time of the month. Just put it on your calander from now on.
quote:Originally posted by Harpy: [QUOTE]Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: [qb] My, my. Cowgirl, have you completely lost your mind? Bejabbers! My little jibe at your expense earlier was pretty tame ( and only in response to you flinging an insult my way first, as a matter of fact ), but you are literally frothing at the mouth like a grade A whack-job here. What gives???
Guess what? I didn't take it as a jibe. You know exactly what buttons to push. Congrates. Well, does it hurt when someone pushes back?
__________________________________________
Uh... no. Your irrational outburst didn't hurt so much as it afforded me an anthropological peek into the mind of a young human female during "that time of the month". A tad over-kill perhaps, but quite thrilling in it's own special way.
--- M.K.
__________________________________________ Maybe my anger is a result of your behavior. I fine until you started pissing on everyone. Your making everyone made. I since I do agree you on some points, having you make stupid comments makes my case look bad.
__________________________________________
Um, I think I get the jist of what you're saying here, but it's a little garbled. "Harpy" must be the Bizarro Cowgirl, right?
Really, lighten up--- no genuine harm was meant, Ceej. You seem like a good kid.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Ignore Matt Kennedy as the idiot he is, C.J.
Completely unworthy of our attention.
Bleat, blather, bleat. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: you have got to be one of the most silly, self-righteous windbags that I have ever "met" online, Davey. And one of the biggest cry-babies, too. Considering the sheer number of fuck-heads out there in cyber-land, that's no small feat.
You amuse and sicken me in pretty much equal measure, champ. Here at Rob's Damn Board you're comedy relief for the people who actually have 2 brain cells to rub together, but out in the real world it's blind, self-serving bullies like you that help to make the world such an ugly, senseless mess.
I think your own posts make clear that YOU'RE the one who brings ugliness and senselessness to this world. You've been roundly condemned on these boards, from the left, right and center of opinion.
As I said prior, you're an impotent little weenie with clear psychological problems, that are cathartically played out on these boards.
Therapeutic for you, and an annoyance for the rest of us.
You're pathetic, Davey. You are a fucking joke. You remind me so much of the "street preachers" I used to see on Market Street in San Francisco that would stand on the sidewalks delivering their "message" to the masses--- wild-eyed and obviously just bugshit crazy to the bone--- while reeking of urine and shit.
Those poor misguided bastards couldn't really help themselves. I think you're capable of doing better--- you just won't.
quote:You choose to circumvent and dismiss the Bible as a valid source of opinion on the subject. I don't.
This you haven't explained: why not?
I've already laid out at length, several times, the basis for the Bible being a valid source:
The evidence for the internal consistency of the Bible,
the level of archaological and historical evidence for the Bible's accuracy,
that there are at least 60,000 handcopied manuscripts that exist within 100 years of the time of Christ,
and the tremendous care with which the Bible has been preserved over millenia, and translated into other languages.
As well as the fulfillment of prophecy, past and ongoing.
I believe I've made it abundantly clear that I don't wish to continue on this topic. I've made my points abundantly over 20 pages now, and do not wish to continue responding. Please stop baiting me to respond. It is clearly not productive, or worth my time at this stage.
Please respectfully agree to disagree. Or at least leave me out of it.
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: You're pathetic, Davey. You are a fucking joke. You remind me so much of the "street preachers" I used to see on Market Street in San Francisco that would stand on the sidewalks delivering their "message" to the masses--- wild-eyed and obviously just bugshit crazy to the bone--- while reeking of urine and shit.
Those poor misguided bastards couldn't really help themselves. I think you're capable of doing better--- you just won't.
More of your dysfunctional venting. Hope you feel better.
For anyone who reads the excrement in your posts, it's pretty obvious you're an impotent little weenie, and I'm just an anonymous person you can lash out at. Get help. Or kill yourself. Either way works for me.
quote:Originally posted by Matt Kennedy: You're pathetic, Davey. You are a fucking joke. You remind me so much of the "street preachers" I used to see on Market Street in San Francisco that would stand on the sidewalks delivering their "message" to the masses--- wild-eyed and obviously just bugshit crazy to the bone--- while reeking of urine and shit.
Those poor misguided bastards couldn't really help themselves. I think you're capable of doing better--- you just won't.
More of your dysfunctional venting. Hope you feel better.
For anyone who reads the excrement in your posts, it's pretty obvious you're an impotent little weenie, and I'm just an anonymous person you can lash out at. Get help. Or kill yourself. Either way works for me.
No, you aren't "anonymous" at all, Davey. I know your kind all too well, unfortunately.
quote:You choose to circumvent and dismiss the Bible as a valid source of opinion on the subject. I don't.
This you haven't explained: why not?
I've already laid out at length, several times, the basis for the Bible being a valid source:
The evidence for the internal consistency of the Bible,
the level of archaological and historical evidence for the Bible's accuracy,
that there are at least 60,000 handcopied manuscripts that exist within 100 years of the time of Christ,
and the tremendous care with which the Bible has been preserved over millenia, and translated into other languages.
As well as the fulfillment of prophecy, past and ongoing.
I believe I've made it abundantly clear that I don't wish to continue on this topic. I've made my points abundantly over 20 pages now, and do not wish to continue responding. Please stop baiting me to respond. It is clearly not productive, or worth my time at this stage.
Please respectfully agree to disagree. Or at least leave me out of it.
I wasn't "baiting you" to respond - you could have just ignored a polite question.
Still, your answer is interesting. There are Biblical scholars who have discussed that section of the Bible...how does it go, "For a rich man shall not pass into heaven anymore than a camel shall not pass through the eye of a needle." I have read that this is very likely to be an error in transcription: no one would think of something so absurd as a camel passing through a needle's eye - it was more likely to be a reference to a camel hair.
And wasn't it Paul who was responsible for the New Testement's dissemination?
I have some more comments on what you've said... but I'll leave you be now Dave.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Still, your answer is interesting. There are Biblical scholars who have discussed that section of the Bible...how does it go, "For a rich man shall not pass into heaven anymore than a camel shall not pass through the eye of a needle." I have read that this is very likely to be an error in transcription: no one would think of something so absurd as a camel passing through a needle's eye - it was more likely to be a reference to a camel hair.
The arguement I've always heard is that 'The Eye of the Needle' was the name of a very narrow passageway in the capital. Getting a camel loaded with wine barrels and what not were super difficult. If Jesus lived in modern-day Tampa (where I'm from) he'd say 'For a rich man shall not pass into heaven anymore than a car going through Malfunction Junction (shitty piece of highway where every commuter use to get stuck on).'
quote:And wasn't it Paul who was responsible for the New Testement's dissemination?
In Paul's defense, a lot of the stuff in the Bible under his name was not written by Paul. And his works were tampered with. A lot of the sexist comments were added in and its pretty easy to tell because the style changes. Just one way scholars can tell where Scripture has been tampered with.
I wasn't "baiting you" to respond - you could have just ignored a polite question.
Still, your answer is interesting. There are Biblical scholars who have discussed that section of the Bible...how does it go, "For a rich man shall not pass into heaven anymore than a camel shall not pass through the eye of a needle." I have read that this is very likely to be an error in transcription: no one would think of something so absurd as a camel passing through a needle's eye - it was more likely to be a reference to a camel hair.
And wasn't it Paul who was responsible for the New Testement's dissemination?
I have some more comments on what you've said... but I'll leave you be now Dave. [/QB][/QUOTE]
I think that was the point Dave. A camel Hair is not impossible to get through the eye of a needle, but a camel is. It's that hard for a rich man to get into Heaven. The assumption is that Rich people are more into wordly goods, possessions and secular behavior. Most wealthy people probably don't think of god as blessing them with wealth (Yes, that's an assupmtion..certainly not 100% true). If their eyes are on their wealth then they probably aren't on God. this is a parallel to jesus' statement about not storing treasures for yourself on earth-where moth and rust destroy and thieves steal. But store them in Heaven where they can live eternally. Basically, Put your effort into your soul, "Christian" ideals, and prayer...where they will be rememebered in heaven and reward you in the afterlife. better that than to live well and fat on earth and not share in a Heavenly afterlife and instead get the "Second" death......
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: Are hermaphrodites damned if they sleep with anybody or do they have an open playing field?
Some attribute all birth defects to being purposeful..and not random. Either there to test the faith of the family or because there is a family curse that perpetuates God's judgement generation after generation. So, some would say the hemaphrodite should worry more about figuring out "why" they are a hemaphrodite..rather than "who" they should be sleeping with. i read abook on generational curses once where theories like this were raised and evidenced, but it's been a while. The writer also said that Homosexuality was a result of a generational family curse.
Not saying I share the belief, but from a biblical viewpoint it gives credance to homosexuality being genetic rather than learned behavior as some believe. The arguement was definitley not compassionate, but was interesting. But I personally am more inclined to believe something like that than simply believing homesexuality being a choice rather than genetic.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: Still, your answer is interesting. There are Biblical scholars who have discussed that section of the Bible...how does it go, "For a rich man shall not pass into heaven anymore than a camel shall not pass through the eye of a needle." I have read that this is very likely to be an error in transcription: no one would think of something so absurd as a camel passing through a needle's eye - it was more likely to be a reference to a camel hair.
The arguement I've always heard is that 'The Eye of the Needle' was the name of a very narrow passageway in the capital. Getting a camel loaded with wine barrels and what not were super difficult. If Jesus lived in modern-day Tampa (where I'm from) he'd say 'For a rich man shall not pass into heaven anymore than a car going through Malfunction Junction (shitty piece of highway where every commuter use to get stuck on).'
Ah, well that's a new one on me.
quote:
quote:And wasn't it Paul who was responsible for the New Testement's dissemination?
In Paul's defense, a lot of the stuff in the Bible under his name was not written by Paul. And his works were tampered with. A lot of the sexist comments were added in and its pretty easy to tell because the style changes. Just one way scholars can tell where Scripture has been tampered with.
[/qb][/quote]
That's interesting of itself, but I actually meant that it was Paul who was the proslytiser (sp?) after Jesus' death: if not for his remarkable skills in disseminating and perpetuating Jesus' story, there'd not have been a Christian religion.
My point is that it wasn't divine intervention which propogated the Bible: it was sheer hard work by Paul and others like him.
quote:Originally posted by Pig Iron: I think that was the point Dave. A camel Hair is not impossible to get through the eye of a needle, but a camel is. It's that hard for a rich man to get into Heaven. The assumption is that Rich people are more into wordly goods, possessions and secular behavior. Most wealthy people probably don't think of god as blessing them with wealth (Yes, that's an assupmtion..certainly not 100% true). If their eyes are on their wealth then they probably aren't on God. this is a parallel to jesus' statement about not storing treasures for yourself on earth-where moth and rust destroy and thieves steal. But store them in Heaven where they can live eternally. Basically, Put your effort into your soul, "Christian" ideals, and prayer...where they will be rememebered in heaven and reward you in the afterlife. better that than to live well and fat on earth and not share in a Heavenly afterlife and instead get the "Second" death......
I thought the rich could get into heaven, just that it was awkward. Which runs with the camel hair theory. What you say makes sense in a sort of Benedictine way, though.
quote:Originally posted by Dave: My point is that it wasn't divine intervention which propogated the Bible: it was sheer hard work by Paul and others like him.
WHat can I say, I never make sense during late-night posts...
You can interpret is as divine intervention since Jesus knocked Paul off his horse on the road to Descmarus (sic?) and Paul was converted. You can say that divine intervention started the ball rolling and Paul and his gang kept it going, I suppose.
quote:Originally posted by Pig Iron: The writer also said that Homosexuality was a result of a generational family curse.
Not saying I share the belief, but from a biblical viewpoint it gives credance to homosexuality being genetic rather than learned behavior as some believe. The arguement was definitley not compassionate, but was interesting. But I personally am more inclined to believe something like that than simply believing homesexuality being a choice rather than genetic.
A FUCKING CURSE?!?!
First it's immoral to just be myself, and live a normal life. Now I'm decidely cursed by God? A test for the twisted people who called themselves my parents? I've been trying to avoid this ridiculous thread and the bullshit that it's been spewing, but c'mon folks, if this gets anymore blatantly hateful and sick...
You do realize folks that Adolf fucking Hitler presented an entire array of 'scientific' and 'biblical' evidence for his genocide. If you read up on it, alot of it came across a hell of a lot like the shit in this thread.
quote:Originally posted by Pig Iron: The writer also said that Homosexuality was a result of a generational family curse.
Not saying I share the belief, but from a biblical viewpoint it gives credance to homosexuality being genetic rather than learned behavior as some believe. The arguement was definitley not compassionate, but was interesting. But I personally am more inclined to believe something like that than simply believing homesexuality being a choice rather than genetic.
A FUCKING CURSE?!?!
First it's immoral to just be myself, and live a normal life. Now I'm decidely cursed by God? A test for the twisted people who called themselves my parents? I've been trying to avoid this ridiculous thread and the bullshit that it's been spewing, but c'mon folks, if this gets anymore blatantly hateful and sick...
You do realize folks that Adolf fucking Hitler presented an entire array of 'scientific' and 'biblical' evidence for his genocide. If you read up on it, alot of it came across a hell of a lot like the shit in this thread.
Good Christians my ass....You smug fucks!
I was just paraphrasing from a book I read klinton...The Author was stating his viewpoint, and I said I didn't share it.
My main point was that Christians often argue that homosexuality is a learned behavior or choice. Where this person was stating his opinion..if he believes his opinion then how could he believe that homosexuality was a behavior rather than genetic. I feel homosexuality is a genetic predispositioning..that's all...I wasn't trying to be inflammatory...
Pig Iron thanks. That actually kind of makes sense considering God doesn't like to mix things. Why would he do it himself- a curse! I always thought it wasn't a choice thing myself reguarding sexuality.
MeM, I think maybe your being sarcastic. Anyway, I was stating someone's viewpoint from a book I had read about family curses/generational curses. And that was the writer's opinion. I found it interesting from a heterosexual viewpoint, and as a quasi-christian. the interest came out of the admission/consent that there was biology involved..rather than choice. Again, if you are shaking your head at my post...I shouldn't have mentioned it and I was being insensitive and not thinking about the words I was using and their effect on the feelings and perceptions of others. I know this isn't a PC place and I know we can say what we want...but I pick few fights with people and try to limit any mean-spiritedness to simple buffoonary, shenanigans and generally stupid posts. When I'm writing serious posts I usually don't reply without thinking through my post..which I clearly didn't. So, if anyone was offended or incensed by my post I am sorry and apologize....seriously.
Oh god, my mom once skirted around that topic by saying homosexuality was a curse. How did she phrase it, "punishment for sin in the family" Nice to know she wasn't the only fundie who thought that way. In other words, how nice she's not crazy and deluded, she's just a fundie.
quote:Originally posted by Pig Iron: The writer also said that Homosexuality was a result of a generational family curse.
Not saying I share the belief, but from a biblical viewpoint it gives credance to homosexuality being genetic rather than learned behavior as some believe. The arguement was definitley not compassionate, but was interesting. But I personally am more inclined to believe something like that than simply believing homesexuality being a choice rather than genetic.
A FUCKING CURSE?!?!
First it's immoral to just be myself, and live a normal life. Now I'm decidely cursed by God? A test for the twisted people who called themselves my parents? I've been trying to avoid this ridiculous thread and the bullshit that it's been spewing, but c'mon folks, if this gets anymore blatantly hateful and sick...
You do realize folks that Adolf fucking Hitler presented an entire array of 'scientific' and 'biblical' evidence for his genocide. If you read up on it, alot of it came across a hell of a lot like the shit in this thread.
Good Christians my ass....You smug fucks!
Think about it this way, Klinton. You don't live your life according to the moral standards of 17th century France, or 14th century Mexico, or 2nd century Sweden. So why should you live your life according to the moral standards of 1st century Palestine?
I should think you'd be bothered by it for about, oh, I'd say, 2 seconds.
quote:Originally posted by whomod: Oh god, my mom once skirted around that topic by saying homosexuality was a curse. How did she phrase it, "punishment for sin in the family" Nice to know she wasn't the only fundie who thought that way. In other words, how nice she's not crazy and deluded, she's just a fundie.
I'm not an expert on why some people are homosexuals and some aren't, but I seriously think you'll find a more plausible answer in psychology than in genetics. Nobody is born gay. At least there hasn't been any conclusive evidence to support that idea yet.
Dammit, if I post in this topic ONE MORE TIME...
And Matt, you're allowed to be an asshole if you want. I just don't feel like bothering with you is all.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: I'm not an expert on why some people are homosexuals and some aren't, but I seriously think you'll find a more plausible answer in psychology than in genetics. Nobody is born gay. At least there hasn't been any conclusive evidence to support that idea yet.
Dammit, if I post in this topic ONE MORE TIME...
Some gay people would agree with you about the psych thing. Many don't though. For me it just doesn't jibe. My sexual orientation just seemed to be always there in the way I suspect most heterosexual people always had theirs. Also homosexuals seem to come from all types of parents. I would think there would be some type of common link apparent but it's just not there.
I always wondered if it was something related to our instincts like "fight or flight" Dumb animals have mating instincts to keep their species alive. What if we had those insticts too but they're just weaker? And if we did it would be then just a case of having the wrong instinct gene or whatever telling us to be interested in the same sex.
First it's immoral to just be myself, and live a normal life. Now I'm decidely cursed by God? A test for the twisted people who called themselves my parents? I've been trying to avoid this ridiculous thread and the bullshit that it's been spewing, but c'mon folks, if this gets anymore blatantly hateful and sick...
You do realize folks that Adolf fucking Hitler presented an entire array of 'scientific' and 'biblical' evidence for his genocide. If you read up on it, alot of it came across a hell of a lot like the shit in this thread.
Good Christians my ass....You smug fucks!
Jesus loves you. Now read this pamphlet.
Seriously though, I don't think PI ever said anything about that obviously askew view being a Christian one. I think you'll agree that you've jumped the gun a smidge by assuming he was speaking about Christian-folk.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch:
I'm not an expert on why some people are homosexuals and some aren't, but I seriously think you'll find a more plausible answer in psychology than in genetics. Nobody is born gay. At least there hasn't been any conclusive evidence to support that idea yet....
I've always believed it to be either/or. I've known people who've felt an attraction to the same sex since... they've felt attraction. I've also known people who've decided, usually (but not always) after some unfortunate or traumatic event involving the opposite sex, to make "the change." Either way is my vote.
Of course, my vote is worth about as much as the gum I'm chewing.
quote:Originally posted by Harpy of the JLR:
If Jesus lived in modern-day Tampa (where I'm from)...
If you ever need to purchase or refinance your house, you know who to turn to .
VANCOUVER (AFP) - Wedding bells rang for gay couples in Canada's westernmost province, after the top court in British Columbia scrapped a waiting period for marriage laws to change.
In May, the British Columbia Court of Appeal ordered Canada's federal government to change the legal definition of marriage, saying federal laws preventing same-sex marriages were discriminatory and violate the Canadian constitution.
However, at that time, the court set a deadline for the change of July 12, 2004.
Then, last month the Ontario Court of Appeal issued a similar ruling, but it allowed gays to marry immediately. Ottawa had indicated it would not appeal the Ontario ruling and would seek to change the current definition of marriage as that between a man and a woman.
On Tuesday, in response to an appeal by the gay rights group EGALE Canada and several same-sex couples in British Columbia, the western court removed the waiting period.
"Any further delay in implementing the remedies will result in an unequal application of the law as between Ontario and British Columbia," the court said in a written decision.
Immediately after the written decision was released, Anthony Porcino and Tom Graff exchanged marriage vows outside the courthouse in this coastal city. The couple have been together for 11 years.
"Marriage means a lot to both of us, and it means a lot to society," Procino told CBC Radio. "And to actually have our relationship recognized by society is actually very important to us."
In Ottawa, EGALE, the main lobby group for Canadian gays and lesbians, welcomed the BC court decision and called on other Canadian provinces to join British Columbia and Ontario to legalize same-sex marriages.
"We encourage other provinces to do the right thing and allow same-sex marriages," said Gilles Marchildon, EGALE's executive director, adding that so far some 250 marriage licences had been issued.
Parliament is expected to vote on a new marriage law in the fall.
The federal government, meanwhile, has indicated it will seek advice from the country's top court, the Supreme Court of Canada, on re-wording the definition of marriage.
On Monday, a coalition of conservative and religious groups said they would try to stop same-sex marriages in Canada by appealing to the Supreme Court.
Marchildon dismissed their fight to stop same-sex marriages, which he says are "part of a growing trend in the legal community."
Just to go way, way, way back to pages long forgotten(probably), I'll throw in my two cents....
Dave WB-I can respect your opinion, as you do appear to be a well educated individual, but some of your reasoning is suspect(to me).
Firstly, I don't see how what's written in the Bible dictates the legality of same sex marriages. You seem to believe that the law should be concerned with the moral teachings of a(not the most common, and certainly not the only) religous sect. I can only ask....why? The United States of America was founded on the principle of freedom, and this archaic law contradicts that foundation.
Secondly, biblical interpretations are not adamant. The bible is not suppose to be directly from God, but, as you touch on, only "inspired" by God. It's still a human's words on paper, and humans are imperfect. The bible once said that slavery was morally acceptable, reflecting the social standards of the era in which it was written. As I'm sure you know, we are no longer in that era.
Thirdly, and what is most puzzling to me, I don't see how something like same sex marriage is "forced on the mainstream of American culture". I am not religous. Infact, I consider religion to be absurd, but I tolerate it's affect on the world, and living in Texas, I can tell you, it's affect is much, much, much larger than anything else. From schools that have prayer servies, to athletes that "thank god" after every touchdown/goal/homerun/win, religion is everywhere. I don't, however, see players thanking their gay husbands in a post-game interview, or congressman chanting "I'm here, I'm queer, get used to it" at conventions. I think that if I, and millions of other people, can tolerate the massive presence that is religion in the U.S, you, and those with your beliefs, can tolerate gay marriages. You don't have to like or accept it, but so long as it's not breaking the law, you do have to tolerate it, just like it tolerates you.
My two cents. Realize I'm chiming in waaaaaay late, but I wanted to say it anyway, so there it is.
quote:Originally posted by Captain Sammitch: I'm not an expert on why some people are homosexuals and some aren't, but I seriously think you'll find a more plausible answer in psychology than in genetics. Nobody is born gay. At least there hasn't been any conclusive evidence to support that idea yet.
Dammit, if I post in this topic ONE MORE TIME...
And Matt, you're allowed to be an asshole if you want. I just don't feel like bothering with you is all.
The scientific community are still researching the whole nature vs nurture thing, Sammitch, so the "jury" is still out on this one.
1991: Northwestern University's Michael Bailey and others find greater homosexual correlation among identical twins than fraternal. 1991: Salk Institute’s Simon LeVay discovers that a tiny section of the hypothalamus in the brain is smaller in gay men than in straight men. 1992: Laura Allen and Richard Gorski of the University of California at Los Angeles discover that a section of the fibers connecting the right and left hemispheres of the brain is one-third larger in gay men than straight men. 1993: National Cancer Institute’s Dean Hamer study finds possible location of “gay gene” on the X chromosome, inherited from mothers. 1995: Geneticists Shang-Ding Zhang and Ward Odenwald of the National Institutes of Health discover that a single transplanted gene can cause fruit flies to display homosexual behavior. 1995: Hamer repeats his 1993 findings with a follow-up study.
In the whole 'nature vs. nurture' debate, one need s to remember that homosexual inclinations are not exclusive to mankind. Homosexual behavior is present in every species...This fact alone kind of puts to rest the idea that people are taught to be 'gay', or that they make a 'choice' based on social factors. The behavior (for lack of a better phrase) is as natural (albeit by no means the majority) as heterosexuality. I don't know if there is or is not scientific evidence to ultimately debunk the myth of it being a choce, but simple observation of non-human societies on this planet clearly establishes that it is not a human phenomenon.
I'm more inclined to think that you can both genetic and environmental factors can affect sexual orintation.
As with high cholestroal, obesity, and recently theorized, alcholism (although I am having trouble 'swallowing' this idea) homosexuality might have genetic factors (I am not saying homosexuality is bad like those three examples, but they are all possibly genetically-linked). But most genetic factors have to be 'switched on' in some sort of a way. For example, I have been told I might be genetically predisposed for diabetes, so I moniter my diet and none of the problems have surfaced. Now something like breast cancer, which some members of my family have been diagnosed with, is a little harder or impossible to prevent, but that's something that increases with age.
So there could be some sort of homosexual genetics out there (I'm not sure what else it could involve but maybe different coding for proteins in hormones? its not been studied well I suppose). But it has to be 'triggered'. It could be dissatifaction with the opposite gender, or maybe abuse as a child. The 'trigger' factors could be endless.
Looking at Man-eater Man's info he pulled up:
1. I am not suprised after the deal with hypotalamus. The right-left brain part I don't understand, but that's still interesting. 2. Having the 'gay gene' on the X-chromosome is interesting. But it leaves me a little confused. That would make homosexuality the same as color-blindness in terms of who can inherit it. A homosexual male would have to have either a homosexual mother or be a carrier. A homosexual woman would need a homosexual father and either a carrier or homosexual mother...ah screw it this is hurting my head. This means either there are more genes coding for it or something is behavioral-based as well.
Klinton, I want to comment on what you said. Some of it was dead on, but some of it was a little off, IMO. First of all, not all species have homosexual tendicies because not all species are sexual (bacteria are asexual for the most part). And even amongst those that procreate sexually, some actually have no gender until mating (like snails -- the one that gives the other snail its genetic material is considered the 'male'). Many plants have both male and female sex parts.
I think you meant animal species, but snails and other species can't really be defined as male-female. Fish change sexes all the time. As you go up the evolutionary ladder, there is a greater difference in the genders of each species. This is called 'sexual dimorphism' in case you are a Trivial Pursuit fan.
And these more advance animals tend to act homosexual as more as a dominant issue. One bitch willl hump another to prove she is the alpha female. Monkeys show the same behavior. So personally, I would invest more in the idea of genetics than using animals as an example. Using animals lowers oneself to their level, and that is no good way to win an arguement.
Right...back to studing biology *makes snoring sounds and falls asleep on books*
quote:Originally posted by Harpy: Klinton, I want to comment on what you said. Some of it was dead on, but some of it was a little off, IMO. First of all, not all species have homosexual tendicies because not all species are sexual (bacteria are asexual for the most part). And even amongst those that procreate sexually, some actually have no gender until mating (like snails -- the one that gives the other snail its genetic material is considered the 'male'). Many plants have both male and female sex parts.
I think you meant animal species, but snails and other species can't really be defined as male-female. Fish change sexes all the time. As you go up the evolutionary ladder, there is a greater difference in the genders of each species. This is called 'sexual dimorphism' in case you are a Trivial Pursuit fan.
And these more advance animals tend to act homosexual as more as a dominant issue. One bitch willl hump another to prove she is the alpha female. Monkeys show the same behavior. So personally, I would invest more in the idea of genetics than using animals as an example. Using animals lowers oneself to their level, and that is no good way to win an arguement.
I had mammals in mind as I said that....so I dunno where snails, bacteria and shit fit into the picture. And in terms of 'lowering onself' I think the human tendancy to look at ourselves as somehow superior to everything else on the planet is a huge error, and the catalyst for all sorts of cruelties on this planet (but that is really the subject for another discuission). My main point there was the fact that even thought they don't share complex social structures like we do, and can't be subject to social ideals in the same way that we are, they still find it within themselves to engage in homosexual realtions. They are acting soley on instinct and desire, and yet this behavior does occur.
quote:Originally posted by Harpy: Klinton, I want to comment on what you said. Some of it was dead on, but some of it was a little off, IMO. First of all, not all species have homosexual tendicies because not all species are sexual (bacteria are asexual for the most part). And even amongst those that procreate sexually, some actually have no gender until mating (like snails -- the one that gives the other snail its genetic material is considered the 'male'). Many plants have both male and female sex parts.
I think you meant animal species, but snails and other species can't really be defined as male-female. Fish change sexes all the time. As you go up the evolutionary ladder, there is a greater difference in the genders of each species. This is called 'sexual dimorphism' in case you are a Trivial Pursuit fan.
And these more advance animals tend to act homosexual as more as a dominant issue. One bitch willl hump another to prove she is the alpha female. Monkeys show the same behavior. So personally, I would invest more in the idea of genetics than using animals as an example. Using animals lowers oneself to their level, and that is no good way to win an arguement.
I had mammals in mind as I said that....so I dunno where snails, bacteria and shit fit into the picture. And in terms of 'lowering onself' I think the human tendancy to look at ourselves as somehow superior to everything else on the planet is a huge error, and the catalyst for all sorts of cruelties on this planet (but that is really the subject for another discuission).
quote:Originally posted by klinton: My main point there was the fact that even thought they don't share complex social structures like we do, and can't be subject to social ideals in the same way that we are, they still find it within themselves to engage in homosexual realtions. They are acting soley on instinct and desire, and yet this behavior does occur.
Fair enough. I would have to respond to that, however, by saying that as human beings we are capable of suppressing both instinct and desire if we so choose. That's why I'd still have to go with my position that homosexuality is a choice people make. But again, that's just me. I think you make a very good case, though.
I know most homosexuals I know or have heard touch on this subject say that they were born gay, but I don't understand how. It's not a disease or a syndrome of some sort. It's not like baldness or something innate in your physical being. Perhaps I just think this because I'm straight, but I think that homosexuality has to be something acquired, something that comes from one's background or cultural upbringing.
quote:Originally posted by Animalman: Perhaps I just think this because I'm straight
Exactly. I know I was born gay, because I'm gay. There is no arguing this fact. I resorted to the 'animals do it' reference in an attempt to convey the fact that it is natural, and it occurs in species that are not inclined to make 'choices' about their sexuality.
I agree with you Klinton, that gays & lesbians just are. It's who they are, not who they decided to be. I think some are confusing the sexual acts, with the true feelings behind the acts. Engaging in same-sex sex isn't what makes a person gay. If that were the case, then most of the prison population would be gay (as opposed to making use of available resources). But, I'm willing to bet most revert back to opposite-sex sex upon release from prison/access to wimmins.
Futhermore, my belief is that all humans are inherently bi-sexual. It's the straight behavior that's the learned behavior, due to family/societal pressures throughout history. These stigmas/taboos/pressures are just so prevalent & deeply ingrained that most of us don't realise we've been effected by them. My view is that any heavily stigmatised or taboo behavior is one because it is our natural state. If it wasn't, you wouldn't need the strong stigma or taboo to discourage it.
WASHINGTON - President Bush says Americans should respect homosexuals, but he wants to make sure marriage is defined strictly as a union between a man and a woman.
Government lawyers are exploring measures to enshrine that definition in the law, the president said Wednesday.
"I believe in the sanctity of marriage. I believe a marriage is between a man and a woman, and I think we ought to codify that one way or the other," he said.
Still, he urged Americans not to ostracize gays.
"I am mindful that we're all sinners, and I caution those who may try to take the speck out of the neighbor's eye when they got a log in their own," the president said, invoking a biblical passage from the Gospel of St. Matthew.
"I think it is very important for our society to respect each individual, to welcome those with good hearts, to be a welcoming country," Bush said.
His remarks offered a sop to conservatives who were angered earlier this month after he distanced himself from a House proposal for a constitutional ban on gay marriage.
Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., was the main sponsor of a proposal to amend the Constitution to read: "Marriage in the United States shall consist only of the union of a man and a woman." It was referred on June 25 to the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution.
Bush ran as a "compassionate conservative" in 2000, and is still trying to bridge the gap between his conservative base and critical swing voters. Some advisers fear any hint of intolerance will alienate middle-of-the-road Americans.
Recent polls have shown that just over half of Americans oppose gay marriage, though that opposition has been declining in recent years. A CBS-New York Times poll released Thursday found that 55 percent oppose gay marriage and 40 percent support it.
On the other hand, a Supreme Court decision last month that ended the criminalization of gay sex seems to have occasioned a backlash, with more Americans in a recent poll saying such relations should not be legal.
Bush's statement touched off passionate responses from groups with an interest in the issue.
"There is a real movement for same-sex marriage, and if the president doesn't intervene, and if he doesn't take leadership in this area, we could lose marriage in this country the way we know it," said Franklin Graham, president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the son of the Rev. Billy Graham. "I think the president is doing the right thing."
Gay-rights activists and a member of Congress took offense at Bush's comment that "we're all sinners," interpreting the remark as reflecting on gays and lesbians.
"While we respect President Bush's religious views, it is unbecoming of the president of the United States to characterize same-sex couples as 'sinners,'" said Matt Foreman, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's executive director.
Rep. Janice Schakowsky, D-Ill., wrote Bush a letter charging that he "seemed to equate homosexuality with sin," and demanding that the president apologize.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Bush had not meant to single out homosexuals as "sinners."
"The president doesn't believe in casting stones. He believes we ought to treat one another with dignity and respect," McClellan said.
The Human Rights Campaign, which says it is the nation's largest gay and lesbian political group, branded Bush's exploration of a law on gay marriage a "call to codify discrimination."
In 1996, President Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act, which denied federal recognition of same-sex marriages and allowed states to ignore same-sex unions licensed elsewhere. Bush's aides have said they are studying ways to strengthen the law.
"We ask the president to explain to the American people why DOMA does not already meet the objective he set this morning," the Human Rights Campaign said.
The group also pointed to a statement by Vice President Dick Cheney that suggested he had a different view than Bush's.
Asked during an October 2000 debate whether homosexuals should have all the constitutional rights enjoyed by each American citizen, Cheney said: "I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area.
"People should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into," said Cheney. "It's really no one else's business, in terms of trying to regulate or prohibit behavior in that regard."
Looks like President Bush wants to weaken the Constitution for the appearance of strengthening marriage. If the concern was serious why stop with the simple "keeping marriage between a man & a woman"? Considering divorce rates, dead beat dads, remarriages, swinging clubs & such, he should push for more when protecting the marriage concept. Granted that would ensure he wouldn't be re-selected
From this article, by Alan P. Medinger, a formerly gay man, who has counseled thousands of gays out of that psychological obsession, over close to two decades of professional work:
He speaks not only as a mental health professional, but from his own experience as a homosexual man.
Some excerpts:
quote:
The psychiatric profession's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III-R) describes compulsive behavior as "repetitive, purposeful, and intentional behaviors that are performed in response to an obsession, or according to certain rules or in a stereotyped fashion." It goes on to say that the behavior is "designed to overcome discomfort," that the person "recognizes that his or her behavior is excessive or unreasonable."
First off, we can say with some certainty that all male homosexuals are not sexually compulsive. I have known any number who never, or who seldom, acted out sexually. On the other hand, there are strong indications that compulsive sexual behavior is highly prevalent among male homosexuals, particularly when compared with their heterosexual counterparts. Some recent news items and some widely accepted statistics support this connection.
Perhaps the most thorough study of its type, the Kinsey Institute study of homosexual men in San Francisco, presented in the book by Bell and Weinberg, Homosexualities, A Study of Diversity Among Men and Women, reported the following:
43% of the white male homosexuals surveyed estimated they had had sex with 500 or more different partners -28% with over 1,000 partners
79% said more than half of their partners were strangers -- 70% said more than half of their sexual partners were men with whom they had sex only once.
These figures astound even the most worldly heterosexuals. In fact, a recent University of Chicago survey reveals that for the U.S population as a whole, the estimated number of sex partners since age 18 is 7.15 (8.67 for those never married). Finally, in our own organization, we have checked with members of our groups who also attend 12-step groups for sexual addicts (such as Sexahollcs Anonymous) and they estimate that at least half the participants in their groups have been homosexual, even though homosexuals probably make up less than 5% of the general population.
That homosexual men are on average extremely promiscuous, when compared to heterosexual men is beyond dispute. That many homosexual men act out sexually with great frequency, despite powerful reasons not to, is also quite obvious. The facts provide strong evidence that a high percentage of homosexual men are engaged in behavior that is "excessive or unreasonable", i.e., compulsive. An honest look at homosexuality could hardly lead to any other conclusion.
In fact, tolerance and acceptance, while perhaps decreasing hypocrisy somewhat, inevitably increases the behavior that it is coming to accept. With male homosexuality, there is no evidence that in those places where homosexual relationships are most accepted--San Francisco, West Hollywood, New York City -- the level of promiscuity has gone down. In fact, AIDS statistics indicate just the opposite. The cities where homosexuality is most tolerated have both the highest numbers of AIDS cases, and the highest levels of HIV infection within the gay community. I don't believe that anyone has made a case to blame male homosexual compulsion on society.
The powerful influence of gay activists in this country, and the widespread sympathy for the homosexual among the media and educational elite in the United States have made it almost impossible to speak publicly about such things as male homosexual compulsion. This has been tragic because recognizing the compulsive aspect of male homosexuality could help head off so much human suffering.
Recognition of this aspect of homosexuality could change how we raise and educate our children. Many have come to accept that "homosexuality is just like heterosexuality". And so children are taught, in the public schools at least, that it is quite all right to be gay; no disadvantages, except societal prejudice, are acknowledged. But suppose we told children and parents that if a boy grows up gay he is far more likely to find himself driven by sexual compulsions? Many agree that some things can be done to prevent homosexuality early in a child's life, and there seem to be some children who in adolescence could go either way. If this characteristic of homosexuality were recognized, surely some children could be steered or counseled away from a life that presents terrible inherent risks.
..Granted that would ensure he wouldn't be re-selected
Politics, gotta love it.
I'm guilty there! I sometimes catch myself thinking it's "us against them", & their the bad guys. As I get older I suppose it's still "us against them" but both parties are guilty of political speak & have good/bad guys in them.
DWB that article is for starters from 1990 using stats from 1978. I think it's fair to say that those stats from 1978 were from homosexuals who grew up being taught that homosexuality was wrong & evil. So the article concludes that teaching a more negative attitude in the future would get better results? How & why, if it's own results show negative reinforcement doesn't work?
The trick is that many people who don't condone homosexuality haven't figured out yet that nobody's gonna listen to someone who doesn't show any regard for them as a person. As I've said many, many times in this thread, that doesn't mean rubber-stamping everything someone else does, but it does mean offering kindness and understanding rather than condemning a person for their actions instead of simply opposing their actions. It's just hard for people to find that balance in there.
The guy who wrote the article IS a homosexual. I fail to see how the article is either condescending or outdated. From what I've read, mostly from secular sources, is that AIDS is on the increase among young gays, who are increasingly having unprotected sex.
Can you clarify how this is "outdated", Matter-eater Man ?
And Captain Sammitch (assuming your comments were directed at me) how do these quoted comments not "show any regard for them as a person", or come across as unkind or unsympathetic?
I think as a homosexual, and one who has counseled probably thousands of fellow homosexuals over two decades, Alan P. Medinger is infinitely qualified to comment on the lifestyle.
There was another reformed homosexual, Greg Quinlan, and his wife Cheryl (a former lesbian), on the 700 Club on July 24th.
The segment on Greg and Cheryl Quinlan is at this link, from Thursday, 7/24/2003 broadcast ( It's only available as audio, no written transcript, and the audio is of the 60-minute broadcast. You can move the audio-bar to about 25 minutes into the one-hour broadcast, and the entire segment is about 15 minutes of the broadcast ) http://www.700club.com/video/player.asp?prgm=700club&vsrc=archive/072403&seg=
Another reformed Christian gay man, Stephen Bennett, also has a website: http://www.sbministries.org/ ( who appeared on the Friday, 7/18/2003 broadcast of 700 Club)
Again, these are people who have lived the gay lifestyle, and are not angrily judging it from the outside.
quote:Originally posted by klinton: Exactly. I know I was born gay, because I'm gay. There is no arguing this fact.
There may be no arguing the fact that you are gay now, but how do you know if you were born gay? How do you know anything about what you were like when you were born?
DTWB those stats are outdated because they came from 1978, over 2.5 decades ago. Things have changed so much in a relative short period of time. Back then nobody new about AIDS. Positive portrayals of gays on TV were taboo. It had only been a few yrs before that homosexuality was considered to be a mental illness. I don't understand how that wouldn't be a deterrent to gays having monogomous relationships.
As for Medinger, his views are not supported by any real evidence & is not supported by any reputable medical organization. However various religous right organizations do like what he has to say & provide insane amounts of money to promote their agenda.
Check out what th APA says about reparitive therapy & this link for more facts
http://www.apa.org/pi/lgbc/publications/justthefacts.html "The American Psychiatric Association in its position statement on Psychiatric Treatment and Sexual Orientation states: The potential risks of "reparative therapy" are great, including depression, anxiety and self-destructive behavior, since therapist alignment with societal prejudices against homosexuality may reinforce self-hatred already experienced by the patient. Many patients who have undergone "reparative therapy" relate that they were inaccurately told that homosexuals are lonely, unhappy individuals who never achieve acceptance or satisfaction. The possibility that the person might achieve happiness and satisfying interpersonal relationships as a gay man or lesbian is not presented, nor are alternative approaches to dealing with the effects of societal stigmatization discussed.9"
Also heres a link of an exexgay's website that contains his story & provides links to other exexgays & their stories. http://jgford.homestead.com/index.html They tell a far different story than what the religous right is promoting.
I do have some major questions about some of the endorsed positions of the American Psychological Association, when you consider that health care professionals have a suicide rate about 6 times the national average. That alone speaks volumes about their accepted practices. Doctor, heal thy self.
I think the legitimizing of homosexuality and removing it from the list of psychological disorders is a mistake, and there are literally millions who hotly dispute that homosexuality is a healthy and natural psychological condition.
There are many who still think of homosexuality as a treatable mental illness. The fact that many do not seek treatment simply proves that they do not want to change. Which is equally true for many compulsive gamblers, drug and alcohol abusers, and those suffering from other compulsive disorders.
That does not change the fact that many others offer therapeutic treatment for homosexuality, and that many seek out and change their lives for the better with this treatment.
The front page of NARTH's website makes clear that many mental heath professionals --who don't think homosexuality is a disorder-- feel similarly about pedophilia exhibitionism, fetishism, transvestism, voyeurism, and sadomasochism, and are actively seeking to remove their status as disorders as well: http://www.narth.com/
quote: In a second article in the Archives, "The Dilemma of the Male Pedophile," Gunter Schmidt, D. Phil., makes a sympathetic case for the pedophile who, Schmidt says, must "remain abstinent for significant periods of time" and "lead a life of self-denial at significant emotional cost."
Schmidt calls for a new, "enlightened discourse on morality" with the recognition that "in view of the pedophile's burden, the necessity of denying himself the experience of love and sexuality," he deserves society's respect.
Furthermore, Schmidt argues, molested children do not always appear to be harmed. A 1998 study by Bruce Rind, he notes, found that many boys grow up to have positive or neutral memories of their man-boy sexual experiences.
Kind of makes you want to vomit, doesn't it?
The state of the APA is wonderfully summed up in this article:
"American Psychiatric Association Symposium Debates Whether Pedophilia, Gender-Identity Disorder, Sexual Sadism Should Remain Mental Illnesses" http://www.narth.com/docs/symposium.html
quote:"And," [Dr.] Nicolosi added, "we must agree on those things that genuinely enhance human dignity. It's a measure of how low the psychiatric establishment has sunk, that it would even debate the idea that pedophilia, transvestism, and sado-masochism could ever be expressions of true human flourishing."
Psychoanalyst Johanna Tabin, Ph.D., of NARTH's Scientific Advisory Committee, also commented on the A.P.A. symposium. "If the arguments prevail that are given for ignoring these psychological problems, then suicide attempts must be considered normal when they are desired by the participants. And what about the sociopath, who--having no conscience--feels quite content with himself?"
"Uncommon 'common sense,' " Dr. Tabin added, "is sure to reassert itself--but in the meantime, the mental health professions are failing many suffering individuals by rigidly adopting political correctness as the guide as to when people need help.
"And the saddest thing about the current climate," she added, "is that people who ask for help because they are not at ease with homosexual impulses, right now are frequently forbidden to obtain it."
I also think this below linked study, among many others, shows a clear desire to enhance the lives of homosexuals, through treatment. And details of the study make clear the nature of the disorder, compassion for gays, and desire for them to live more full lives:
I thought this article in particular, of those I just listed, points out the intimidation tactics of gays, to harass into silence any who dissent from their views, even when science, common sense and other evidence do not not back up the gay side of the issue:
In an editorial which just appeared in the latest issue of Psychology Today (Jan./Feb. 2003) editor Robert Epstein, Ph.D. defends sexual reorientation therapy, responding as well to recent bruising criticism from the gay community. Epstein's editorial, "Am I Anti-Gay? You Be the Judge" was written after gay activists objected to his magazine's publication of an ad for a controversial new book.
The book is A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality, by Joseph and Linda Nicolosi, which describes the ways in which parents can maximize the likelihood of their children growing up with a secure gender identity and heterosexual orientation.
Angered when she saw the ad, psychologist Betty Berzon somehow located the private phone number of magazine editor Bob Epstein. Calling him at home on a Saturday, she demanded an explanation from him.
(Epstein graciously refrained from identifying Berzon by name in his editorial, but a gay magazine, The Advocate, later identified her as the caller.)
Berzon demanded to know why his magazine accepted "such a heinous ad." She told Epstein that she was speaking for thousands' of gays who were going to boycott the magazine -- "and worse," she warned.
In that conversation, and in letters from other gay activists that followed, Epstein -- who is a social liberal and champion of gay rights--was suddenly immersed in something quite new to him--what he describes as "the dark, intolerant, abusive side of the gay community."
The author of the book, Berzon charged, "was 'a bigot.'" Furthermore, "no gay person had ever successfully become straight," and "homosexuality was entirely determined by genes." She added that sexual conversion therapy had been condemned by the American Psychological Association.
"Threats, Insults and Brutal Letters"
When Epstein disagreed with the above assertions, Berzon hung up the phone and sent out a flurry of postings to gay and lesbian internet sites, urging activists to harass him at home by telephone, Epstein says, and then to barrage him with complaint letters.
The Psychology Today editor subsequently received "threats, insults," and "brutal letters" from gay activists.
"In all," Epstein says, "I received about 120 letters...Several writers suggested I was a 'Nazi' and 'bigot,' and one compared me with the Taliban. A surprising number of letters asserted that gays have a right to be rude or abusive because they themselves have been abused."
But Reorientation Therapy Is Not Condemned
"But my caller was way off-base, on key points," Epstein notes. "The APA has never condemned sexual conversion therapy but has merely issued cautionary statements." One of those statements in fact reminds psychologists "of their obligation to 'respect the rights of others to hold values, attitudes and opinions that differ from [their] own'--an obligation from which my caller clearly feels exempt."
So what about therapy to change homosexuality? Since the condition was removed from the diagnostic manual in 1973, did the authors of Preventing Homosexuality have the right to promote reorientation therapy?
"Although homosexuality was removed from the DSM as a mental disorder in 1973," Epstein says, "all editions of the DSM have listed a disorder characterized by 'distress' over one's sexual orientation, and some choose to try to change that orientation. Both gays and straights have a right to seek treatment when they're unhappy with their sexual orientation, and some choose to try to change that orientation. It would be absurd to assert that only heterosexuals have that right."
But can gays actually change? Epstein said that he had seen some "interesting data" supporting the ethics and effectiveness of reorientation therapy. He cited recent research, featured on the NARTH web site and just published in an APA journal, by NARTH Fellow Award recipient Warren Throckmorton, Ph.D., "which suggests that sexual orientation conversion therapy is at least sometimes successful...From this and other sources I'd guess that such therapy is probably successful about a third of the time."
Epstein then notes that perhaps another third of the clients--those who do not succeed and eventually drop out--"are unhappy or even angry" about their failure to change. These figures might sound discouraging, he says, but there are many similar examples of clinical problems that resist change.
He notes that agoraphobia (fear of leaving home) and autism are also very difficult to treat successfully, and that "angry outcomes" after therapy often occur as a result of many difficult treatments, such as marital counseling.
Then there's also the charge by critics of reorientation that therapy may change behavior, but not fantasies. In fact, Epstein notes, mere behavioral change is sufficient for many clients and is not an unethical form of treatment, because "it's common for people to ask therapists to help them suppress a wide variety of tendencies with possible genetic bases: compulsive shopping and gambling, drinking, drug use, aggressiveness, urges to have too much sex, or sex with children, etc."
But of still greater importance in this discussion, Epstein continued, "is a new study by Robert Spitzer, M.D. of Columbia University." Epstein notes that "even though he has been under tremendous pressure by gay activists to repudiate his findings, Spitzer has concluded that sexual conversion therapy can produce significant, positive and lasting changes."
Throughout the unfolding controversy--including an "O'Reilly Factor" TV interview in December with book author Joseph Nicolosi, in which host Bill O'Reilly vehemently defended Nicolosi's right to publish and advertise--editor Epstein refused to back down.
"Stay tuned," he advises his readers in an editorial in the January issue of Psychology Today. Because it's time, he says, to review the sexual conversion issue again in his magazine.
"We'll soon offer and objective, comprehensive look at the ex-gay issue, " he says, "and also give the factions space to vent."
Actually using AIDS as some sort of indicator of compulsive behavior in homosexuals doesn't work. The infection rate dropped in the mid 90's for gay men & rose for hetrosexual men. Even then it was being predicted that rates would go up because the new HIV drugs were creating a false sense of security & younger gays who were not around in the 80's truly don't understand what they are risking. That is the nature of youth I suppose. Here's a link to another CNN story about the rise in HIV in straight guys & the drop in rates for gay men. http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9709/18/nfm.aids/
"However there were some troubling signs in what was largely a promising report.
Although new AIDS cases declined 15 percent among white gay and bisexual men in 1996, AIDS among heterosexuals rose 11 percent among men and 7 percent among women. "
OTTAWA (Reuters) - The political storm over gay marriage in Canada headed for a flash point on Monday, with opponents and proponents making last-minute pitches ahead of a key vote in Parliament scheduled for Tuesday.
The gay marriage debate dominated headlines and political discussion over the summer after the federal government decided not to appeal a provincial court decision that declared the heterosexual-only definition of marriage unconstitutional.
The opposition Canadian Alliance, which is against gay marriage, will try embarrass the ruling Liberals on Tuesday by introducing an identical motion to one supported by cabinet in 1999. That motion directed Parliament to preserve a definition of marriage as "the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others."
"It'll come down to how did you vote last time, how are you voting now and why did you change your mind," John Reynolds, who runs the Alliance's legislative agenda in the House of Commons, told Reuters.
Prime Minister Jean Chretien, asked why he supported the motion in 1999 but not now, shrugged: "Society evolved."
The Alliance is eager to turn it into an issue in the federal election expected to be called next spring, particularly in the vote-rich battleground of Ontario, where the Liberals are seen as most vulnerable -- though they still have overwhelming dominance in the polls.
So many Liberals, particularly in rural districts, have signaled their intention to side with the Alliance on traditional marriage that Tuesday's vote is predicted to be razor-thin.
If it goes down to defeat, the Liberal government will hail the vote as support for its intention to change the law to allow for homosexual marriage.
But the government will find itself in a delicate situation if the motion passes, since it says Parliament -- which is led by the cabinet -- should "take all necessary steps" to preserve the traditional definition of marriage.
That would run contrary to the government's plans to change the definition, and would put cabinet in the position of seeming to ignore the re-expressed -- though nonbinding -- will of Parliament if it pushes ahead with those plans.
Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said it would not derail the government legislation. "Not at all," he told reporters, charging that the Alliance was playing a political game.
His spokesman, Mike Murphy, was more explicit: "The cabinet has embarked on a process. We'll continue that process."
Gay Ottawa city councilor Alex Munter said that "Canadian values are under threat" by the Alliance motion.
In a dueling news conference, Derek Rogusky of the conservative group Focus on the Family, replied to Munter's remark: "We think that's offensive to the millions of Canadians who hold views otherwise. To suggest that, is quite frankly un-Canadian -- to not tolerate these types of views in our society."
At first, many members of Parliament had been afraid to speak out vocally on the issue for fear of being branded homophobic, but some have been emboldened by polls showing just as many oppose gay marriage as support it and by an avalanche of letters and e-mails.
Meantime, there is a patchwork of rules, with gay marriage legal in Ontario and British Columbia because of court decisions there but banned in the rest of the country.
The State of Our Unions If it's not a crime to be gay, why can't we get married?
BY ANDREW SULLIVAN Wednesday, October 8, 2003 12:01 a.m. EDT
It didn't take long for many social conservatives to ponder the long-term implications of the Supreme Court's recent decision to strike down all antisodomy laws in the U.S. Moves are afoot to advance a constitutional amendment that would bar any state's legalization of same-sex marriage; next week is "Marriage Protection Week," in which the alleged danger of Lawrence v. Texas will be highlighted across the country. This push toward blanket prohibition, however, sidesteps a basic point about the post-Lawrence world. Whatever you feel about the reasoning of the decision, its result is clear: Gay Americans are no longer criminals. And very few conservatives want to keep them that way. The term "gay citizen" is now simply a fact of life.
In retrospect, this might be the most significant shift on the question of homosexuality in a generation. For if homosexuals are no longer criminals for having consensual private relationships, then they cannot be dismissed as somehow alien or peripheral to our civil society. Moreover, the social transformation of the last decade cannot simply be gainsaid: A poll this week for USA Today found that 67% of the 18-29 age group believe that gay marriage would benefit society. The public as a whole is evenly split on that issue. Many of the people favoring a new tolerance are Republicans and conservatives. And this is inevitable. When the daughter of the vice president is openly gay, it's hard to treat homosexual citizens as some permanent kind of Other, as a threat to civil order and society.
But if conservatives have now endorsed the notion of homosexuals as citizens, they haven't yet fully grasped the implications of that shift. Previously, social policy toward homosexuals was a function of either criminalization or avoidance. People who are either in jail or potentially subject to criminal sanction are already subject to a social policy of a sort. You may disagree with it, but it's social policy on the same lines as that toward drug users or speeders. It's a form of prohibitionism. But when all illegality is removed from gay people, as it has been, that social policy surely has to change.
So what is it? What exactly is the post-Lawrence conservative social policy toward homosexuals? Amazingly, the current answer is entirely a negative one. The majority of social conservatives oppose gay marriage; they oppose gay citizens serving their country in the military; they oppose gay citizens raising children; they oppose protecting gay citizens from workplace discrimination; they oppose including gays in hate-crime legislation, while including every other victimized group; they oppose civil unions; they oppose domestic partnerships; they oppose . . . well, they oppose, for the most part, every single practical measure that brings gay citizens into the mainstream of American life.
This is simply bizarre. Can you think of any other legal, noncriminal minority in society toward which social conservatives have nothing but a negative social policy? What other group in society do conservatives believe should be kept outside integrating social institutions? On what other issue do conservatives favor separatism over integration? We know, in short, what conservatives are against in this matter. But what exactly are they for?
Let me be practical here. If two lesbian women want to share financial responsibility for each other for life, why is it a conservative notion to prevent this? If two men who have lived together for decades want the ability to protect their joint possessions in case one of them dies, why is it a conservative notion that such property be denied the spouse in favor of others? If one member of a young gay couple is badly hurt in a car accident, why is it a conservative notion that his spouse not be allowed to visit him in the intensive-care unit? In all these cases, you have legal citizens trying to take responsibility for one another. By doing so, by setting up relationships that do the "husbanding" work of family, such couples relieve the state of the job of caring for single people without family support. Such couplings help bring emotional calm to the people involved; they educate people into the mundane tasks of social responsibility and mutual caring. When did it become a socially conservative idea that these constructive, humane instincts remain a threat to society as a whole? And how do these small acts of caring actually undermine the heterosexual marriage of the people who live next door? Some will argue that these and many other benefits and responsibilities can be set up in an ad hoc fashion. You can create powers of attorney, legal contracts and the like, if you really need to. These arrangements can be enormously time-consuming and complex, and they don't always hold up in courts of law, of course. But even if they did, isn't it a strange conservative impulse to make taking responsibility something that the government should make harder rather than easier? One of the key benefits of marriage, after all, is that it also upholds a common ideal of mutual support and caring; it not only enables such acts of responsibility but rewards and celebrates them. In the past you could argue that such measures were inappropriate for a criminal or would-be criminal subgroup. But after Lawrence, that is no longer the case. The question is therefore an insistent one: On what grounds do conservatives believe that discouraging responsibility is a good thing for one group in society? What other legal minority do they or would they treat this way? If a group of African-Americans were to set themselves up and campaign for greater familial responsibility among black couples, do you think conservatives would be greeting them with dismay and discouragement or even a constitutional amendment to stop them?
It is one thing to oppose gay marriage (some, but not all, conservative arguments against it are reasonable, if to my mind unconvincing). But it is another thing to oppose any arrangement that might give greater security, responsibility and opportunity to gay couples. At times, the social conservative position is almost perversely inconsistent: Many oppose what they see as gay promiscuity; but even more strongly, they oppose any social measures that would encourage gay monogamy, such as marriage. What, one wonders, do they want? In this, they actually have lower standards for now-legal citizens than they do for incarcerated criminals: Even murderers on death row have the constitutional right to marry, where the institution could do no conceivable social good. But for millions of citizens currently excluded from such incentives for responsibility, conservatives are prepared even to amend the Constitution to say no.
If this debate is to move forward, a few simple questions therefore have to be answered: What is the social conservative position on civil unions? What aspects of them can conservatives get behind? What details are they less convinced by? These are basic public policy questions to which social conservatives, for the most part, have yet to provide an answer. It's well past time they did.
Mr. Sullivan, a senior editor of The New Republic and columnist for Time, writes daily for andrewsullivan.com. This is part of an occasional series.
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Sexual identity is wired into the genes, which discounts the concept that homosexuality and transgender sexuality are a choice, California researchers reported on Monday.
"Our findings may help answer an important question -- why do we feel male or female?" Dr. Eric Vilain, a genetics professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine, said in a statement. "Sexual identity is rooted in every person's biology before birth and springs from a variation in our individual genome."
His team has identified 54 genes in mice that may explain why male and female brains look and function differently.
Since the 1970s, scientists have believed that estrogen and testosterone were wholly responsible for sexually organizing the brain. Recent evidence, however, indicates that hormones cannot explain everything about the sexual differences between male and female brains.
Published in the latest edition of the journal Molecular Brain Research, the UCLA discovery may also offer physicians an improved tool for gender assignment of babies born with ambiguous genitalia.
Mild cases of malformed genitalia occur in 1 percent of all births -- about 3 million cases. More severe cases -- where doctors can't inform parents whether they had a boy or girl -- occur in one in 3,000 births.
"If physicians could predict the gender of newborns with ambiguous genitalia at birth, we would make less mistakes in gender assignment," Vilain said.
Using two genetic testing methods, the researchers compared the production of genes in male and female brains in embryonic mice -- long before the animals developed sex organs.
They found 54 genes produced in different amounts in male and female mouse brains, prior to hormonal influence. Eighteen of the genes were produced at higher levels in the male brains; 36 were produced at higher levels in the female brains.
"We discovered that the male and female brains differed in many measurable ways, including anatomy and function." Vilain said.
For example, the two hemispheres of the brain appeared more symmetrical in females than in males. According to Vilain, the symmetry may improve communication between both sides of the brain, leading to enhanced verbal expressiveness in females.
"This anatomical difference may explain why women can sometimes articulate their feelings more easily than men," he said.
The scientists plan to conduct further studies to determine the specific role for each of the 54 genes they identified.
"Our findings may explain why we feel male or female, regardless of our actual anatomy," said Vilain. "These discoveries lend credence to the idea that being transgender --- feeling that one has been born into the body of the wrong sex -- is a state of mind.
And I don't see how the environment argument means that homosexuality is a "choice". Your environment isn't always your choice(in childhood, it very rarely is).
I'm actually debating posting William 'one eyed bandit' Bennett's OpEd peice from last Friday. It was regarding homosexuals and their agenda to defile the institution of marriage....
let me run a search 1st of all to see if I can find it.
quote:October 17, 2003
COMMENTARY What Nature Joins Let No Gays Put Asunder Marriage is meant to be between one man and one woman. Period.
By William J. Bennett, William J. Bennett is a former secretary of Education and the author of "The Broken Hearth: Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family" (Random House, 2001).
For all the damage the institution of marriage sustained during the sexual revolution, its recognized significance as the fundamental social unit remains intact.
If nothing else, this one conviction at least remains: that marriage should be strengthened. It remains our achievable ideal and the reason President Bush proclaimed Oct. 12-18 "Marriage Protection Week."
Yet the state of marriage today is fragile. Battered by divorce, eroded by rising rates of cohabitation and shaken by infidelity, marriage is now imperiled by a proposal to redefine it. This challenge has been advanced by gay activists in the culture and the courts.
Though we are the most open, tolerant, forgiving and embracing of people, it is important that the movement toward gay marriage be resisted. It would in no way strengthen marriage to redefine it by embracing gay marriage.
Marriage is rooted in the proper order of life. To be human implies purpose; human beings are set apart from the rest of the material world, even from other animate beings, by that purpose.
By way of contrast, the essence of a tree presents no moral limitations for the uses we may develop for it. But the nature of man does limit how we may treat him: This we have affirmed from the Declaration of Independence to today's human rights movement. It is why we should not clone humans, why we do not experiment on human subjects and why we oppose sexual subjugation.
Just as human nature has inherent purpose, so does human sexuality. There is a natural sexual order, a proper order for love — an ordo amorum, as St. Augustine put it. We are made male and female, and these immutable characteristics define proper sexual behavior. Because this proper sexual behavior quite commonly results in childbearing, these characteristics also define the appropriate relationship for sexual behavior: marriage.
In marriage alone do men, women and children find the relationship that balances their sometimes mutual, sometimes competing, needs.
"Marriage is our attempt to reconcile and harmonize the erotic, social, sexual and financial needs of men and women with the needs of their partner and their children," says Maggie Gallagher, co-author of "The Case for Marriage."
The parameters of proper sexual behavior are not arbitrary, nor are they intended to evolve. If we depart from the natural order of sexuality and the proper behavior and relationships that ensue from it, we are left with no guiding principle but the prevailing mood of the age. We are currently on the cusp of doing just that: We must decide whether we will continue to reinforce the natural sexual order in our laws or whether we will let them cave in to arbitrary preference.
As the proponents of gay marriage are quick to point out, promiscuity, adultery, cohabitation, divorce and out-of-wedlock births have severely damaged the institution of marriage. But this is not an argument for the redefinition of marriage. That the family is struggling today is not because of a design flaw. The problem is our failure to live up to the design.
When our behavior does not live up to the standard, we have two choices: We can change our behavior or change the standard.
The homosexual movement would change the standard. This is a conflict of ideals.
The homosexual movement cannot tolerate the persistence of mores that define marriage as the union of one man and one woman, the marriage relationship as the proper context of sexual expression and the family as the unit formed around that nucleus.
To normalize homosexuality requires us to deny that man linked to woman is both natural and ideal — that it is the purpose of our human sexuality — and to affirm the aberrant view that sexuality is an arbitrary construct and choice.
The homosexual vanguard proposes to replace sexual identity — that inescapable fact of nature that we are created male and female — with sexual behavior as a fundamental organizing principle of society. And if sexual behavior is the determinant, then appetite is the guiding principle.
Without respect for sexual identity, sexual partners become nothing more than interchangeable parts, rather than complementary on the basis of nature. And if behavior and appetite are the only determinants of sexual conduct, what is the argument against polygamy, incest or any other imaginable sexual relationship?
For our custom and law, the implications of such a fundamental change are profound, but nowhere more than for marriage.
The last decades have sobered us about the consequences of the sexual revolution, which replaced the traditional marriage ethic with a code that has sought to free both marriage and human sexuality from restraint and commitment.
Faced with this, we must redouble our efforts to make our behavior meet the traditional standard. And that standard does not call for the redefinition of marriage or the reconfiguration of family, and it in no way translates into an argument for gay marriage.
What we now call a traditional family remains the safest place to raise children, the soundest investment in children's economic and emotional futures and the strongest safety net in our modern world. The evidence is overwhelming that no household arrangement can compare with an intact family. Conversely, the absence of such support will prove a lifelong deficit.
Marriage between one man and one woman is the ideal that we must continue to uphold in our law and our culture. What is broken should be restored, not redefined or destroyed.
quote:Bennett on the Nature of Sexuality and Marriage
After reading William J. Bennett's "What Nature Joins Let No Gays Put Asunder" (Commentary, Oct. 17), in which he makes such a point of the natural purpose of sexual union between a man and a woman, I was moved to remember Shakespeare: "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments."
I am fortunate to have been married for 20 years, and find that the marriage of minds Shakespeare celebrates is the more important ingredient. Where love conflicts with traditional sexual roles, I cast my vote for love. I do not understand the argument that allowing others to be married weakens my marriage in particular or the institution of marriage in general, even when some people choose unions I would not consider for myself.
Ernesto Gomez
Crestline
*
Human sexuality is far more complex than Bennett seems to be able to understand, although for all of us who are gay, it is a simple matter that we were born attracted to people of our own gender. So to live a lie and pretend to be heterosexual, we not only violate our own humanness but also hurt those we try to be straight with.
Human sexuality is a natural drive to bond adults together, as well as produce children. In his infinite wisdom God made humans capable of responding to life in a number of ways. If Bennett could take time to listen to himself, he might recognize how a life of deceit can be harmful to those in his own life.
Dan Gumbleton
Pasadena
*
Will someone please tell the withered and ridiculous Bennett to get back to his slot machines and stop trying to dictate his own flawed morality to the rest of the world? Gay people don't want to "redefine" marriage; they want to participate. Gay people just can't win with the family-values crowd. If they're promiscuous and freewheeling, they're condemned as hedonists. If they want to settle down and nest (parroting a non-gay lifestyle), they're condemned for destroying marriage. Sheesh.
People like Bennett know that they can muster lots of political support for their born-again commander in chief if they stir panic about evil gays trying to ruin marriage. That's what's behind President Bush's "Marriage Protection Week." It's not about morality; it's about votes.
Tim Bryant
West Hollywood
*
Bennett views marriage primarily as a sexual relationship while, in fact, it is a legal relationship offering protections to the participants. The U.S. should follow the example of many other countries and separate the religious and legal aspects of marriage. Marriage should be a civil union performed before a judge or other government representative. Those who wish to sanctify the union can then have a religious ceremony. Our present system of allowing religious leaders to act as agents of the government has confused the perception of marriage.
Bob Marlin
Los Angeles
*
Bennett is absolutely correct in his assertion that homosexuality has no place in marriage. The rise of homosexuality is a phenomenon fed by this "do whatever feels good" age, combined with the liberal garbage Hollywood and television force-feed the populace. With everything on television being sexually themed, are we surprised? This country's moral compass is now upside down as we slip further and further into decay and acceptance of previously immoral actions and behaviors. God said homosexuality is an "abomination" and, for me, that is the bottom line.
Gregg Freeman
Simi Valley
*
Numerous studies show that the rates of divorce, domestic violence and child abuse, homelessness, bankruptcy, suicide and many other ills are significantly higher in families of gambling addicts. Having lost a reported $8 million to his own gambling addiction, it would appear that Bennett is highly qualified to exhort people to avoid gambling lest they destroy their marriages, lives or professional reputations. But beyond that, he's just another right-wing gasbag trying to preach a hypocritical "morality" to others.
Jeff Nelson
Chatsworth
My own opinions?
Well, seeing as how i've been freinds with several gay people ever since high school, I can safetly attest that they in no way "chose" to be gay because "it feels good". If that were justification, wouldn't more "immoral" straight people be putting their johnsons into other men?
One of my best freinds is a gay man. I met him though when he was the boyfreind of a good female freind of mine. Their relationship was pretty much a disaster because he was trying to confom to being a straight man and carry a heterosexual relationship when it really wasn't in his nature. The end result was a miserable, frustrated, and suffering girlfreind and a miserable, frustrated, and suffereing boyfreind. Once he 'came out" and accepted his nature and his sexuality, he was a much happier person and he was free of the guilt that came with not being able to be what others wanted of him. His 'girlfreind, his family and mostly, himself out of a need to be "normal".
He's still a cool guy. He still has a killer record collection and taste in music. He can still outdrink anybody i know and he still throws great parties. Only he just chooses to be committed to another man.
He's just one person. I Know several others. I can honestly say that being gay is initially more of a burden for them than a blessing. Mostly having to do with social acceptance, stigmas and ridicule. i think suicide rates among teen homosexuals can corroborate this.
As with global warming though, I think depending on what ideology one CHOOSES to follow detirmines just how willing people are to accept news stories like the one posted above and how they choose to accept homosexuals.
My big desire to see DEFINATIVE UNQUESTIONALBE PROOF is borne out of a desire to finally see homophoboia put where it belongs, in the category of bigotry.
bigotry
\Big"ot*ry\, n. [Cf. F. bigoterie.] 1. The state of mind of a bigot; obstinate and unreasoning attachment of one's own belief and opinions, with narrow-minded intolerance of beliefs opposed to them.
Honestly, to me, it just means a better single female to male ratio. Why any straight man would challenge that is bewildering.
I don't get the question. Anything less than a legally recognized union would just be a symbolic jesture with no legal (or spiritial depending on the ceremony type) weight behind it.
Ah never mind. I think you were referring to a church ritual. Although that would be ideal as you wouldn't have people running around condemning other people as abonimations before God, I think legally recognized civil unions would be more practical (not to mention realistic) than trying to change some factions of christianity of their belief systems.
Civil unions would also adress some of the more day to day practical aspects of why gays want to be recognized as "married" such as insurance and medical descisions and benefits.
I still don't understand how you're interpreting the environment argument as a "choice".
I don't think people "choose" to be gay, but I also don't think it's necessarily something you're born with. I think it's something acquired, but not consciously.
A person's interests and beliefs are a result of their upbringing, based on how their parents/friends/teachers influence them(positively or negatively). If a certain taste has no factor in a person's childhood(or teenhood) either way, they probably won't acquire it.
quote:Originally posted by Pariah: Question Whomod: Why exactly should gay people have a right to marry in a "private club", as I've heard my few gay friends describe it, which has a policy within said club, that specifically prohibits such actions? If it's an organization, there are no rights involved, just rules and regs. Even so, why would most gays, who feel that it is merely a symbol of bigotry, want to be bound together with someone they love by a bigot organization?
Also...
Marriage transcends law. Its not like Canada can tell the Vatican what to do and what not to do.
If this was already mentioned, then forgive me, but I didn't feel like going over the entire thread.
Legalizing gay marriage wouldn't force any private club (religion) to marry gay people. It would however prevent one church dictating that another church can't marry gays.
Matthew Shepard died an unimaginably horrific death, lashed to a wooden fence in the lonely Wyoming countryside, beaten until he fell into coma and then abandoned. Yet five years after his October 1998 murder, the red-hot homophobia that fueled the college freshman's killers has flared up again in Wyoming, where outside extremists who call themselves Christians continue to flog Shepard in death.
The Rev. Fred Phelps, a Topeka, Kan., pastor, was one of the twisted demonstrators at Shepard's funeral who screamed, "God hates fags!" as Shepard's grieving parents and friends entered a Casper, Wyo., church. Phelps has returned to that city to mark the five-year anniversary of Shepard's death. But instead of expiating his sickening behavior, Phelps wants to commemorate it by installing a 6-foot-high granite monument with Shepard's face and these words: "Matthew Shepard Entered Hell October 12, 1998, at Age 21 in defiance of God's Warning: 'Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; it is abomination.' Leviticus 18:22."
Phelps' political maneuverings are as wily as his ideas are repulsive. He wants his monument to hate to sit in Casper's City Park, where a large replica of the Ten Commandments was erected in 1965, a gift from the local Eagles Club. Last year, a Denver federal court, which has jurisdiction over Wyoming, ruled that communities displaying religious messages or symbols must allow other messages or symbols as well. So Phelps figured that if the park included a monument to the Ten Commandments, the city would have to accommodate his demand to place his "religious" anti-gay statue.
Casper's leaders, righteously appalled at Phelps' gambit, have come together to shut down his poisonous message. Last week, the City Council voted to move the Ten Commandments to a new historic plaza under construction. It's a move that while solving one problem might create new legal challenges, but at least the Ten Commandments wouldn't be used as an excuse for Phelps' testament to bigotry.
Meanwhile, the Eagles Club has offered to remove the granite Ten Commandments tablet from Casper's park. At least three local churches say they want it and would put it on private land. That's a far better idea — and the best way to let Matthew Shepard finally rest in peace.
CONCORD, N.H. -- If a married woman has sex with another woman, is that adultery? The New Hampshire Supreme Court says no.
The court was asked to review a divorce case in which a husband accused his wife of adultery after she had a sexual relationship with another woman. Any finding that one spouse is at fault in the break-up of a marriage can change how the court divides the couple's property.
Robin Mayer, of Brownsville, Vt., was named in the divorce proceedings of a Hanover couple. She appealed the case to the Supreme Court, arguing that gay sex doesn't qualify as adultery under the state's divorce law.
In a 3-2 ruling Friday, the court agreed.
The majority determined that the definition of adultery requires sexual intercourse. The judges who disagreed said adultery should be defined more broadly to include other extramarital sexual activity.
One wonders what gay-rights activists will make of this case. On the one hand, it puts homosexual spouses at an advantage in divorce proceedings, compared with unfaithful heterosexuals. On the other hand, it would seem an affront to gay dignity to say that homosexual affairs don't rise to the level of adultery. Also, if members of the same sex are ever allowed to wed, this ruling would make it legally impossible for them to consummate their marriages.
Come to think of it, will traditionalists applaud the New Hampshire high court for reaffirming the definition of adultery as a relationship between a man and a woman?
If gay unions were legalized, and then one of them had an affair with another man, then there would be no punishment, right? That doesn't make sense. The would mean the wronged spouse couldn't get any justice. But how would it make it impossible to consumate the marriage?
I can't beleive this shit is still being debated...I go away for like four months and you arrogant assholes are still pontificating about how wrong and morraly corrupt us 'faggots' are. Shut the fuck up and go mind your own fucking lives. Once you breeders manage to get your own shit sorted (that would involve a higher than 51 percent marriage sucess rate) you can come back and tell me and my fellow faggot brothers and sisters how we should live our lives. Until then, you have no clue what it's like to live as a gay man or woman in a judeo-christian society and shit like 'it should remain a classifiable mental illness' is just fucked up, back assward bullshit. I know you have your religious beliefs...but keep them the hell to yourself. Really, shut the fuck up.
I honestly can't believe this topic hasn't died. I'd never sit here and debate the right of a pregnant woman to get an abortion (a decidedly un-christian prqctice)...So please just ignore us and let us go about living a normal life, with all of the freedoms and liberties that you slef-righteously take for granted. Fuck...You cannot imagine how fucking irritated I am to come in here after so many months and see the same fucking assholes telling me what's right and wrong.
Here's a panel discussion from a few days back on the PBS News Hour, where four editorial page editors from major newspapers across the country, discuss recent court rulings regarding gay marriage : John Diaz of the San Francisco Chronicle; Bruce Dold of the Chicago Tribune; Michael Ryan of the Augusta Chronicle in Georgia; and Virginia Buckingham of the Boston Herald.
I find it interesting to observe a panel of what are arguably some of the most informed on the issue have to say, from both sides.
quote:God said homosexuality is an "abomination" and, for me, that is the bottom line.
Allow me to express a very remote hope: If the Almighty does exist, I hope He sends this ignorant, intolerant, unthinking, and ultimately malevolent hater to hell to burn.
quote:Originally posted by Jim Jackson: Dave TWB said: "I think the legitimizing of homosexuality and removing it from the list of psychological disorders is a mistake"
Thank goodness your opinion doesn't count.
I wish I could say "Thank goodness you have manners and a tolerance for opposing views" but obviously you don't.
I was discussing what psychologists within the APA --highly qualified people regarding psychological disorders, who feel their own trade organization is doing a dis-service to people who would benefit from counseling.
It's rather pointless of you, taking my discussion of the issue, and your re-directing it into a personal insult at me.
Although your posts reveal a consistent pattern toward personal insults, that contribute nothing to the issue itself.
That's really the problem, isn't it? Bible thumping conservative folks seem to forget the fact that it's not about the sexual act. It's about companionship...love for somone of the same sex. The actual sexual part of it is really irellevant. I love my boyfreind for who he is...character traits that are exclusively male.
And Dave, if you really wan't to trot out psychiatric bullshit, I'd suggest looking into ridiculous obsessions with shit that really has nothing to do with you. Let it go. We're not going away, but folks with such judgemental ideals as yourself really need to. Live your life as you need to and let us live ours. Your personal views are your own, and should be respected as such. Mine are eaqually valid...And if you really can't see that simple truth, then I'm sorry. Enjoy your bitter little life.
Dave TWB said: "I was discussing what psychologists within the APA --highly qualified people regarding psychological disorders, who feel their own trade organization is doing a dis-service to people who would benefit from counseling."
You were discussing perhaps SOME psychologists within the APA. It's a large organization, you know (having myself once been a member), and even it does not speak for all psychologists. In fact, not all psychologists working in the States are even members of the APA.
That SOME shrinks feel that SOME gays may benefit from counseling says...what? Very little, actually beyond personal opinion.
You have to understand about psychology and psychologists...and I should know, I have two degrees in the field...there is no unified theory at work in psychology. There are groups who have their own pet views of the world, and clinicians are the worst of that lot in that respect because so damned many of them are extremely removed from basic research into human behavior. They take their theory, assume its validity, and conduct their counseling and psychotherapeutic work on the basis of this theory. It can be argued that these clinicians are operating on little more than "gussied up personal opinion."
Dave, the thing is, in this discussion, we all know you have an agenda with this...you've argued that homosexuality is a violation of God's law based on biblical passages. What you're doing is obvious...you're trying to attach the supposed biblical evidence to an onstensible scientific context by saying that a few psychology types believe that gays can benefit from counseling and can even undergo orientation change.
Nice try. I have my doubts that anyone'll convince the bulk of psychologists that homosexuality is a mental/behavior "condition" deserved of treatment so long as the gay person lives a functional, reasonably contented life.
It's not about bitterness, much as you'd like to rationalize my opposition to gay marriage by assuming that I am.
It's about warping of values. Gays have the right to do whatever they want. All I ask is they do it behind closed doors, and don't harass the rest of us with what they believe.
But as the explanation I've given at length has detailed, tolerance of the gay lifestyle has just emboldened gays to push for more invasiveness and warping of mainstream values. It's not enough that gays can live together and be happy, and have spousal benefits and so forth, they have to force the rest of us to warp the long-standing definition of marriage from one man/one woman (a tradition as old as the human race), to whatever abberation of that rationalizes their gay lifestyle.
I get outraged by things that defy common sense.
I don't like seeing murderers go free.
I don't like people saying that if a nativity scene is put in front of a government building, it's an intolerable outrage, when Christianity is the foundation of this country's government, and the majority religion of its population.
And that a public school teacher can't even say "Merry Christmas" to her students, but instead has to say the more politically correct and neutral "happy holidays". Christianity is still the dominant religion in the U.S., but that is rapidly changing due to secularist anti-Christian forces in our culture, that try to re-write history and biasedly push Christianity out of the mainstream.
And similarly, it bugs the hell out of me when gays, about 2% or so of the U.S. population, and the liberals who support them who have a contempt for all things traditional, try to usurp the 98%majority and warp the definition of marriage out from under the rest of us. A deceitful few, usurping the majority, through misrepresentation and underhanded manipulation.
Permissiveness toward gays over the last 3 decades has only resulted in allowing gays to further pervert society, and allowed gays to demand even greater concessions from the mainstream. Threesomes, bisexuality, group sex, bondage, sado-masochism, an increasing array of illicit drugs, all these things are far more prevalent because of the tolerance of gays. And each new generation has an increasingly warped sense of what "normal" is, and a decreasing ability to see how our society is descending toward lawlessness, and on a path toward self-destruction.
Dave, the thing is, in this discussion, we all know you have an agenda with this...you've argued that homosexuality is a violation of God's law based on biblical passages. What you're doing is obvious...you're trying to attach the supposed biblical evidence to an onstensible scientific context by saying that a few psychology types believe that gays can benefit from counseling and can even undergo orientation change.
Nice try. I have my doubts that anyone'll convince the bulk of psychologists that homosexuality is a mental/behavior "condition" deserved of treatment so long as the gay person lives a functional, reasonably contented life.
Jim
Oh, right, I have "an agenda". EVERYONE has a set of beliefs, and therefore everyone making counter-points to me ALSO has "an agenda", including yourself. Your contempt for Christianity and conservative values in general is palpable, so arguably, you have an anti-traditional agenda. If you choose to look at it that way. I don't think I have "an agenda", I simply have values that I believe in, that I see maligned and circumvented by others who choose to have contempt for what I believe.
If the majority of psychologists cannot be convinced, it's only because political correctness bars the way, and psychologists who buck the pro-gay mainstream know they will pay a heavy price for it professionally, and see their reputation dragged through the mud.
(See the editorial from the editor of Psychology Today that I posted above, to see the type of crap any professional has to put up with, who even tries to honestly weigh the politically correct support of gay rights. It's a holy war on progress by gay activists, and pure intimidation of anyone who dares to question the Party Line. )
~
Captain Sammich, you're absolutely right about the apparent futility of being persistent. People believe what they want to believe. And anyone who dares to disagree is "hateful" and has "an agenda".
"If the majority of psychologists cannot be convinced, it's only because political correctness bars the way, and psychologists who buck the pro-gay mainstream know they will pay a heavy price for it professionally, and see their reputation dragged through the mud."
Convinced of what? You make it sound as though it's FACT that homosexuality is a mental illness deserved of treatment. Since it is not fact, there is nothing to convince psychologists about.
Doesn't the fact that there may be a "pro gay mainstream" say something about the possibility that homosexuality is not an illness? Do you see any obsessive-compulsive disorder mainstream out there trying to get OCD out of the DSM?
Yes, we all have personal beliefs, and psychology is certainly one discipline where those beliefs are held strongest because psychology is talking about the science of the human condition. No one will give up their pet theories of the human condition easily.
That said, on what basis are you arguing for benefit of treating homosexuality? Would you argue it's necessary for the gay person who is contented, functioning, and acting as a productive member of society? Or for the unhappy, malfunctioning gay person? If you argue for the second, hell, ANY shrink would say that that person can benefit from therapy, and their homosexuality may or may not have a damned thing to do with why they're presenting.
quote:Originally posted by Jim Jackson: "See the editorial from the editor of Psychology Today that I posted above"
PSYCHOLOGY TODAY is not a scholarly periodical. It's a popular magazine aimed at untrained readers.
The editors and journalists who write for the magazine are NOT untrained readers.
You might as well try to argue that TIME, OMNI, PLAYBOY and POPULAR MECHANICS are worthless news sources too, just because they publish articles aimed at the general public.
The people who write the articles are professional journalists and writers. And they investigate and interview professional sources.
"But as the explanation I've given at length has detailed, tolerance of the gay lifestyle has just emboldened gays to push for more invasiveness and warping of mainstream values. It's not enough that gays can live together and be happy, and have spousal benefits and so forth, they have to force the rest of us to warp the long-standing definition of marriage from one man/one woman (a tradition as old as the human race), to whatever abberation of that rationalizes their gay lifestyle. "
You do realize that homosexuality is as old as the human race?
quote:Originally posted by Jim Jackson: Yes, we all have personal beliefs, and psychology is certainly one discipline where those beliefs are held strongest because psychology is talking about the science of the human condition. No one will give up their pet theories of the human condition easily.
That said, on what basis are you arguing for benefit of treating homosexuality? Would you argue it's necessary for the gay person who is contented, functioning, and acting as a productive member of society? Or for the unhappy, malfunctioning gay person? If you argue for the second, hell, ANY shrink would say that that person can benefit from therapy, and their homosexuality may or may not have a damned thing to do with why they're presenting.
Jim
Someone can be happy smoking crack every day, but just because they're happy smoking crack doesn't mean they're not an addict, and would actually be happier if their root issues that led to their addiction were addressed.
"You might as well try to argue that TIME, OMNI, PLAYBOY and POPULAR MECHANICS are worthless news sources too, just because they publish articles aimed at the general public."
This is very interesting. That's twice in discussions with me in this forum that you've put words in my mouth. I never said big business was evil (in another forum) and I never said that PSYCH TODAY was worthless.
But it's not a scholarly journal. Things that get published in it do not have to adhere to the rigors that have to be maintained when trying to get a pub in a scholarly periodical.
"Someone can be happy smoking crack every day, but just because they're happy smoking crack doesn't mean they're not an addict, and would actually be happier if their root issues that led to their addiction were addressed."
You want to equate homosexuality with drug addiction? Drug addiction starts with a choice. Being gay does not.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: You might as well try to argue that TIME, OMNI, PLAYBOY and POPULAR MECHANICS are worthless news sources too, just because they publish articles aimed at the general public.
quote:Originally posted by Jim Jackson:
This is very interesting. That's twice in discussions with me in this forum that you've put words in my mouth. I never said big business was evil (in another forum) and I never said that PSYCH TODAY was worthless.
But it's not a scholarly journal. Things that get published in it do not have to adhere to the rigors that have to be maintained when trying to get a pub in a scholarly periodical.
Hope this helps.
Jim
I can't be blamed for your own lack of clarity. Clearly, you are dismissive to whatever degree of PSYCHOLOGY TODAY as a reliable source of information. You come back and act as if I jumped to some kind of outrageous conclusion.
Here's exactly what you said:
quote:Originally posted by Jim Jackson: "See the editorial from the editor of Psychology Today that I posted above"
PSYCHOLOGY TODAY is not a scholarly periodical. It's a popular magazine aimed at untrained readers.
You clearly imply some kind of deficiency in its quality of information. I didn't mistake anything.
In the other topic, you expressed a distrust of big business. I countered that big business builds our economy, and provides jobs and benefits to tens of millions.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: Someone can be happy smoking crack every day, but just because they're happy smoking crack doesn't mean they're not an addict, and would actually be happier if their root issues that led to their addiction were addressed.
quote:Originally posted by Jim Jackson: You want to equate homosexuality with drug addiction? Drug addiction starts with a choice. Being gay does not.
Believing that homosexuality is "not a choice" is an unproven belief system, as scientifically unproven as bleeding and alchemy.
Many others categorize homosexuality --as I said, including psychological professionals-- as a treatable obsessive-compulsive disorder, just as drug addiction, alcoholism, pedophilism, sado-masochism, gambling, and many other disorders are treatable.
And I hasten to add, that pedophilism and other psychological disorders are being pushed by psychologists to be removed from the list of psychological disorders ALSO , just as homosexuality has recently been. (see the top of page 23 of this topic for the linked article) That, to me, is quite telling, about just how "healthy" and psychologically normal homosexuality really is.
"Believing that homosexuality is "not a choice" is an unproven belief system, as scientifically unproven as bleeding and alchemy."
Just as unproven is that it's a choice. Of coure, I'm sure you discount any evidence that's been found that indicates brain differences between gays and straights. Yes, that line of research is still in its infancy, so we'll have to see where it leads. No conclusions yet.
?Many others categorize homosexuality --as I said, including psychological professionals-- as a treatable obsessive-compulsive disorder, just as drug addiction, alcoholism, pedophilism, sado-masochism, gambling, and many other disorders are treatable."
How many? Seriously, poll all the shrinks and let's see some numbers.
"And I hasten to add, that pedophilism and other psychological disorders are being pushed by psychologists to be removed from the list of psychological disorders"
Of course you hasten to add this.
Name the shrinks pushing for pedophilism being pushed from the DSM. Name them! Goddamn it, name them! Stop indicting an entire profession based on a few fucks. Jesus, there are always a few crackpots everywhere...
Just keep your fucking homophobia to yourself. You don't want gays throwing their lives in your face, please do the rest of us the same favor!
No, not meant as an insult. You said earlier you'd like it if gays kept what they do with each other behind closed doors. IOW, you don't want to have to deal with it. OK, let's make the reverse happen. YOU do the same thing. Keep your dislike for gays out of everybody else's face.
And I hasten to add, that pedophilism and other psychological disorders are being pushed by psychologists to be removed from the list of psychological disorders
quote:Originally posted by Jim Jackson:
Of course you hasten to add this.
Name the shrinks pushing for pedophilism being pushed from the DSM. Name them! Goddamn it, name them! Stop indicting an entire profession based on a few fucks. Jesus, there are always a few crackpots everywhere...
Just keep your fucking homophobia to yourself. You don't want gays throwing their lives in your face, please do the rest of us the same favor!
Man, I love the name-calling. When you can't disprove what I say, you just slap on a dismissive label, and avoid dealing with the logic of what I'm saying.
The article that names names of who is pushing legitimizing pedophilism is in my top few posts on page 23 of this topic, as I said.
And I'm sure homosexuality's push for normalization within the psychological community began "based on a few f---s" as well. And gradually gained legitimacy. The fact that the psychological association will even LISTEN to an argument for normalization of pedophilism speaks volumes.
You just try to keep your denial of the facts and your rabid anti-conservatism in check, and remember that it's a free country, and I have just as much right to express my views as you do. Especially since the view of homosexuality I'm voicing is held by a majority, and that the pro-gay lobby in this country, however large, is still a minority.
It is not your right, as a minority view, to tell a majority that they don't have a right to their beliefs, and a right to VOICE those beliefs.
"Homophopia" translates to: trying to shut me up, and others who share my views, by using slanderous and dismissive labels.
"It is not your right, as a minority view, to tell a majority that they don't have a right to their beliefs, and a right to VOICE those beliefs."
Fine. You voice your beliefs that you feel are in a majority. This is America.
But I can tell you this...on a personal level, I am making sure that my children recognize bigots like you who want to cloak yourself in the Bible and pseudoscience to push your agenda of hate.
And the obligation of the majority is not to trod all over the minority. This is America.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: All I ask is they do it behind closed doors, and don't harass the rest of us with what they believe.
That's exactly what I want. Take your own advice for once. Please.
quote:Originally posted by Jim Jackson: And I'll take being a jerk over being a narrow-minded, bigoted fascist any day.
You Christians sure turn the other cheek well, don't ya? One more phoney.
JJ
I believe "fascist" would apply to those who repress all dissent to impose their own rules. That would be your side.
Love the cheap shots and insults. You seem oblivious to the hypocrisy of your own repressive views toward those who don't share your opinion. Which would, of course, make YOU the true phony.
quote:Originally posted by Jim Jackson:
quote:Dave the Wonder Boy:
Ah, back to personal insults.
No, not meant as an insult. You said earlier you'd like it if gays kept what they do with each other behind closed doors. IOW, you don't want to have to deal with it. OK, let's make the reverse happen. YOU do the same thing. Keep your dislike for gays out of everybody else's face.
Oh, I guess all the other profanity and character assassination wasn't meant as insult either?
You guys seem to feel that as long as you rip on conservatives and people who disagree with your views, THAT is freedom of expression and democracy.
But as soon as I or anyone else voices a counter-viewpoint of dissent, then we need to be shut up and silenced. You guys would make great communists.
You seem oblivious to the fact that what you advocate is VERY much in my face, and stomps on the values of myself and a majority, who see a decadent and corrosive influence on American --and global-- culture, based on the wrongheaded acceptance of the perversion that you advocate.
As I said, the level of sexual decadence and vulgarity in our popular culture is a direct result of the American society's acceptance of gay culture and other sexual abberations to the level that they're accepted already, over the last 30 years. And there's never a point of satiation for liberals, it's always more, more, more. Even as the destructiveness of what has ALREADY been accepted is quite evident. Drugs. Promiscuous sex. Increasingly prevalent group sex. Teen pregnancy. Sexually transmitted diseases. High school shootings. Ever increasing divorce rates and single parenting. Rampant and pointless cynicism, exemplified by "Goth" and other subcultures. And just an unbearably rude and vulgar culture.
I don't know how you can rationalize further reforms, based on the obvious destructiveness of what's already occurred. I should be calling YOU names.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: You guys seem to feel that as long as you rip on conservatives and peole who disagree with your views, THAT is freedom of expression and democracy.
No...It's you who's twisting my intent. I was merely pointing out (for at least the 4th time in this "discusion") that you seem to feel that your definition of morality is the definitive, all powerful measuring stick. That's just not the case. You want me to live my life behind closed doors and out of your face. I want you to keep your opinions and beliefs behind your doors. Feel free to think what you want about me and others like me. Just do not expect to impose your definition of right and wrong upon me. How can you not see the absolute arrogance of your stance? You say I'd make a good communist...but you my friend make a damned fine nazi.
quote:Originally posted by Jim Jackson: "It is not your right, as a minority view, to tell a majority that they don't have a right to their beliefs, and a right to VOICE those beliefs."
Fine. You voice your beliefs that you feel are in a majority. This is America.
But I can tell you this...on a personal level, I am making sure that my children recognize bigots like you who want to cloak yourself in the Bible and pseudoscience to push your agenda of hate.
And the obligation of the majority is not to trod all over the minority. This is America.
Yeah. As long as you get to shut out all opposing views and hijack American culture with your own beliefs, this "is America".
You're clearly bigoted and stereotyping of any views that oppose your own.
If you had your way, I and those who share my beleifs would have no representation, and you could just railroad your own agenda right over us, and to hell with our rights. God knows, if your side hasn't shut us out, it isn't for the lack of trying. I'd say the term "bigot" is more applicable to your side, who can't even have a reasoned discussion of both sides of the issue without getting ugly, vicious, and vulgar.
Us conservatives at least respectfully listen to what you have to say. You liberals want to deprive us of even having a voice, because you oppose what we have to say.
I'm allowed to have an opinion, as long as I can't voice it, right?
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: You guys seem to feel that as long as you rip on conservatives and peole who disagree with your views, THAT is freedom of expression and democracy.
No...It's you who's twisting my intent. I was merely pointing out (for at least the 4th time in this "discusion") that you seem to feel that your definition of morality is the definitive, all powerful measuring stick. That's just not the case. You want me to live my life behind closed doors and out of your face. I want you to keep your opinions and beliefs behind your doors. Feel free to think what you want about me and others like me. Just do not expect to impose your definition of right and wrong upon me. How can you not see the absolute arrogance of your stance? You say I'd make a good communist...but you my friend make a damned fine nazi.
YOU'RE the one representing the 2% who is trying to change the definition of marriage out from under the 98% majority.
YOU'RE the one trying to not only live your life the way you want, but to pass laws that change my ability to practice my lifestyle and force me to accept a standard of "marriage" that is in polar opposition to what the Bible clearly states.
I'd be content (and was for 10 years) to allow spousal benefits for gays, and a don't-ask-don't-tell policy for gays in the military. That was the balance for 10 years. But that's not good enough for your kind.
BWe see that gays and liberals are not content with a balance where conservatives and gays both get to practice what we believe, you have to force a national standard that forces your beliefs on ALL of us ! I ask you : which side has proven to be intolerant of a balance?
And when you cross that line, to hell with you. I don't support ANY rights for gays now, because it's clearly just a beach-head from which to push ever-increasing concessions from the mainstream.
Any concession of rights just results in ever increasing push for greater permissiveness, greater decadence. And greater loss of freedom for conservatives.
Basically you feel that you have a right to attack conservatives and push for gay rights (i.e., greater decadence). But that conservatives should "just shut up" and take it, and don't have a right to respond, or even voice a counter-argument. You clearly have a very warped concept of democracy.
You know Dave...you're so right. I don't know how I didn't see it before. You're right to live your life as you choose without having to make concesions for others is far more important than my right to enjoy the same rights and freedoms as the rest of society. Fuck...I can't believe I'm being so bloody selfish, wanting equal rights and all when you're opinion is so much more important. Thank you for opening my eyes.
I was speaking in the general sense. I'm sure there are conservatives who would disagree with me, and liberals who would disagree with Jim Jackson and Klinton.
Traditionally, gay rights is a liberal issue, and opposing it is a conservative issue. I think we're all grown up enough to know there isn't 100% consensus on either side, or any side.
I'll limit my comments to those who have expressed views here and elsewhere, who are clearly activist for one side or the other.
quote:Originally posted by klinton: You know Dave...you're so right. I don't know how I didn't see it before. You're right to live your life as you choose without having to make concesions for others is far more important than my right to enjoy the same rights and freedoms as the rest of society. Fuck...I can't believe I'm being so bloody selfish, wanting equal rights and all when you're opinion is so much more important. Thank you for opening my eyes.
You've had a right to your lifestyle for at least 10 years. Why push it now to include "gay marriage" and force your beliefs unnecessarily on the rest of us, who clearly disagree with your lifestyle?
THE PROBLEM is that you're not content to live as you want to, but that you force the rest of us to accept and agree with it. And force the rest of us to accept a decadent standard that clearly contradicts the Bible (see verses), and what we know to be right. Is this a necessary "freedom"? Or is it in fact an imposition and an attack on conservative beliefs and religion? You can rationalize it all you want, but you know the answer.
I was content to let gays have their rights, but now they've gone beyond the right to live as they want, and instead imposed their beliefs on the rest of us.
Listen to what you are saying. I'm simply saying the same thing from the other side of the coin...Why is it that I should be limited by your beliefs? Really, why? You sit here and say that I'm imposing my lifestyle on you, when all you are trying to do is impooe yours on me. I don't agree with your value system, or your interpretation of scripture....why should my rights be limited by your religious convictions? It's been pointed out before in here that marriage is a far older institution than Chrristianity, and as it exists today is in itsef a skewed version of the origional intention...why can it not be changed further to accomodate me?
"I'd be content (and was for 10 years) to allow spousal benefits for gays, and a don't-ask-don't-tell policy for gays in the military. That was the balance for 10 years. But that's not good enough for your kind."
You have outed yourself. You hate those who do not conform to your Bible thumping way of life. You've already said that Islam is the enemy.
My god, you are an insular, pathetic creature, if what you say here is any indication of the kind of human being you are.
Gays have been able to live together and work without persecution for at least 10 years.
But you're not content with that, you try to force your own concept of "gay marriage" (blatantly contadictory to the Bible, and also to 6000 years of marriage tradition across every culture), and impose that definition against the grain of the other 98% of the population.
You HAVE the ability to be gay, and live and work as a gay person without persecution. But you choose to push way beyond that, and urinate on the sacred ground of those who would otherwise let you do whatever you want.
To impose your decadent and perverse standard of "marriage" on the rest of us is the height of arrogance. I've explained at length previously the definition of marriage in the Bible, and its significance as a symbol of purity and loyalty, and a sacred bond that is symbolic of Christ's relation to the collective Christian church, described as "The Bride". The concept of "gay marriage" is a clear perversion of that. And thus warps the whole concept of purity and Christianity.
And thus "gay marriage" is a clear attack on Judao-Christian values. That goes way beyond "the right to be gay".
quote:Originally posted by Jim Jackson: "I'd be content (and was for 10 years) to allow spousal benefits for gays, and a don't-ask-don't-tell policy for gays in the military. That was the balance for 10 years. But that's not good enough for your kind."
You have outed yourself. You hate those who do not conform to your Bible thumping way of life. You've already said that Islam is the enemy.
My god, you are an insular, pathetic creature, if what you say here is any indication of the kind of human being you are.
More insults. To rationalize your own anger and ignorance toward those who don't believe as you do. You seem oblivious to the fact that I allow for a balance between Christian and gay rights, but that gay rights has crossed a line that infringes on MY rights.
What an insular, pathetic excuse for a human being YOU are, that you need to lash out with this kind of venom at those who disagree with you. Truly, you are so closed minded that you can't even hear an opposing viewpoint, no matter how respectfully voiced, without lashing out like this.
Aww, I'm being too nice. Certainly, your antagonism deserves a backlash deconstructing precisely what an angry and intolerant piece of human crap you are. Who in your intolerance and vindictiveness, has the audacity to call ME intolerant.
You're just annoyed that I can even voice an opposing view. And like so many liberals, you need to slander, box-categorize, and otherwise dismiss anything that opposes your own views. Because after all, you're a liberal, and you have all the answers, if these conservatives would just shup up and take it. Damn them for daring to have a dissenting opinion, and even worse, one that makes sense.
Like I said, your ideal is a liberal police state, where any conservative opinion --opinion, mind you, just opinion-- is a hate-crime, and too vile to even be permitted to be spoken.
Why can't we argue over who's gonna do what in the playoffs like normal human beings?
:lol:
Can't we all just step off our soapboxes for a minute and go do something fun??? This thread has been open for far too long. For the love of Rob, somebody close the damn thing! :lol:
Y'know, barring further comments, I'm content to let it go.
If the comments were not of such a personal nature, I would have responsed less. It should be enough that I state my perspective of the issue, and klinton or Jim Jackson or whoever states their perspective of the issue, that both sides are stated, and that's the end of it.
I don't understand why it's so necessary to call me names, to personally insult me, just because I hold a different perspective than they do. I'm constantly amazed at their inability to simply discuss the issue, as opposed to angrily trying to discredit and insult me.
Dave, I have tried to state dissenting opinion to what you've said. I've given you reasons to reconsider what you've said, but you don't want to. You're content to operate that a few in the APA means all of them, you're content to accept that being gay is a choice (despite any scientific evidence supporting it). I've given you reason to be skeptical of clinical psychologists in general, but you'll accept what they say if it supports you.
Ok, you can pick and choose.
I'm pretty much done with this argument. As I've said in other forums, you're just not worth it.
quote:Originally posted by Dave the Wonder Boy: It should be enough that I state my perspective of the issue, and klinton or Jim Jackson or whoever states their perspective of the issue, that both sides are stated, and that's the end of it.
One last comment...To you it's just an issue, to me it's my life, People like you sit on your soap box and preach your morality...telling me that the core of my being is somehow immoral. It's not just an issue Dave. I cannot simply state an opinon and let it go. If I sat here and told you that you cannot possibly meet a girl and marry her, because that is against my moral code, you too would be outraged. How can I ignore people like you? How can I agree with you? I am not asking you to foresake your beliefs. I'm asking that you make room for other people that don't share them...is that really so wrong? Is that really some 'evil force' trying to undermine your faith? You are free to go on living your life as you see fit...But I too should be allowed the same freedom. Can't you see this?
I will add to klinton...it's my life too. I am a gay man myself (and yes, my children are biological ones). So, it's not simply "an issue." It's about life.
To have you sit there and say or insinuate that being gay or bi is a kind of mental illness deserved of treatment is not something that sits easily with me...or with others, I'm sure.
And I AM a psychologist. I have a trained insight into how the discipline works, how the APA is not fully representative, how a few shrinks may feel that pedophilia is normal behavior (I am presuming you're referring to NMBLA), and how many clinical types in general operate from their pet theory as if it were e=mc2.
Please give some credence to what I say, because I have knowledge that's beyond my "anti-conservative" thing that you've hung on me.
I don't exactly see how gay marriage would be forced on anyone. If it was made legal, as a straight man I don't think I would in any way be forced to marry another man.
Marriage exists outside of religion (I may get married oneday, I dn't intend it to be in a church), if your church starts performing gay marriage, then it affects your religion. Otherwise I don't see how it's anyone elses business.
This is a horse that has died many times! It's like a gay Canadian version of SeaBiscuit!
I think views are changing not because of some moral degradation but because gays are not hiding anymore & there is less ignorance about homosexuality. Gays were a bit of a boogie man & it's so easy to fear or ascribe traits to something like that. Now it's harder to do because Joe Average is much more likely to know somebody who is gay. That gay person may be a jerk or a nice guy but either way it's a person that very unlikely fits the stereotype an opposing side likes to advocate.
I wouldn't mind getting married to my boyfriend. Considering we've been together for over 13 yrs, I think most people would agree we should have some legal protections. It's actually pretty nice seeing even the dissenting posters agree on that. Dave the Wonder Boy you bring up some pretty ugly imagery in respect to how gay marriage affects you & your religion but beyond that, where does it actually affect it? Even if/when gay marriages became legal in this country, your church certainly wouldn't be forced to have them. It would be like forcing a Baptist Church to perform a Jewish ceremony- not going to happen. So your right's remain unchanged.
A step back to the dark ages and tribute to one who brought a bit of enlightenment in a sea of ingnorance and hatred. I think Jim will appreciate this story.
quote:December 20, 2003
OBITUARIES Judd Marmor, 93; Helped End Classification of Gays as Ill
By Elaine Woo, Times Staff Writer
Dr. Judd Marmor, whose criticism of the belief that homosexuality was a mental disorder made him an important ally in the gay struggle to force American psychiatry to change its views, died Tuesday at UCLA Medical Center after a short illness. He was 93.
Marmor, a longtime resident of Los Angeles who taught for many years at UCLA and USC, played a prominent role in the successful 1973 campaign to remove homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the authoritative compendium of mental illnesses maintained by the American Psychiatric Assn.
The decision, highly controversial at the time, was seen later as a landmark in the history of the gay and lesbian rights movement, which considered the illness theory of homosexuality the major stumbling block in the modern struggle for gay rights.
Marmor, as one of a handful of prominent, heterosexual psychiatrists who joined gay activists in challenging the theory, was "one of the foreparents of the movement," Ronni Sanlo, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center at UCLA, said in an interview this week.
"It couldn't have happened without that change in the APA," she said.
Marmor's death came a day after the 30th anniversary of the American Psychiatric Assn.'s vote to "depathologize" homosexuality, which took place Dec. 15, 1973.
Widely respected as an analyst and scholar, he published more than 350 papers and wrote or edited six books, including the classic text "Modern Psychoanalysis," originally published in 1968.
He also was known for his research on why therapy works, which showed that factors such as trust and empathy had more to do with successful outcomes in psychotherapy than any particular theoretical approach, such as Freudian or Jungian analysis.
In later years, he was an advocate of group and family therapy and spoke of the benefits of short-term treatment versus lifelong analysis.
An avid tennis player into his 90s who saw patients until just before his death, Marmor saw his influence reach into the ranks of daily newspaper readers as a longtime advisor to Abigail Van Buren, who wrote the "Dear Abby" column and was one of the first national figures to support gay rights. He later advised her daughter, Jeanne Phillips, when she took over the enterprise in the late 1980s.
"If Mom had a question about homosexuality or other behavior, she would ask him," Phillips said Friday. "You could call Judd up and he would answer your questions very sweetly and very thoroughly."
Marmor was born in 1910 in London, the son of a Yiddish scholar. He grew up in Chicago and later moved to New York. With odd jobs and debating scholarships, he supported himself through Columbia University.
He began a psychiatric practice in New York after earning his medical degree from Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1933.
In 1946, after serving in the Navy during World War II, he moved to Los Angeles, where psychoanalysis was coming into vogue, and gained prominence as an analyst to Hollywood celebrities.
He served as director of the psychiatry division at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center from 1965 to 1972, then launched an academic career at USC, where he was the Franz Alexander Professor of Psychiatry from 1972 to 1980. From 1980 to 1985, he was adjunct professor of psychiatry at UCLA.
Marmor had begun to treat homosexual patients who wanted to change their sexual orientation in the 1940s. Like most of his colleagues, he believed that psychoanalysis could help them change. But, as he told historian Eric Marcus in the book "Making History: The Struggle for Gay and Lesbian Equal Rights, 1945-1990," "I wasn't too successful."
What eventually changed Marmor's views were his clinical experiences with gay patients and later his social interactions with closeted gays who had successful careers. He gradually reached the conclusion that "psychoanalysts didn't know enough gay people outside the treatment community who were happy with their lives, who were satisfied and well-adjusted," he told Marcus.
Marmor said: "If we made our judgments about the mental health of heterosexuals only from the patients we saw in our office, we'd have to assume that all heterosexuals were mentally disturbed."
Marmor also was influenced by the groundbreaking research of Evelyn Hooker, a UCLA psychologist who in 1957 published the first empirical study to challenge the view of homosexuality as an illness. In her research, she found no measurable psychological difference between heterosexual and homosexual men.
Her study buttressed Marmor's clinical observations that homosexuality was not pathological. He asked Hooker to write a chapter for his first book on homosexuality, "Sexual Inversion," published in 1965. She in turn recruited him for a task force on homosexuality sponsored by the National Institute of Mental Health in 1969, and they often lectured together to dispel the notion that homosexuality was a sickness.
Marmor and Hooker, however, were "voices in the wilderness," said Franklin E. Kameny, a scientist and gay activist who was at the forefront of the fight to change the psychiatric orthodoxy on homosexuality.
Marmor's convictions about the normality of homosexuality emerged against a backdrop of growing activism by gay and lesbian people. A series of national protests by gay activists had culminated in the Stonewall riots in 1969 in New York City. In 1970, activists disrupted the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Assn. in San Francisco, which led in 1971 to the first address by gay people given at a meeting of the eminent group.
In 1972, a gay psychiatrist made a dramatic presentation at the association's Dallas convention. Wearing a mask and identifying himself only as "Dr. H. Anonymous," he was joined on the panel by Kameny, longtime lesbian activist Barbara Gittings and two straight psychiatrists: Robert Seidenburg and Marmor, who was then vice president of the association.
The disguised psychiatrist shocked many members of the group who did not realize that policies they had endorsed for 100 years discriminated against some of their own.
That same year, Marmor wrote in an article published in the International Journal of Psychiatry: "I submit that the entire assumption that homosexual behavior per se is 'unnatural' or 'unhealthy' is a moral judgment and has no basis in fact."
His views were denounced by classical psychoanalysts, who insisted that homosexuality was deviant behavior rooted in unhealthy family relationships. The issue of whether to remove homosexuality from the diagnostic manual was so contentious that it was placed before the full membership, which in late 1973 adopted the resolution in a split vote. Marmor became association president the following year.
The action set in motion a transformation of attitudes toward homosexuality. The American Psychological Assn. adopted a position similar to that of the American Psychiatric Assn. shortly afterward, and policies opposing anti-gay discrimination were embraced by other major national groups, such as the National Education Assn. and the American Bar Assn.
The elimination of homosexuality from the list of mental disorders was crucial in breaking down other barriers, Kameny said Friday.
"You don't give rights to and equality to loonies. That was the situation," he said. Changing the psychiatric view of homosexuals "took away part of the basis for belittling and disparaging us and our efforts as people. It was one of the single most important events in the modern history of the gay movement." He remembered Marmor as "an effective combatant in our corner of the battle."
Marmor's role in eliminating homosexuality from the official lists of psychopathologies is often forgotten, according to Marcus. "If you asked gay people who he is, most would have no idea," Marcus said in an interview from his home in New York City.
"But gay people all over the country have benefited from his work," he said. "Many of them have been saved from horrible psychological damage because of his leadership efforts to change the official listing."
Marmor is survived by his son, Stanford University ophthalmology professor Michael F. Marmor; a granddaughter, Andrea K. Marmor of San Francisco; and a grandson, David J. Marmor of Los Angeles.
Encouraged to collect art by his wife, Katherine, who died in 1999, Marmor lent and contributed many of his artworks to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. His family requests that any memorial donations be sent to those museums.
quote:Originally posted by britneyspearsatemyshorts: Dave you've got the ladies in an uproar!
Ha ! Don't I, though.
I initially just responded to a point, and went through two topic pages addressing the off-topic insults and allegations against my character, for simply voicing logical objections to the gay perspective, and how it treads on my beliefs. Ultimately, all I did was offer the counter-view, from the conservative/mainstream perspective.
I definitely take exception to the view by Klinton that gays having a right to marriage "doesn't affect" me, as a non-gay.
On the contrary, as I've detailed repeatedly, it changes the definition of marriage and the integrity of Christianity, if our culture permits gay marriage. If gays are recognized as a "legitimate" minority, then a Christian who owns a business doesn't have the right to not hire a gay person whose lifestyle they don't agree with. A Christian apartment building owner doesn't have the right to refuse a lease to gays whose lifestyle he doesn't want to endorse or associate with. And ULTIMATELY, Christian parents attempting to raise their children teaching them Biblical principles, don't have the ability to prevent public schools from teaching a contradictory values system about homosexuality, without public school teachers and the entire system undermining the core values these parents are trying to teach their children.
And as britney said to Animalman's post about the CBS opinion poll on the previous topic page, that says 40% of America is okay with gay marriage. All that shows is the liberal/pro-gay propaganda already in britney's words "your influence is growing", and have swayed a whole generation away from the true Biblical perspective.
And as I said, to even quote Biblical verses that say homosexuality is immoral, can ALREADY be considered a "hate crime" in Canada. If that's not an infringement on freedom of religion, then I don't know what is. So much for gay rights not affecting me.
And, bottom line, Christians (and others who don't share an enthusiasm for the gay lifestyle, and there are many) lose the ability to preserve their culture because of government interference. Because liberals are hell-bent on promoting decadence and anarchy, as the end result of their confused definition of "tolerance".
quote:Originally posted by Animalman: Yeah, ok, maybe I'm kicking a dead horse here, but there was one point made that I feel compelled to contend, it's an itch I have to scratch:
quote: posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
YOU'RE the one representing the 2% who is trying to change the definition of marriage out from under the 98% majority.
Not quite, Dave. As I said in the other thread, it's actually more like 40%, and those numbers have shown growth over the last few decades.
....that's all I wanted to say.
Here are the details of the survey poll you linked:
quote: CBS news poll:
NEW YORK, July 30, 2003
(CBS) Just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a Texas law banning sodomy, more Americans object to legal marriage for homosexuals than support it.
In the latest CBS News/New York Times poll, 55 percent would oppose a law allowing homosexual couples to marry, giving them the same legal rights as other married couples, while 40 percent would favor such a law.
GAY MARRIAGE Favor 40% Oppose 55%
Republicans hold particularly strong views against gay marriage: 71 percent of them oppose it, and 27 percent favor it. Democrats and Independents are more evenly divided; 45 percent of Democrats support it, as do 45 percent of Independents.
Younger people are much more likely than older Americans to support gay marriage. Sixty-one percent of 18- to 29-year-olds favor it; that drops to just 18 percent among people 65 and older.
Opposition to gay marriage is strong among conservatives (71 percent oppose it), blacks (63 percent) and Protestants (64 percent). Catholics also oppose it, though by a smaller margin than the entire population; 44 percent favor it and 50 percent oppose it.
There are no real differences between men and women on this issue.
____________________________________ This poll was conducted among a nationwide random sample of 3,092 adults interviewed by telephone July 13-27, 2003. The error due to sampling could be plus or minus two percentage points for results based on the entire sample.
I'll assume (and that's a big assumption) that the poll is an accurate representation of American public opinion.
As britney already said on the last page of this topic regarding gays, "your influence is growing! ", and that 40% approval number is the end result of three decades of liberal propaganda that have corroded public opinion, which has solicited a more politically correct passive response in those taking the survey.
It's ALSO not 40% of the public in this survey that endorses and embraces the gay lifestyle, it's 40% of people saying yeah, sure whatever, let them marry if they want to. So it's still 2% of the population who is gay and wants to change the definition of marriage -vs- the definition of marriage as one-man/one-woman that works for the other 98% who are heterosexual.
But again, that's assuming the survey can even be trusted to be an accurate representation of what our nation truly thinks. (As the poll says, just over 3,000 people were surveyed for their opinion, out of a U.S. population of 290 million people. And as others have said, the way questions are asked in a poll can get the kind of answers someone wants. )
And again, as I said prior, regarding it being "a small group of psychologists" lobbying for homosexuality to again be categorized as a mental illness, as Jim Jackson alleges, it is again political correctness that keeps many psychologists from objecting, since any psychologist will have their name dragged through the mud for holding or publicly supporting such a politically incorrect view.
Again, the links at the top of page 23 show what happened to the editor of PSYCHOLOGY TODAY, who lays out his liberal credentials and says he was trashed for simply making an objective inquiry to prove or disprove that homosexuality is a healthy state of mind. Even asking the question is an outrage, for which liberals and the gay community will trash someone for even attempting to objectively address.
Here is another one that argues why Epstein was wrong (He didn't merely ask a question but accepted an advertisement for a book telling parents that they can change their children's sexual orientation)
Psychology Today is a respected magazine and a leader in the field of psychology. It is successful because it focuses on factual information, credible research and respectable work. Unfortunately, NARTH does not meet any of the criteria or high standards usually set by Psychology Today. HRC would like to inform you about NARTH's work so you can better judge whether the magazine wants to associate with their harmful efforts.
There are four main issues here. The first is whether NARTH is a reputable organization that is truthful and accurately represents gay life. The second is whether NARTH's political activity clouds its work. The third issue is NARTH's offering a platform to people with dangerous views. And the final issue is the harmful, bizarre techniques endorsed by NARTH's leaders.
I. NARTH Misrepresents Gay Life
On the first issue the evidence is clear. NARTH uses base stereotypes and misrepresentations of gay life to lure and retain its clients. Consider the following quotes from NARTH's Dr. Nicolosi:
* "I do not believe that any man can ever be truly at peace in living out a homosexual orientation," says Nicolosi in his book, Reparative Therapy in Male Homosexuality: A New Clinical Approach.
* "I think the homosexual condition has certain limitations to it," he once remarked on CNBC's Equal Time. "I think that two men in a relationship have difficulty and two women would have difficulty where there is a certain compatibility between male and female."
* According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Nicolosi once told a crowd at an anti-gay seminar that gay men are "disconnected" from other people and live in an unreal world and that's why they like theatre.
* "Homosexual men are twice as more likely to sexually molest than the heterosexual man. And then let's think about it for a moment, let's look at this heterosexual man who sexually molests a homosexual boy. How do you define homosexual or heterosexual? Is he a homosexual or is he heterosexual. Well he might be married, but so what don't gays themselves say 'we are everywhere?' Is he homosexual or is he heterosexual? One of the best ways to define a person's identity is by his behavior and let me get this straight, you're having sex with a boy, hmmm, two penises, now is that homosexual or heterosexual, this is how absurd it becomes. I said the word penis, they'll have to edit that out." (Nicolosi at ex-gay conference in Atlanta, October 2001)
Dr. Epstein, I'm sure you would agree that there are many openly gay people who are happy and have found peace in their lives. Nicolosi's attempt at tying gay people to child sexual abuse is also reprehensible and not consistent with the scientific facts. Therefore, Nicolosi's statements are unscientific, clearly biased and an imposition of his own values at the expense of the truth, if not his clients' mental health. This type of bias, stereotyping and antipathy towards a group is usually absent from Psychology Today and endorsing it now would set a bad precedent.
II. NARTH's Work Clouded By Politics
On the second point, NARTH is a group tied to virulently anti-gay political organizations, such as Focus on the Family. Many of their statements reflect strident political judgments, rather than measured scienti
fic opinions. For example, consider the following statements: * "It [homosexuality] is a purple menace that is threatening the proper design of gender distinctions in society," said former NARTH President Charles Socarides.
* "Militant gay advocates working in a small but forceful network have caused apathy and confusion in American society," said Nicolosi in his book.
* Prominent members of NARTH have lobbied government against laws that would protect gay and lesbian Americans against job discrimination.
As you can see, the rhetoric used by NARTH has more in common with a direct mail fundraising letter from Rev. Jerry Falwell, than it does with the pages of Psychology Today.
III. NARTH's Dangerous Ideologues
On the third point, NARTH has given a platform to scientists who offer peculiar views about homosexuality. Consider the following statement from one of NARTH's favorite doctors:
* "When we consider that there is no objective distinction between homosexuality and the other perversions, we can easily see how the development of the homosexual 'habit' fits into this framework (of cures through medication)," wrote Jeffrey Satinover in his book Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth. "Some...are being successfully treated with Prozac..."
Another NARTH contributor is Holocaust revisionist Scott Lively, co-author of The Pink Swastika, a book partially blaming gays for the Holocaust.
* "The Pink Swastika will show that there was far more brutality, torture and murder committed against innocent people by Nazi deviants and homosexuals than there ever was against homosexuals," wrote Lively in his book.
IV. NARTH's Bizarre Techniques and Theories
Finally, NARTH's leaders have some bizarre theories and techniques that are unscientific and may harm patients:
* Nicolosi theorizes, "Non-homosexual men who experience defeat and failure may also experience homosexual fantasies or dreams."
* Nicolosi seems to blame any mental health issue a gay person might have on his or her sexuality. In his book he faults one man's "fear of tall bridges" on the clients sexual orientation. Anther client's "phobia of the phone" is somehow traced back to his homosexuality. Nicolosi even says gay men are more likely to be "pee shy" and have trouble urinating in public places.
* Nicolosi's patients, most controversially, can be as young as 3 years old.
* NARTH's leading trainer is Richard Cohen. One of Cohen's methods for a patient to achieve heterosexuality is retrieving "intrauterine memories". This is where clients are induced into having flashbacks, remembering traumatic events that happened while they were in the mother's womb.
As long as prejudice and violence against gay people exists in society, there will be a few gay men and lesbians who try to avoid discrimination by attempting to change their sexual orientation. These tormented individuals often fear coming out will mean rejection by family and friends, as well as withering condemnation in their house of worship.
There are groups, unfortunately, who are in the business of exploiting these vulnerable and desperate people by peddling false hope and illusive cures for homosexuality. We hope Psychology Today will continue to support only legitimate organizations and not embrace politically motivated, scientifically bankrupt groups such as NARTH. If you have any questions, please contact me and we can discuss this issue further.
Sincerely, Wayne Besen Deputy Director of Communications Human Rights Campaign
You offer no evidence of larger numbers of Psychologists that support your views but are essentially afraid of what a 2% percent miniority will say about them. It's just not a logical argument. You also need to ignore the various groups actively working to turn back the clock on gay rights with lots of money, a huge audience & lobbyists. On a personal note, some of the most fucked up gay people I've known came from parents who would not accept a gay child.
You can also do a simple Google search & find people who did the thearapy & read how well it worked or not.
"On the contrary, as I've detailed repeatedly, it changes the definition of marriage and the integrity of Christianity, if our culture permits gay marriage."
Dave, this statement seems to presume that Christianity holds marriage as singularly belonging to that faith.
Of course, that's wholly absurd and erroneous.
Your Christo-centrism is astonishing.
You have presented "logical" counterpoints to the "gay perspective" yet refuse to see that anyone else can present equally logical counterpoints to you.
"And again, as I said prior, regarding it being "a small group of psychologists" lobbying for homosexuality to again be categorized as a mental illness, as Jim Jackson alleges, it is again political correctness that keeps many psychologists from objecting, since any psychologist will have their name dragged through the mud for holding or publicly supporting such a politically incorrect view."
Refresh me, then, on why it is that you are saying that any shrink who disagrees with this pro-gay perspective will be intra-professionally discredited. How do you know this? You are not in the profession of psychologists, so how can you know this?
And if MOST psychologists would disagree with someone taking an anti-gay stance...what is wrong with that? Is it perhaps MOST psychologists no longer think it's appropriate as mental health professionals and students of the science of human behavior to label homosexuality a mental illness?
If you've presented "reason" why earlier, I apologize...I am not going back and re-reading a 25 page thread. If you'd be so kind as to clarify it again, I'd be grateful.
I've gone back and read Epstein's piece that Dave cited.
Interesting.
No doubt assessing the factual status of homosexuality-as-mental-illness is a political issue as well as a scientific one. No doubt one that will remain so. Remember what I said earlier about psychologists holding on to their theories because their theories "tell" them what it means to be a human being. This is part of it.
If a gay person wishes to attempt some sort of conversion therapy, that's fine. That in and of itself does not constitute evidence that homosexuality is a mental illness.
Sitting here, in my own head, I do feel that I am mentally ill. I just feel that I feel things differently that str8s do.
Good God. You guys are just amazing, your obsession with smothering any dissent of your views.
While I may not be a psychologist or part of the association of professional psychologists, I said earlier in the topic that I once wrote what I thought was a very balanced and neutral article on gays in the military. Our magazines were stolen from the news-stands by gay activists, to prevent my article from being read, quickly accompanied by an anonymous phone message to our editorial office, explaining the theft of our magazines from the vendor stands: "You published a story, now you're going to pay the price". A message I'll never forget, that I replayed a hundred times, as did my editor and publisher.
In the two year history of my column, where I'd written about politics, racial issues, the 1992 riots in L.A., and other controversial issues, this was the first and only time that I was threatened and my editor and publisher were threatened (phone messages as well as letters), and our magazines were stolen from their retail stands by activists to prevent their being read.
Up until that time, my opinion of gays was much more favorable and accepting. It was at precisely this point I became aware of gays as an intolerant and downright militant political force, who intimidate their critics into silence.
Similarly, the New York State school system's Superintendant who was fired in 1992, after angry parents demanded removal of the "multicultural program" he introduced, a program utilizing children's books with snappy titles like Heather Has Two Mommies, and Daddy's Room-mate, to introduce elementary school kids (!!!!!) to the notion of gay couples and gay parents. This didn't go over well with conservative parents, and the program, along with the superintendaant who introduced it, were finally removed, after much PTA infighting. Again, threats were made by gay activists, and there were actually two car-bombings. No one was hurt, but needless to say, this was done for intimidation of those removing the program. So teachers as well know about intimidation.
So while I'm not a professional psychologist, I'm familiar with the tactics of gay activists, toward whatever source criticizes the gay perspective.
I've answered all the questions you raise at length in prior posts, in this very long now-26-page topic. If you choose not to read the topic, i don't feel obligated to repeat myself.
You've tried every slanderous tactic in the book to discredit me. And gays as a whole have done the same to any professional who has put forth any opposition to gay rights. There are very few who are willing to put up with that kind of harassment, and most will just back off.
Call me strange, but I just feel any group who utilizes that kind of intimidation and harassment can't be up to anything good.
Matter Eater Man, I wasn't surprised by what you posted about NARTH or the PSYCHOLOGY TODAY editor. I didn't expect you to compliment them on what a great job they're doing.
That letter looks like it was produced by the gay equivalent of the Anti-Defamation League. ( For anyone unfamiliar with the ADL, it is a Jewish counter-propaganda organization that bites back hard at anything critical of Jews or Israel. Needless to say from my prior comments, I'm pro-Israel, but that is an absolute fact that ADL serves this function. )
And that's exactly what that letter (attacking the psychologists who treat homosexuality as a disease) is. I can just see the foam pouring out his mouth as the guy (Wayne Besen) wrote that piece of bitter propaganda bashing NARTH and PSYCHOLOGY TODAY editor Epstein.
quote:originally posted by britneyspearsatemyshorts:
Dave, you've got the ladies in an uproar !
quote:Originally posted by Jim Jackson: Dave TWB said: "Ha ! Don't I, though."
It's so nice to see that you don't resort to name-calling.
Of course, you probably forgot that you referred to klinton as "your kind"...
JJ
All I did was laugh at britney's humorous way of saying I got you guys all flustered by posting my opinion. I fail to see how that's insulting. All I did was laugh at what he said, and baically say: Yeah, you got that right. Only with your spin does that somehow become insulting.
And also your claim that I'm being insulting (!), is in ironic contrast to how bitterly insulting you've been to me for several pages, as I quoted and pointed out in my posts over the last two topic pages.
When I made my comment to Klinton about "your kind", I think I clearly meant "you gays", but I could have just as easily said "you guys", "your side of the aisle", "people arguing your perspective", or other equivalent words to express that we're debating with opposing viewpoints.
I love how you hold me up to a standard of behavior that you feel no obligation to adhere to yourself. I'm certainly trying to be as polite as you'll allow me to be.
quote: Good God. You guys are just amazing, your obsession with smothering any dissent of your views.
How come when people argue with you, you so often go of on one about them trying to do this. This is a debate thread, and you are argueing your side of the arguement, so is everyone else. What did you expect?
Good point Steve T. My link & posted letter from Wayne Besen was dismissed as propaganda. Considering it's composed of mostly quotes from Narth people or connects them to less benevolent antigay movements I'm puzzled how this is only propaganda. It's also reads as a very polite letter, any frothing of the mouth by Besen would have to be left to Dave the Wonder Boy's imagination because it sure doesn't show in the letter.
As for bad experiences with gay activists, here is a link with over 60,000 entries into a google search for homosexuals and death threats.
As you can see, gays get death threats (lots & lots of death threats) & unlike the straight ones, sometimes they actually make those threats a reality. If you can make allowances for the whackos on your side who pull crap you disagree with,(like bombing abortion clinics or the GodHatesFags.com people) why then not make the same concession for the other side's?
quote:Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: If you can make allowances for the whackos on your side who pull crap you disagree with,(like bombing abortion clinics or the GodHatesFags.com people) why then not make the same concession for the other side's?
I never claimed any of those characters as being on my 'side'. I'm trying to politely disagree in a generally positive and groovy way. And I'm sure most of you on either side are the same way - at least in intent, if nothing else. I bailed from this thread because it was getting dragged out into debating the legitimacy of homosexual lifestyles - which is not the original intent of this thread, at least not the way I saw it. Plus, I realized that I was also taking cheap shots at people I didn't agree with, and the way we're doing this now, it's almost impossible for any of us to discuss this issue in a fair, reasonable, level-headed fashion.
I personally think that posters on both sides of this issue are taking the whole thing way out of proportion. Regardless of who is complaining about the other's lack of pluralism or fairness, very few of you have been objective and understanding to the point where you're justified in crying foul on others.
For me, it's not about who's right or wrong in this thread anymore. Sometimes, the outcome of a battle is less important than how it was fought. And almost all of us have been fighting dirty at one point or another.
So please don't play the victim in this, any of you. Put down the cheap shots and personal attacks, and follow the lead of those on this thread who are engaged in constructive activities. And yes, disagreement can be constructive.
DaveTWB, you can rationalize the "your kind" remark however you wish.
But I will endeavor to return this to a civil discussion. You have to understand, Dave, that for you, it's "an issue." For many of the rest of us, it's life. Please, despite whatever religious conviction you hold, don't lose sight of that. I believe Jesus argued for compassion...
If a professional psychologist wishes to ask the question of whether or not homosexuality is, as you put it, a "healthy state of mind," then let him or her. As a trained research psychologist, I would not support any activist trying to smother the asking of that question. But I still wonder just how many of my psychology brethren hold the idea that it is not...
A problem is, though, that it will be extremely difficult...perhaps even impossible...to tease out whether or not it is HOMOSEXUALITY wholly in and of itself that is at the root of why any client presents at a psychotherapist's office.
Regarding reorientation therapy...there are a whole can of worms that can open up in this arena that impact on its validity and overall usefulness. How long term is the success? If you aim at just changing behaviors, have you really "reoriented" the gay person at a cognitive level? If you "reorient" someone, were they really gay in the first place, or were they just bisexual or suffering from some other kind of sexual confusion?
"It is NARTH's aim to provide a different perspective. Particularly, we want to clarify that homosexuality is not "inborn,""
The NARTH assertion that homosexuality is not inborn is no more valid that a biopsychologist's claim that homosexuality is rudimentarily connected to neurochemistry and neuroanatomy.
Both are assertions warranting empirical investigation, and neither has been unequivocally supported.
Quote: On the contrary, as I've detailed repeatedly, it changes the definition of marriage and the integrity of Christianity, if our culture permits gay marriage.
But that doesn't affect you personally. You can still consider homosexuality immoral and wrong, if you so choose. You don't have to change your views.
Quote: If gays are recognized as a "legitimate" minority, then a Christian who owns a business doesn't have the right to not hire a gay person whose lifestyle they don't agree with.
Unless being gay affects the success of the business, why should they care what lifestyle an employee has? Shouldn't the person also have the right to not be discriminated against?
Quote: And ULTIMATELY, Christian parents attempting to raise their children teaching them Biblical principles, don't have the ability to prevent public schools from teaching a contradictory values system about homosexuality, without public school teachers and the entire system undermining the core values these parents are trying to teach their children.
Inherit the Gay Wind?
I suppose when you send your children to public school(or most any school, really), you run the risk of having the teacher imprinting their own personal values on your child, even if those values contradict your own.
In my opinion, parents should present enough information to allow their children to make up their own mind about their beliefs, and support their decision as best they can. That way each child is an individual, and not merely an extension of the parent. I've seen far too many kids spouting off ideas they clearly are just reciting, as if they are their own.
Quote: All that shows is the liberal/pro-gay propaganda already in britney's words "your influence is growing", and have swayed a whole generation away from the true Biblical perspective.
That's one interpretation. Mine is that it shows that people are finally starting to open their eyes, and are beginning to see just how hypocritical our society is, preaching freedom and equality yet denying it to those that simply wish to peacefully go about their lives.
Quote: And as I said, to even quote Biblical verses that say homosexuality is immoral, can ALREADY be considered a "hate crime" in Canada.
"Hate crime"? A person can be arrested or fined in Canada for reciting biblical verses suggesting homosexuality is immoral?
Quote: It's ALSO not 40% of the public in this survey that endorses and embraces the gay lifestyle, it's 40% of people saying yeah, sure whatever, let them marry if they want to.
I never said it was the percentage of people endorsing or embracing the gay lifestyle, I said it was the percentage of people in favor of allowing gays to marry. That's "changing the definition of marriage", as you said, because such activity is currently illegal in this country.
So, my point still stands.
Quote: But again, that's assuming the survey can even be trusted to be an accurate representation of what our nation truly thinks. (As the poll says, just over 3,000 people were surveyed for their opinion, out of a U.S. population of 290 million people. And as others have said, the way questions are asked in a poll can get the kind of answers someone wants.}.
If you question this poll, then I guess I should question the one you constantly reference with your "2% of the population is gay" comments. After all, polls are just samples, estimations, educated guesses.
Quote: It was at precisely this point I became aware of gays as an intolerant and downright militant political force, who intimidate their critics into silence.
You make them sound like the mafia.
I have a few anecdotes of my own. I remember waking up after my best friend's 13th birthday party to find "Jesus Killer" written in red paint(so as to look like blood, I'm assuming) on the side of his house. Not one of the more pleasant experiences from my childhood.
There isn't a group of people(racial, religious, etc) that doesn't have a few individuals of radically different thinking.
Quote: I have a few anecdotes of my own. I remember waking up after my best friend's 13th birthday party to find "Jesus Killer" written in red paint(so as to look like blood, I'm assuming) on the side of his house. Not one of the more pleasant experiences from my childhood.
Animalman, are you trying to use a person or persons individual action(s) to represent Christians or people who aren't necessarily Christians but have the same ideals as them as a whole?!
Sorry to have to disagree with you, but that reasoning is flawed. A single persons actions doesn't represent a group's actions.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:On the contrary, as I've detailed repeatedly, it changes the definition of marriage and the integrity of Christianity, if our culture permits gay marriage.
But that doesn't affect you personally. You can still consider homosexuality immoral and wrong, if you so choose. You don't have to change your views.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:If gays are recognized as a "legitimate" minority, then a Christian who owns a business doesn't have the right to not hire a gay person whose lifestyle they don't agree with.
Unless being gay affects the success of the business, why should they care what lifestyle an employee has? Shouldn't the person also have the right to not be discriminated against?
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:And ULTIMATELY, Christian parents attempting to raise their children teaching them Biblical principles, don't have the ability to prevent public schools from teaching a contradictory values system about homosexuality, without public school teachers and the entire system undermining the core values these parents are trying to teach their children.
Inherit the Gay Wind?
I suppose when you send your children to public school(or most any school, really), you run the risk of having the teacher imprinting their own personal values on your child, even if those values contradict your own.
In my opinion, parents should present enough information to allow their children to make up their own mind about their beliefs, and support their decision as best they can. That way each child is an individual, and not merely an extension of the parent. I've seen far too many kids spouting off ideas they clearly are just reciting, as if they are their own.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:All that shows is the liberal/pro-gay propaganda already in britney's words "your influence is growing", and have swayed a whole generation away from the true Biblical perspective.
That's one interpretation. Mine is that it shows that people are finally starting to open their eyes, and are beginning to see just how hypocritical our society is, preaching freedom and equality yet denying it to those that simply wish to peacefully go about their lives.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:And as I said, to even quote Biblical verses that say homosexuality is immoral, can ALREADY be considered a "hate crime" in Canada.
"Hate crime"? A person can be arrested or fined in Canada for reciting biblical verses suggesting homosexuality is immoral?
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:It's ALSO not 40% of the public in this survey that endorses and embraces the gay lifestyle, it's 40% of people saying yeah, sure whatever, let them marry if they want to.
I never said it was the percentage of people endorsing or embracing the gay lifestyle, I said it was the percentage of people in favor of allowing gays to marry. That's "changing the definition of marriage", as you said, because such activity is currently illegal in this country.
So, my point still stands.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:But again, that's assuming the survey can even be trusted to be an accurate representation of what our nation truly thinks. (As the poll says, just over 3,000 people were surveyed for their opinion, out of a U.S. population of 290 million people. And as others have said, the way questions are asked in a poll can get the kind of answers someone wants.}.
If you question this poll, then I guess I should question the one you constantly reference with your "2% of the population is gay" comments. After all, polls are just samples, estimations, educated guesses.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:It was at precisely this point I became aware of gays as an intolerant and downright militant political force, who intimidate their critics into silence.
You make them sound like the mafia.
I have a few anecdotes of my own. I remember waking up after my best friend's 13th birthday party to find "Jesus Killer" written in red paint(so as to look like blood, I'm assuming) on the side of his house. Not one of the more pleasant experiences from my childhood.
There isn't a group of people(racial, religious, etc) that doesn't have a few individuals of radically different thinking.
Every last one of these nitpicking dissections of yours toward my quoted answers has already been addressed.
Basically, all you've done is come back and say you don't like my answers, and spun them into a nullified category through disinformation. Which is consistent with most of the responses to what I've said, by many here.
You obviously disagree with what I've said.
I obviously have a different perspective than you.
A perspective grounded in three key areas:
1. One that is based in the clear and undeniable fact that homosexuality is clearly condemned by the Bible.
Arguments for gay marriage can only make their case by circumventing and hiding that incontrovertible fact.
2. That while those in the psychiatric profession who oppose homosexuality are an apparent minority, that while that perspective is presently unpopular (i.e., that it bucks the gay/liberal holy war to legitimize homosexuality, no matter what the true facts are, and suppresses conservative dissent in the professional psychiatric community through bitter slander and intimidation) that even so, psychologists who argue that homosexuality is a pathology have just as much scientific weight, despite their perspective not being the dominant one.
Jim Jackson acknowledged that there are many schools of thought in the psychological community. The fact that the pro-gay sect can't tolerate the opposing view, and struggles so hard to trash and discredit those who view homosexuality as pathological, only gives weight to the political (as opposed to scientific) motivation to do so. A liberal holy war on progress.
3. That gay activists are prone to organized harassment and even violence toward those who oppose their perspective. It's not "some" or "just a few", as you, klinton and others allege. It's a clear and consistent PATTERN, of the same tactics that Nazi Germany used to crush all dissent: Propaganda, intimidation, threats, even violence.
Which I find ironic, as your side wraps itself in democratic freedom and the right to belief and expression, even as they go --consistently-- way beyond democracy's parameters to silence opposition.
Clearly, gays (and the liberals who support their cause) only believe in "freedom" as long as their side is exercising freedom. Even a lone dissenting conservative voice has to be harassed and intimidated into silence.
Quote: Basically, all you've done is come back and say you don't like my answers, and spun them into a nullified category through disinformation. Which is consistent with most of the responses to what I've said, by many here.
Oh, I see. I thought I was participating in a discussing, an exchange of ideas.
I've listened to your argument, I've taken in your points, and I've even tried to ask questions(specifically, on the Canada thing) so as to better understand your perspective. This is an extremely long thread, but from the few pages I did peruse, I didn't see you address those points.
Though I might not agree with them, I never said I "don't like" your answers. Infact, I think I've remained pretty civil throughout my posts. I haven't insulted you or called you names. I haven't generalized you(as you've done to me) or belittled your position. I'd just like to have an honest conversation about a prevalent topic in today's society.
I maintain one, basic principle; equal rights. I believe that gays should have the right to do what everyone else has the right to do.
I also believe that those who do not support or endorse homosexuality should have the right to peacefully voice their opinion(just as everyone else has the right to voice theirs), so long as in doing so they do not deny gays their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as stated in the Constitution.
It's a pretty simple concept. All people have the right to believe whatever they wish, and to voice that beliefs in a non-violent or harrassing manner.
Quote: Pariah said:Sorry to have to disagree with you, but that reasoning is flawed. A single persons actions doesn't represent a group's actions.
That's exactly my point, Pariah. That's why I'm trying to say, in contrast to what Dave seems to be implying.
.....and after I read more posts I see you get that now. Sorry.
I'm not implying anything. I'm flatout saying it.
There are consistent patterns within the gay community, in backlash toward ANY criticism of the gay perspective, no matter how polite and objective that reporting is.
I saw a show on PBS' Frontline program, profiling Rush Limbaugh and his rise to popularity, where Limbaugh in the mid 1990's had been a guest host for the Tonight Show and he was ambushed by gays who hijacked the program to attack Limbaugh for his stated views (up to that time) on gays. They had to clear the entire audience from the Tonight Show set to allow Limbaugh to come back from a commercial break and give a closing comment.
The Frontline program said that since then, Rush, despite the controversy of his program in general, steers away from any discussion of gay issues, because of that specific harassment.
If someone of Rush's resources can be intimidated by gays into silence, I think that says quite a bit about the consistent harassing tactics of gays against those who publicly criticize te gay movement.
Any reporting of the ugly side of homosexuality in mainstream news, any portrayal of gays as being how they truly often are, promiscuous, vulgar, decadent, gyrating against each other in mock-sex at gay parades, dressed in all sorts of freakish drag, or wearing leather S & M clothing, or flogging each other with whips publicly in the middle of a gay march, or expressing endorsement of pedophilism and other perversions, ANY of this is attacked if portrayed in mainstream news, DESPITE its news accuracy. I've seen footage of all these things on the 700 Club and other Christian news programs, but very few others accurately report this side of the gay movement.
This again, as I've discussed in other topics, is something Bernard Goldberg described in his book Bias about the liberals taking causes they are sympathetic to, such as AIDS victims, homosexuality and homelessness, and distorting these groups to (disproportionate to reality) APPEAR to look "just like us" (i.e., white middle class mainstream America, that these groups are more widespread within the mainstream than they truly are) even though the true facts, if only reported, would clearly show them to be something else.
You clearly miss my point, Animalman, about the relentless regurgitation of the same accusations that you and others have made throughout this topic. I answer questions (and Captain Sammitch and others) and you come right back and say the same thing of "how can you justify your position, it's just ignorant of you to say that?" when I (and others) just answered.
You just come back and back and back, and offer the same objections and arguments over and over, to points already answered.
You say it's a long topic.
Well, yes it is. But if you're going to accuse me of things, then I think you have a responsibility to read what I and others have already said.
I guess the only way to clarify what I'm saying is to go through another pointlessly exhaustive point-by-point:
Quote: posted by Animalman:
Quote: posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
On the contrary, as I've detailed repeatedly, it changes the definition of marriage and the integrity of Christianity, if our culture permits gay marriage.
But that doesn't affect you personally. You can still consider homosexuality immoral and wrong, if you so choose. You don't have to change your views.
You don't even have to go back 26 pages, I JUST SAID in detail how that affects my ability to live as a Christian, or even as a non-religious person who objects to homosexuality on moral grounds.
Legitimizing gays legally as a minority forces me to hire gays.
It forces me to rent apartments to gays.
It prevents me from insulating myself and my family from letting a pro-gay mindset override my own cultural beliefs.
And labels any attemt to insulate myself from that lifestyle as "a hate-crime" or "discrimination".
That, once again, because you chose to ignore my previous responses, is an infringement on my right to follow my own beliefs, and does affect me personally.
Quote: posted by Animalman:
Quote: posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
If gays are recognized as a "legitimate" minority, then a Christian who owns a business doesn't have the right to not hire a gay person whose lifestyle they don't agree with.
Unless being gay affects the success of the business, why should they care what lifestyle an employee has? Shouldn't the person also have the right to not be discriminated against?
No. Again, I already answered this and you simply didn't like the answer, so you slightly re-phrased and repeated the same question.
No, a gay person doesn't have that right. Any more than a Christian has the right to go into a workplace or public school and evangelize to others.
If a gay person is known to be gay, then it goes without question that they are making their homosexuality an issue, and essentially, promoting their gay beliefs and lifestyle by doing so.
Christian teachers can't even say "Merry Christmas" to their students, or display a nativity scene, or put a nativity scene in front of a firehouse or other government building without a backlash of legal action. That simple benign symbolic display is considered threatening.
But gays have the right to profess their beliefs and force them on others through their own disproportionately defended freedom of expression.
Which is a formula for corruption of the mainstream.
Quote: posted by Animalman:
Quote: posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
And ULTIMATELY, Christian parents attempting to raise their children teaching them Biblical principles, don't have the ability to prevent public schools from teaching a contradictory values system about homosexuality, without public school teachers and the entire system undermining the core values these parents are trying to teach their children.
Inherit the Gay Wind?
I suppose when you send your children to public school(or most any school, really), you run the risk of having the teacher imprinting their own personal values on your child, even if those values contradict your own.
In my opinion, parents should present enough information to allow their children to make up their own mind about their beliefs, and support their decision as best they can. That way each child is an individual, and not merely an extension of the parent. I've seen far too many kids spouting off ideas they clearly are just reciting, as if they are their own.
That "spouting off recited ideas" could just as easily be said about the mainstream liberal/politically-correct arguments in defense of gay rights that you've just repeated.
Parents have a right to follow their beliefs and teach their beliefs to their children.
It is not the function of teachers or the state to teach a contrary pro-gay belief system to students. If Christianity, and even "Merry Christmas" is banned from public schools, how disproportionately unfair and biased is it to say it's okay to teach pro-gay/anti-Christian values?
Your argument is biased toward the liberal side. If it was gay parents, and Christian teachers were teaching an opposing view that homosexuality is immoral, you wouldn't be arguing that it's the right of the children to hear both viewpoints and decide for themselves what to believe.
Again your argument has already been answered, but you relentlessly raise the same question that's already been answered. And present a re-spin that favors the secularist/liberal mindset.
Quote: posted by Animalman:
Quote: posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
All that shows is the liberal/pro-gay propaganda already [described] in britney's [previously posted] words: "your influence is growing", and [the influence of gays over the last 30 years] have swayed a whole generation away from the true Biblical perspective.
That's one interpretation. Mine is that it shows that people are finally starting to open their eyes, and are beginning to see just how hypocritical our society is, preaching freedom and equality yet denying it to those that simply wish to peacefully go about their lives.
Again, that's your soapbox editorial, and taking another dig at what I clearly already answered, but you just felt a need to editorialize one last time your self-presumed intellectual superiority on the issue.
I made clear that freedom and equality existed for gays for 10 years, since "don't ask/don't tell" in the military began, and spousal benefits for gays began.
Those who "simply want to live peacefully and go about their lives" are now trying to undermine my definition of marriage( and the Bible's definition of marriage and morality), and enact laws that infringe on my ability to practice my religion, my ability to raise my children the way I want, and even make it a crime to express my beliefs about homosexuality, or otherwise insulate myself from the gay culture.
As I've already said, clearly and repeatedly.
And you don't even have to go back more than a page or two to see this question already answered.
Quote: posted by Animalman:
Quote: posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
And as I said, to even quote Biblical verses that say homosexuality is immoral, can ALREADY be considered a "hate crime" in Canada.
"Hate crime"? A person can be arrested or fined in Canada for reciting biblical verses suggesting homosexuality is immoral?
Once again, you'e pointlessly repeated yourself. The question has been answered.
Quote: posted by Animalman:
Quote: posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
It's ALSO not 40% of the public in this survey that endorses and embraces the gay lifestyle, it's 40% of people saying yeah, sure whatever, let them marry if they want to.
I never said it was the percentage of people endorsing or embracing the gay lifestyle, I said it was the percentage of people in favor of allowing gays to marry. That's "changing the definition of marriage", as you said, because such activity is currently illegal in this country.
So, my point still stands.
In your attempt to split hairs and show some kind of difference between what you said and what I said, I read what you said in the above quote like 5 times, and I still can't discern a difference.
Your point that "still stands" is indiscernable to me.
It's again just the same question I've already answered re-cycled and thrown back at me again, needlessly.
My point is that the given 40%, who probably have listened to 3 decades of politically correct pro-gay propaganda, who probably have a contempt for the silliness of gay marriage as a concept, but figure, what the hell, let gays do what they want inside their own little sub-culture, assuming it won't affect them. But they're wrong.
Gays will push for even more "freedom" which will increasingly infringe on the rights of others. Especially Christians, and others with religious beliefs to the contrary of homosexuality.
Quote: posted by Animalman:
Quote: posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
But again, that's assuming the survey can even be trusted to be an accurate representation of what our nation truly thinks. (As the poll says, just over 3,000 people were surveyed for their opinion, out of a U.S. population of 290 million people. And as others have said, the way questions are asked in a poll can get the kind of answers someone wants.}.
If you question this poll, then I guess I should question the one you constantly reference with your "2% of the population is gay" comments. After all, polls are just samples, estimations, educated guesses.
The 2% is a widely regarded number, confirmed by a number of studies and not one isolated poll.
Even so, my own belief is that 2% number is inflated, and much larger than the actual ratio in the public. But it's the most widely regarded number. As I said repeatedly, it's a number often quoted, and I've seen it in the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel (the largest Knight-Ridder owned newspaper in South Florida) and TIME magazine, among many other sources.
Quote: posted by Animalman:
Quote: posted by Dave the Wonder Boy:
It was at precisely this point I became aware of gays as an intolerant and downright militant political force, who intimidate their critics into silence.
You make them sound like the mafia.
Your choice of words is clearly mocking, but that doesn't change the reality I addressed in my quoted comment.
Once again, I've already responded to this question repeatedly. The gay movement has a consistent backlash to ANY criticism of gays, no matter how objective, polite or academic the criticism.
Gays have an approach I'd compare more to the Nazis (and have compared, repeatedly) in the organized way they intimidate those who publicly dissent or offer studies contradictory to the gay perspective.
And whether you call it similar to Nazis, or similar to the Mafia, it's still strong-arm tactics, and un-democratic.
Quote: posted by Animalman:
I have a few anecdotes of my own. I remember waking up after my best friend's 13th birthday party to find "Jesus Killer" written in red paint(so as to look like blood, I'm assuming) on the side of his house. Not one of the more pleasant experiences from my childhood.
There isn't a group of people(racial, religious, etc) that doesn't have a few individuals of radically different thinking.
Yes, but again --as I said repeatedly before-- gays have a very consistent tendency toward harassment and intimidation of their critics.
We're not talking about isolated individuals, we're talking about an organized and consistent pattern. Not isolated individuals.
You could just as easily argue that all Nazi aggression was perpetrated by "individuals". But WW II was still an organized conquest of Europe, and an organized genocide by the Nazis, despite being individuals. You could just as easily point to individual Nazis who were merciful and not engaging in cruelty and genocide. But that didn't make the Nazis any less of a threat to the millions they hurt.
Gay activism isn't killing people, its threat is a bit more subtle than that. But it is still a small minority using intimidation and harrassment to impose its will on the majority, and undermine the freedoms of those who don't agree with the gay perspective.
I don't mind debating an issue with people who don't share my views. I do mind answering the same question over and over and over. And then still being told I'm intolerant and don't make sense.
As I've said repeatedly, the intolerant ones are the small minority of gays, who want to impose their views of "gay marriage" and related issues on the overwhelming majority.
Rendering the clear verses regarding homosexuality in the Old Testament and New Testament of the Bible a "hate crime", as they are now in Canada, as gays and liberals want them to be in the United States.
And then have the audacity to say "well, this doesn't affect you".
Heck yes it does !
Any questions ? Just read my posts over the last 26 pages, where I've explained my views abundantly and more than patiently.
But geez, when do I have the right to say my views are being ignored and glossed over? I think as often as I've stated my perspective, I've earned that right.
The bottom line is, gays will believe what allows them to pursue their chosen lifestyle, despite any evidence to the contrary.
Quote: I answer questions (and Captain Sammitch and others) and you come right back and say the same thing of "how can you justify your position, it's just ignorant of you to say that?" when I (and others) just answered
When have I said that? I think you're attributing things to me that I haven't done, Dave.
Quote: But if you're going to accuse me of things, then I think you have a responsibility to read what I and others have already said.
What have I accused you of? Other than making gays sound like the mafia.
Quote: You don't even have to go back 26 pages, I JUST SAID in detail how that affects my ability to live as a Christian, or even as a non-religious person who objects to homosexuality on moral grounds.
I read all that. I'm arguing that it doesn't, at least, not in any capacity that deprives you of the rights you already had to beginwith.
Quote: Legitimizing gays legally as a minority forces me to hire gays. It forces me to rent apartments to gays. It prevents me from insulating myself and my family from letting a pro-gay mindset override my own cultural beliefs.
You don't have to hire or rent to anyone. You just can't refuse someone a job or shelter on the simple principle of their sexual preference. There is a difference there, Dave.
I can't deny a Christian employment from my establishment because they are Christian, or a Jewish person employment because they're Jewish, or an African American because they're black, or a white because they're white, or a Native American because they're Indian, etc. etc. etc. Everyone else in the country has the right to not be discrimated against because of their race, gender, creed, or sexual preference. Yes, I'm aware that I'm repeating myself here, but I'm trying to drive this point home, because it's irrefutable.
Quote: And labels any attemt to insulate myself from that lifestyle as "a hate-crime" or "discrimination".
It's a label because that's what it is, Dave. If a gay person is more qualified for a job than a straight person, and you deny the gay person that job simply because you don't believe homosexuality is right....that's discrimination.
"To make distinctions on the basis of class or category without regard to individual merit; show preference or prejudice"
I'll agree that calling it a "hate crime" is going a bit far, but it is, by definition, discrimination.
Quote: That, once again, because you chose to ignore my previous responses, is an infringement on my right to follow my own beliefs, and does affect me personally.
Well, see, now we're crossing over into a different category here. Before we were talking about recognizing gays as a legitimate minority. Here I'm simply referring to allowing gay marriage. I don't think the basic act of marriage, between two parties that you don't care to socialize with or allow influence in your life already, really affects you. You can still believe that homosexuality is wrong, and you can still teach this to your children, if you so choose.
Quote: No, a gay person doesn't have that right. Any more than a Christian has the right to go into a workplace or public school and evangelize to others.
How is a Christian going into a public school or workplace and trying to evangelize others comparable to a gay person not being discriminated against?
By gaining employment, you're not forcing your beliefs or your sexuality on someone else. You're just trying to earn a living, something that everyone else can do unrestrained.
Quote: If a gay person is known to be gay, then it goes without question that they are making their homosexuality an issue, and essentially, promoting their gay beliefs and lifestyle by doing so.
I think there's a difference between living a gay life, and promoting that life. Some homosexuals choose to actively promote the acceptance or recognition of their beliefs, some don't. The same goes for most racial or religious groups.
Quote: Christian teachers can't even say "Merry Christmas" to their students
???
My sister's teacher said Merry Christmas to me just last week when I went to pick her up.
Forgive me if this is "nitpicking", but it seems like a pretty important part of your argument.
Quote: or display a nativity scene, or put a nativity scene in front of a firehouse or other government building without a backlash of legal action.
Can gays display something classically attributed to homosexuality? Can Jews display Moses or a Menorah? Can men display the male sign, or women the female sign?
Quote: But gays have the right to profess their beliefs and force them on others through their own disproportionately defended freedom of expression.
I'm still not seeing how it's being forced on someone.
Quote: That "spouting off recited ideas" could just as easily be said about the mainstream liberal/politically-correct arguments in defense of gay rights that you've just repeated.
It could be(I didn't limit that concept to purely conversative or religious ideas). If you're implying that I'm defending gays as a simple regurgitation of something my parents told me(and I'm not saying you are, I'm actually not sure), then I'm afraid you're quite mistaken.
Quote: Parents have a right to follow their beliefs and teach their beliefs to their children.
Absolutely.
Quote: It is not the function of teachers or the state to teach a contrary pro-gay belief system to students.
Nor is it the function of teachers or the state to teach an anti-gay belief system to students.
Quote: If Christianity, and even "Merry Christmas" is banned from public schools, how disproportionately unfair and biased is it to say it's okay to teach pro-gay/anti-Christian values?
I haven't heard about Merry Christmas being banned, or Christianity as a whole. I think teachers should display impartial, unbiased, neutral information to their students, rather than provide a slanted view of the world. Any slant, pro-gay, anti-gay, whatever. It doesn't matter.
Quote: If it was gay parents, and Christian teachers were teaching an opposing view that homosexuality is immoral, you wouldn't be arguing that it's the right of the children to hear both viewpoints and decide for themselves what to believe.
I think it's the responsibility of the parents to show both points of view(yes, even for gay parents to show the Christian pov). As I said before, I don't think teachers should display any kind of slant.
Quote: Again, that's your soapbox editorial, and taking another dig at what I clearly already answered, but you just felt a need to editorialize one last time your self-presumed intellectual superiority on the issue.
I assume no intellectual superiority. I was simply presenting my point of view, in contrast to you presenting yours. That is, after all, what message boards are for. At no point did I state or suggest that my idea was better than yours. You're more than entitled to express your opinions in any discussion, just as I am.
Quote: I made clear that freedom and equality existed for gays for 10 years, since "don't ask/don't tell" in the military began, and spousal benefits for gays began.
In that 10 year period, could gays attain a marriage license?
Quote: Those who "simply want to live peacefully and go about their lives" are now trying to undermine my definition of marriage( and the Bible's definition of marriage and morality)
You've said this time and time again, but you've yet to actually illustrate how it undermines your definition of marriage. You can still have your definition. You can still believe it's wrong. You can still believe true marriage should only be between a man and a woman.
Quote: Once again, you'e pointlessly repeated yourself. The question has been answered.
Where??? I didn't see it, sorry.
Quote: Your point that "still stands" is indiscernable to me.
My point was that, according to that poll, 40% of the population is in favor of allowing gays to marry.
Quote: It's again just the same question I've already answered re-cycled and thrown back at me again, needlessly.
It wasn't a question. It was a statement.
Quote: My point is that the given 40%, who probably have listened to 3 decades of politically correct pro-gay propaganda, who probably have a contempt for the silliness of gay marriage as a concept, but figure, what the hell, let gays do what they want inside their own little sub-culture, assuming it won't affect them. But they're wrong.
Ok. My point is supported by research. Your point is based on "probably". As I've said before, you're entitled to your opinion, but in this case, I must respectfully disagree.
Quote: Gays will push for even more "freedom" which will increasingly infringe on the rights of others. Especially Christians, and others with religious beliefs to the contrary of homosexuality.
I can't predict the future, but I will say that I believe gays should have the same rights and the same freedom as everyone else, and not one iota more. So, if what you suggest does happen, then we'll be on the same page(though perhaps from different angles).
Quote: Your choice of words is clearly mocking, but that doesn't change the reality I addressed in my quoted comment.
I'm sorry if you took it that way, but I wasn't mocking. I thought you did make them sound like the mafia. You called gays "an intolerant and downright militant political force, who intimidate their critics into silence." That sounds like the mafia to me.
Quote: Yes, but again --as I said repeatedly before-- gays have a very consistent tendency toward harassment and intimidation of their critics.
If that's your opinion, ok. Having had more experience with Christians than gays, I think they're more consistently forceful. Apparently, from your experiences, you believe the opposite. Perhaps the real truth lies somewhere in between? I don't know.
since I saw that Dave mentioned "Don't ask , don't tell":
Quote: [qb]The Price of Not Telling
How ironic that the 10th anniversary of the military's dreadful "don't ask, don't tell" policy fell just months after the U.S. Supreme Court forcefully overturned state laws criminalizing consensual sex between homosexuals. A majority of the high court recognizes what pollsters find, that "straight" Americans have grown more tolerant toward homosexuality. But not the military brass.
Because of alleged national security concerns, the military continues to operate with a harshness and bias against homosexuals that the Constitution otherwise would bar. As the justices said of laws wrongly targeting gays, they create a "lifelong penalty and stigma … that cannot be reconciled with the Equal Protection Clause." So why does it serve a democracy to exempt its military from the progress of civilian society?
The "don't ask, don't tell, don't pursue, don't harass" law, which President Clinton signed Nov. 30, 1993, lets gay men and lesbians serve without expulsion or harassment so long as they keep their sexual orientation secret and do not engage in sex. From the start, however, the policy was a compromise of expediency and timidity designed to placate Pentagon chiefs fearful that gays would undermine unit cohesion. While the armed forces showed they could overcome great obstacles in the ranks over race and gender — indeed, they have been trailblazers of social equality in these areas — hypocrisy has held with "don't ask, don't tell."
Its unintended consequences have cost this nation and thousands of gay men and women dearly. The all-volunteer services, already stretched thin, can ill afford to lose competent soldiers. But many gays and lesbians find military life more uncomfortable after "don't ask, don't tell," especially in comparison with the civilian world, where strong anti-discrimination laws prevail. Many of the 10,000 gay soldiers and officers who departed the military in the last decade asked for discharge, telling commanders that escalating harassment from suspicious fellow soldiers made them fear for their safety. Among those gone: seven Arabic specialists whose invaluable skills are scarce these days.
The gay ban weakens rather than strengthens bonds between soldiers. It fails to recognize that homosexuals can adhere to military codes and conduct their private lives appropriately. The ban, which fosters dissembling over honesty, erodes the mutual trust essential to an effective fighting force. Three retired officers — two generals and an admiral — who this month disclosed that they are gay described the ban's painful personal toll. "I was denied the opportunity to share my life with a loved one," said retired Rear Adm. Alan M. Steinman, "to have a family, to do all the things that heterosexual Americans take for granted. I didn't even tell my family I was gay until I retired."
Gay men and women have served with honor in the military, many keeping their orientation secret, others with tacit acknowledgment from comrades and officers. A decade is long enough to conclude that "don't ask, don't tell" is as unjustified in theory as it is unworkable in practice.[/qb]
You've gone point-by-point through my long post where I was careful to address every issue you raised, and you just came back ONCE AGAIN, ignored my points, just re-stated what you believe, claimed I didn't make my case (by which I can only assume that you can't read, because I've been detailing the case for my perspective since page 2 of this topic).
You've again ignored my arguments and simply re-stated your side, when your side is already abundantly clear.
All you've done is smother my opinion in yet another long post of your attempted deconstruction, re-spin, and misrepresented me as allegedly not having made my case, when in truth I have.
Over and over.
I've laid out that the Biblical concept of marriage is in diametric opposition to the notion of gay marriage. Homosexuality is unquestionably adultery, as I've laid out chapter and verse from the Bible.
And the cross-reference of these verses makes their meaning beyond question:
Homosexuality is sin, adultery, abomination, detestable in the eyes of God, a prophecied precursor of a civilization turning away from God and facing imminent self-destruction. Hello?
How much more clearly can I say it?
I've been saying it since page 2.
Whatever you choose to believe, I've made it CRYSTAL clear that gay rights imposes on Christians' right to practice their religion as it is taught in the Bible, and obstructs preservation of the Christian lifestyle by smothering us all in a relentless wave of secularist/liberal/pro-gay propaganda, even in public schools.
Propaganda alleging that there's nothing immoral or abberant about homosexuality. And backing that pro-homosexuality liberal agenda with a lot of unproven pseudo-scientific mythology that is as much a religion of faith as Christianity. (i.e., that homosexuality is inborn, a gay gene, that being gay can't be controlled, that it's not an abberant compulsion like gambling or alcoholism, etc.)
You give lip service to equality of all ideas, but just as you hype your secularist liberal version of the facts here, you know very well that the secularist pro-gay liberal perspective is taught in schools, and Christianity is barred from the classroom. So you can wax philosophic about equal representation all you like, but you hypocritically ignore that Christianity is omitted and homosexuality is endorsed in the present system. What you say about wanting true equality is just empty words.
Again, Ive made clear that legalizing gay marriage forces that definition of marriage on Christians as well.
THAT is discrimination against Christians, and stomps on the rights of Christians, and is also discrimination against all others of other religions who don't recognize homosexuality as moral or socially acceptable. And discriminates against non-religious people who don't believe in homosexuality as well. The pro-gay perspective is a pseudo-religious belief system that is publicly advocated and taught in schools, while Christianity is excluded and undermined.
Finally, the point about teachers who can't say "Merry Christmas".
My mother was a teacher in Palm Beach County for 17 years before she retired. (And taught in private school before that.) And that is what she told me, and other teachers I know through her told me. The schools could have displays of Christmas trees, and give neutral greetings such as "Happy Holidays", that celebrated the general holiday season, but were prohibited from any artwork or displays or personal expressions that favored Christians regarding the holidays.
And there again, the enforced secularization, where religion cannot be discussed, but a teacher can be known to be gay and even express they are proud to be gay, simply creates a system where religion cannot root, but secularist/anti-Christian ideas will be encouraged and inevitably dominate, and ultimately leverage Christianity further and further out of the picture with each new generation.
Gays can't legally marry in the U.S., but so what?
Gays can live together.
They have spousal benefits, just by living together.
They can hold hands and kiss in public.
There are gay night clubs where they can socialize, in addition to any other public place they choose to go.
I fail to see any persecution.
An oft-quoted statistic (most recently I heard it from Ted Koppel on Nightline) is that gays, far from being discriminated against, have the highest per capita income of any group.
I fail to see the necessity of gay marriage, beyond harassment of the Christian community, and chipping away at Christian religious freedom.
In the Bible that invented the Judao-Christian concept of marriage gay marriage is clearly not a concept compatible with the Biblical view of homosexuality.
Or with the Muslim concept of marriage.
Or the concept of marriage in Hindu India, where marriage means one-man/one woman.
Or the concept in Taoist/Buddhist China and throughout the Far East, where marriage again means one-man/one-woman.
As I said before, but your inability to read forces me to repeat.
So it isn't just Christianity that gay marriage threatens. It's every human culture that exists, and has existed for 6000 years.
And suddenly gays come along and want to change that definition?
By what arrogance do they think they have that right?
Marriage has a very clear definition.
Only three countries in the world (Netherlands, Belgium and now Canada) have usurped that standard with a gay/liberal alternative definition, allowing gay marriage. And very recently.
And if popular opinion in the United States is any indication, it was an elite bunch of liberals in these three countries who usurped the will of the majority to legalize gay marriage in these places.
In any case, I've made my points clear:
How gay marriage is in contradiction to the Bible, and millenia of human tradition in every culture.
How gay rights undermines and infringes on religious freedom.
How gays use intimidation to silence and otherwise trash any political opposition to gay rights.
As I (again) already said, I was tolerant of gays, when there was a balance, where gays had a right to live together and work without persecution and even enjoy benefits of living together. Roughly the last 10 or 15 years.
But now "gay marriage" threatens that balance, and forces legalistic legitimacy of the clearly illegitimate concept of gay marriage on the whole of society, which infringes on those who are Christian and of other faiths, who don't buy what is being shoved down our throats.
You can dress it up as many times as you want, but it's still a liberal rationalization that bypasses the truth. We're headed toward a world where gays have rights and Christians don't.
I don't remember where I saw it, but I now this was mentioned on this board someplace. Fox News did a bit both yesterday and today about how there is a movement towards Christian intolerance. Granted both times I saw it, I was litterally on my way out the door and my dad was watching it so I didn't get a chance to hear what was said, but I'm looking for it and once I find it, I'll post a link for it.
Sigh...you know, Dave, I tried to be respectful, I tried to be reasonable, I tried to understanding. You clearly would rather just insult me and accuse me of entrenching on your beliefs than actually have an intelligent discussion with me.
I'm sorely tempted to start a thread against intermarriage, religious tolerance, and inter-faith relationships as I think your harmless so called "rights" threatens the continued exsistance of my and all races.
This is a CHRISTIAN nation after all.
Quote: Exodus 34
12 Take heed to thyself, lest thou make a covenant with the inhabitants of the land whither thou goest, lest it be for a snare in the midst of thee:
16 And thou take of their daughters unto thy sons, and their daughters go a whoring after their gods, and make thy sons go a whoring after their gods.
Exodus 23
32 Thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor with their gods.
33 They shall not dwell in thy land, lest they make thee sin against me: for if thou serve their gods, it will surely be a snare unto thee.
Deuteronomy 7
1 When the LORD thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee, the Hittites, and the Girgashites, and the Amorites, and the Canaanites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations greater and mightier than thou;
2 And when the LORD thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shalt smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them:
3 Neither shalt thou make marriages with them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter shalt thou take unto thy son.
Do not allow your sons (who believe in Christ) to marry the enemies unbelieving daughters. Do not give your daughters, who are believers, to marry the enemies unbelieving sons.
Now I only bring this up because it clearly demonstrates how some bigots, Herbert Armstrong, founder of the Worldwide Church of God for one(ironically one of the 1st places I turned to when studying the bible in my youth), once used the Bible itself to prohibit interracial marriages. As you can see those passages can be used to justify all sorts of b.s. not just intermarriage but allowing religious tolerance and condonig wartime rape.
Now on this passage, I dunno....It's a little troubling given the fact that Milosevich is on trial for war crimes which included rape:
Quote: [When ancient Israel went to battle against foreign nations, and they chose to make war against Israel, God commanded His nation to] smite the males, "But the women, and the little ones . . . shalt thou take unto thyself' (Deut.20:14).
God said further, "When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies. . . and seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife; then thou shalt bring her home to thy house . . . and she shall. . . remain in thine house, and bewail her father and her mother a full month: and after that thou shalt go in unto her, and be her husband, and she shall be thy wife" (Deut24:10-13).
Well, Whomod, the question you raise is partly a new point, but I answered this earlier in the topic, when addressing other Bible verses listed.
First off, Milosevich is a pretty unquestionably evil guy, who wages war in Bosnia to wipe out all opposition and seize power in the breakaway then-Yugoslavian province of Bosnia.
He murdered men, women and children, and oversaw the orchestrated mass-raping of women, for no other reason than terror and preservation of power.
In contrast, Israel was commanded by God to wipe out an evil civilization that lived in Canaan. God had given the Canaanites centuries to turn away from evil, and had finally resolved to erase their evil influence on the rest of the human race. They were heavily involved in the occult, human sacrifice, drinking of blood and so forth. Evil.
So God commanded the extermination of the Canaanites, and the wiping out of every last artifact and vestige of their culture, to prevent its corruption of the conquering Israelites or others.
It wasn't (as with Milosevich) a choice of one culture to wipe out its rival culture. It was a command from God, to wipe out what, in God's infinite wisdom, was an evil and dangerous civilization.
Second, the verse you quote is not given by you in the full context of the section it was taken from, or in the larger consistent cross-referenced meaning it has with other sections of the Bible that deal with similar issues.
To use one example, the slightly expanded passage of DEUTERONOMY 20:
Quote:
Going to War
1 When you go to war against your enemies and see horses and chariots and an army greater than yours, do not be afraid of them, because the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt, will be with you.
2 When you are about to go into battle, the priest shall come forward and address the army.
3 He shall say: "Hear, O Israel, today you are going into battle against your enemies. Do not be fainthearted or afraid; do not be terrified or give way to panic before them.
4 For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory."
5 The officers shall say to the army: "Has anyone built a new house and not dedicated it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else may dedicate it.
6 Has anyone planted a vineyard and not begun to enjoy it? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else enjoy it.
7 Has anyone become pledged to a woman and not married her? Let him go home, or he may die in battle and someone else marry her."
8 Then the officers shall add, "Is any man afraid or fainthearted? Let him go home so that his brothers will not become disheartened too."
[ Temporary allowances from military service were given for a variety of reasons. ]
9 When the officers have finished speaking to the army, they shall appoint commanders over it.
10 When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace.
11 If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. 12 If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. 13 When the LORD your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it.
14 As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the LORD your God gives you from your enemies.
15 This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.
16 However, in the cities of the nations the LORD your God is giving you as an inheritance [i.e., Canaan] , do not leave alive anything that breathes.
17 Completely destroy [1] them-the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites-as the LORD your God has commanded you.
18 Otherwise, they will teach you to follow all the detestable things they do in worshiping their gods, and you will sin against the LORD your God.
Clearly, there is a divinely-led purpose to war in this situation.
But in any case, there is a deeper context than you let on in your excerpted quote, and within that context of being God's chosen people and doing everything by the direct order of God, and out of cultural obedience to God and His laws, these things that sound self-servingly cruel, are actually more lawful and directed toward serving God than they sound when excerpted.
For example, taking women as spoils could simply mean taking them into their household as servants and laborers, not raping them as you imply. Teaching them the ways and service of God within Jewish culture, and having their captives and their descendents become part of Jewish culture, and part of Israel itself.
But in other topics, you've expressed that you're a Christian, and as you say, you've studied the Bible. So surely you already understand this context, without myself or anyone else explaining it to you.
And thirdly, these are ancient times. Treatment of women, slavery and other issues, however harsh and barbaric they seem to us now, were regarded much differently in those times.
It was one of my history professors at Florida Atlantic University, who said that slavery and serfdom was a virtual economic necessity in ancient times, to build cities and civilizations.
The Bible verses you quote, however harsh, were progressive for their time. They establish laws of what is and is not permissible in war with Israel's enemies.
And in an era where we still have mass graves in Bosnia, Iraq, Rwanda, Sudan and elsewhere (and the U.S. genocide of Native Americans is no exception to this, or similar genocides by other cultures in China, Australia, Russia, and Europe over the last 100 years or so) it is highly questionable whether we ourselves in the modern era are so enlightened and civilized that we can call their practices of war and dividing its spoils barbaric.
Quote: Animalman said: Sigh...you know, Dave, I tried to be respectful, I tried to be reasonable, I tried to understanding. You clearly would rather just insult me and accuse me of entrenching on your beliefs than actually have an intelligent discussion with me.
I've stated my argument. You've stated yours.
I would suggest you re-read the last few topic pages, at least from pages 21 to this page (27). You will see that I have been incredibly polite, relative to the mud slung at me from multiple angry gay/liberal sources.
In which, seeing others already attacking me, you elected to take a few extra shots at me. With all due respect, you're simply repeating what's already been said. If you re-read even just the last six topic pages, that's not an insult. That's just a pure and simple fact, that all these things have been discussed already in the topic.
And I just answered you at length again in my last post above, at considerable length, but you again ignored my points and strawmanned that I "insulted" you, despite my lengthy and reasoned response.
In summary, from my above post:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: In any case, I've made my points clear:
How gay marriage is in contradiction to the Bible, and millenia of human tradition in every culture.
How gay rights undermines and infringes on religious freedom.
How gays use intimidation to silence and otherwise trash any political opposition to gay rights.
As I (again) already said, I was tolerant of gays, when there was a balance, where gays had a right to live together and work without persecution and even enjoy benefits of living together. Roughly the last 10 or 15 years.
But now "gay marriage" threatens that balance, and forces legalistic legitimacy of the clearly illegitimate concept of gay marriage on the whole of society, which infringes on those who are Christian and of other faiths, who don't buy what is being shoved down our throats.
You can dress it up as many times as you want, but it's still a liberal rationalization that bypasses the truth. We're headed toward a world where gays have rights and Christians don't.
This Post is NOT directed at or to anyone here in particular, but I have been following this thread here for a while and this is my Two cents:
I'm a 46 year old gay man. I lived with a man for seventeen years. We lived on his 100 acre farm in Maryland. He was a great friend, like a father to me. He was 30 years older than I, and taught me about a lot of things. He was killed in an accident on January 31, 1998, when the 3,800 pound tractor he was riding turned over and crushed him. He died almost instantly. His last words were, " Oh, God. "
Well, there was no will. I had to call his family. I could not have the one who loved me most cremated without THEIR permission. They were his family, who he rarely saw because he was Not fond of them. I was just the [censored] who spent the last 17 years of his life with him.
The family broke things, stole things, and in general harrassed me so badly that I left the house My partner and I had lived in for the better part of two decades before any kind of hearing for custody of the farm could begin. They were especially angry with me because they thought their Uncle was wealthy, which he was NOT, and had their hearts set on inheriting tons of money. Instead they got an old house, and a lot of debt.
I did not cause the debt. My partner was in Debt bigtime before I met him. I DID help pay for a lot of things there, and had been helping to fix the debt on a monthly basis.
My reward for all this, Because My longtime companion had NOT written a will was to be treated like [censored]. If the USA had had same sex marriage laws, we could have been legally married, and I would have automatically been entitled to the house and the land it resided on.
I do NOT want " Special Rights. ", I did NOT choose to be gay, I just am. Who among you reading this can remember the EXACT day you CHOSE to become heterosexual?????
I just want the SAME rights as Heterosexuals. I pay my taxes, I pay my bills on time. I have to worry about illness and taking care of my cats and the high price of everything and being lonely same as heterosexuals must do.
There is only ONE line in the Bible against Homosexuality, yet there are at LEAST 300 rules for heterosexuals. Now attitudes about women and racial stereotypes have changed over the centuries, why cannot attitudes about Gays and lesbians change?? I refuse to believe that God, who loves us ALL, would create a minority only to have them predestined to enter eternal damnation AUTOMATICALLY, in spite of any and all good things they accomplish as individuals or as a Group. Hitler? Saddam? Osama>?? yes, if their truly IS a Hell, then my friends, they are either already their or heading for it.
Me? I like men - Older men - and I refuse to believe I'd go to hell for THAT.
The guys who killed that poor Sheppard guy a Few years back, now they are evil.....But it is MY business what I do with a man behind closed doors. But many cannot respect that. Their is NOTHING obviously gay about me, but I have been beaten up and hospitalized a few times, had the word " FAGIT " painted on my garage door, etc. ( Oh, and you'd think that the moron who did that to my garage door would at LEAST have spelled the word properly! It's FAGGOT. : )
So, No, if THOSE are my SPECIAL rights, to be treated like THAT, No thanks, I do NOT want those rights.
All I want is the same rights as Heterosexuals. To be married to a Man I love who loves me back. To have legal rights AUTOMATICALLY concerning decisions that may need to be made about my partner's health and internment, and property rights. For me, and for the MANY other Gay men and women who want this, too.
Quote: Pardon the insensitivity, but cry me a river. I went through a very similar experience and I'm straight. There are a few crucial differences, but not the point.
I get beat up a lot too, and I also get called faggot and [censored] and [censored] head, and so on and so forth. I just pretty much beat em' up right back.
Coulda gotten married, shoulda gotten married, woulda gotten married. Don't blame circumstance on bad luck. We're all dealt cards with or without such factors, no matter. The severity is no different.
Also, there is no minority created by God. He judges us equally for sins that we commit (to us Christians and Catholics anyway). Homosexual acts are one of those sins. So don't start whining about being singled out.
Can't imagine how someone so charming gets beat up so much? Marriage wasn't an option for him & his lover. It is for you. While his boyfriend's death would have still been tragic he wouldn't have had to dealt with crappy relatives having more rights.
Captain Sammitch wrote: quote: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Originally posted by Matter-eater Man: If you can make allowances for the whackos on your side who pull crap you disagree with,(like bombing abortion clinics or the GodHatesFags.com people) why then not make the same concession for the other side's? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ "I never claimed any of those characters as being on my 'side'. I'm trying to politely disagree in a generally positive and groovy way. And I'm sure most of you on either side are the same way - at least in intent, if nothing else. I bailed from this thread because it was getting dragged out into debating the legitimacy of homosexual lifestyles - which is not the original intent of this thread, at least not the way I saw it. Plus, I realized that I was also taking cheap shots at people I didn't agree with, and the way we're doing this now, it's almost impossible for any of us to discuss this issue in a fair, reasonable, level-headed fashion. I personally think that posters on both sides of this issue are taking the whole thing way out of proportion. Regardless of who is complaining about the other's lack of pluralism or fairness, very few of you have been objective and understanding to the point where you're justified in crying foul on others. For me, it's not about who's right or wrong in this thread anymore. Sometimes, the outcome of a battle is less important than how it was fought. And almost all of us have been fighting dirty at one point or another. So please don't play the victim in this, any of you. Put down the cheap shots and personal attacks, and follow the lead of those on this thread who are engaged in constructive activities. And yes, disagreement can be constructive. Just my two cents. "
I was not aiming those comments at you but pointing out that Dave the Wonder Boy has on occassion pointed out that he may be be prolife & antigay(insert whatever the pc conservative term is for antigay), bombing an abortion clinic or celebrating a gay bashing victim's death isn't something he endorses. It's a point worth bringing up IMHO because when it comes to say a rabid gay activist or organization he has no problem stating we're all like that or at least endorse that type of behavior. So he can make some distinctions between extreme activism if it concerns his side of an issue but if it falls on the other side it's evidence & reflective of the whole.
Dave the Wonder Boy, I think where I live you actually wouldn't be able to fire me for being gay. Many large metro areas have included language that protects sexual orientation. Your comparison of the Christian not being able to evangelize is hardly comparable to the gay person (who may be a Christian also) just simply existing in the workplace. I would imagine if that gay person tried converting somebody into another gay that would be more comparable to the Christian trying to evengelize on the company's dime. In any case no amount of legislation really prevents an employer from getting rid of an employee who is suspected of being gay. They can always find a legal reason to fire or terminate employment.
In general whats at risk for you is really what other people think of you & your stance. In this country the KKK is still allowed & protected to organize, why would people such as yourself be allowed less than they? This country protects your right & in so doing protects mine.
It's not a matter of missing the point, I just don't see where anybody is saying their life is more awful than yours. The point here is respecting the deceased wishes. In this case they were not. I think more people reading a post like that would think it's wrong that estranged relatives essentially had more rights than the surviving spouse. Legislation can be passed to fix that.
If your getting beat up do you just passively lay there taking it or do you try to defend yourself? Gay's are quite simply seeking to defend themselves like I'm sure you naturally do.
Thank you. You summed it up nicely. The point I was trying to make is That as a gay man who'd been in a long term relationship that had ended in death, That I had as much legal rights as an ameoba, whereas hetersexuals have Marriage and the law to back them up.
Beardguy, I purposely haven't responded to this board in a while, because I didn't want to obligate myself to another 20 responses to the inevitable backlash at whatever I say.
So I don't know what you're referring to my having summed up, because I've purposefully kept my own counsel on your comments till now.
I'm not without sympathy for your situation. While clearly I'm not a supporter of the gay lifestyle, I'm certainly understanding of your losing someone you cared about.
I think we've all been there.
I had a friend who died in September who was my closest female friend (Jennifer) for about 13 years. The circumstances of her death appear to be alcohol-related. Her boyfriend, who saw her collapse, said it appeared to be heart attack or stroke. But her autopsy was inconclusive. She was only 36 years old.
So I'm sympathetic to your loss of someone close to you.
But at the same time (on the second and separate issue), I don't support your argument for gay marriage.
As you yourself said, if your partner had a will, the property would have gone to you, regardless of the fact that gay marriage is illegal.
And what happened to you also happens to millions of heterosexual families every year. For precisely the same reason, no will was planned. And while you were obviously the one closest to your friend, there's no will he left to legally establish that.
And I've certainly had the unfortunate experience of observing firsthand many similar parasitic relatives to what you describe, who were not a part of someone's life, and then grubbed for what they could get when the person died. A will can eliminate that, regardless of marital status.
But regardless, I am sorry for the loss of your friend.
Apparently , I screwed up!! I read the postings wrong, it was PARIAH that made the comments that I was responding to.
Dave, thanks for your comments. I'm sorry your friend died. I know how awful a loss like that can be. Before George died, I had lost NO ONE in my life that had been so important, Except for a few cats and I loved them dearly, as well. There were other friends that I lost to Aids, accidents and other various illnesses, but I was not anywhere NEAR as close to them as I was with George.
Now I understand just how it feels for others to go through the loss of a friend, spouse or lover. It's awful, but I survived. Most of us do.
Maybe that's why I took 9 - 11 so hard. I knew what the families, friends and loved ones had lost... Someone special in their lives that was never coming home again.
Below is a reprint of my Post, tho it is meant for Pariah THIS time around.
Thank you. You summed it up nicely. The point I was trying to make is That as a gay man who'd been in a long term relationship that had ended in death, That I had as much legal rights as an ameoba, whereas hetersexuals have Marriage and the law to back them up.
I'm sorry to hear about that, Beardguy. While I don't condone the gay lifestyle myself, I have many friends who are openly gay, and whenever something bad happens to any of them, I don't suddenly feel less sympathy for them than I would for one of my straight friends. I honestly can't say I would agree with altering the legal definition of marriage, but I really don't think that would lessen the difficulties faced by homosexuals anyway. There will always be people who think persecuting someone will magically change their minds. Anyway, sorry to hear about everything that happened to you.
I just wanted people to think a bit. Apparently, I accomplished my goal, as there have been a few replies to my Post in here, and then I'm certain others read it, too.
Quote: </font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Quoted from World AP-Canada:
Canada to Allow Same-Sex Marriage
By COLIN McCLELLAND, Associated Press Writer
TORONTO - The Canadian prime minister said he will file a bill to permit same-sex marriages, a change that would make Canada only the third country where such homosexual couples can legally wed.
The bill will be drafted within weeks and submitted to the Supreme Court for review, Prime Minister Jean Chretien said Tuesday. Chretien's Liberal Party has a majority in the legislature, though the issue has caused division in the party.
Currently, only Belgium and The Netherlands recognize same-sex marriages.
Recent court rulings have declared Canada's definition of marriage as unconstitutional because it specified it as the union of a man and a woman.
An Ontario appeals court last week declared the wording invalid, changing it to a union between two people.
Dozens of homosexual couples have obtained marriage licenses since the court ruling, with at least one wedding taking place.
"There is an evolution of society," Chretien said in making the announcement after a Cabinet meeting. He said the law would allow religions the right to decide what marriages should be sanctified.
An Anglican diocese in Vancouver has approved a blessing for same-sex unions, which it says is separate from marriage. The blessing ceremony, performed once so far, caused a split in the diocese with some churches dissociating themselves.
Opinion polls indicate a slight majority of Canadians favor legalizing same-sex marriages. After the Ontario appeals court ruling and similar previous ones by courts in British Columbia and Quebec, the government was under pressure to change the law or file appeals that would have left the issue unsettled.
Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said Tuesday it was time for change.
"We have decided not to appeal those rulings ... and proceeded with draft legislation that will be ready shortly ," he said. The new law would redefine marriage as called for by the courts while protecting religious freedoms, according to Cauchon.
"We're talking about essential freedoms here," he said.
Svend Robinson, a Parliament member for the leftist New Democratic Party who has pushed for same-sex marriages in Canada, praised Chretien's government for showing leadership. He rejected opposition by conservative political groups, who argue that changing the definition of marriage uproots a fundamental tenet of Canadian society.
In the United States, homosexual marriage lacks full legal recognition in all 50 states. Vermont recognizes civil unions that give homosexual couples the full benefits and responsibilities of marriage but are separate from legal marriage.
"Americans now have the chance to see a society can treat gay people with respect," said Evan Wolfson, executive director of the New York-based Freedom to Marry organization promoting homosexual marriage. "Families are helped, and no one is hurt." </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">'Bout time, IMHO.
Research by the Yale historian John Boswell in the book, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, explores the historical context of homosexual marriages. His studies revealed that homosexual marriage rites have been legally sanctioned and religiously upheld for over 3,000 years in ancient African, Asian, Egyptian, Greek, Mesopotamian, Native American and Roman cultures. The social acceptance of same-gender relationships did not gain widespread condemnation until the 13th century, when religious orders stepped in and declared them immoral (Dorrell & Legal Marriage Court Cases, 1994,1996). Paul Halsall, also a historian, supports the findings of Boswell and unearthed other cultures’ acceptance of male-male or female-female relationships. In his essay, Lesbian and Gay Marriage through History and Culture, he documents the recognition of same-gender couples in many cultures. He specifically lists, “Ancient Greece, Egypt, Crete, Sparta, Thebes, Ancient Rome, China, Japan, Malay, Bali, Australia, India, Native Americas (Chukchi, Koriaks, Kamchadale), New Mexico tribes, Peru, Brazil, Medieval Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism” (Halsall, 1996). While certainly the couplings and the recognitions were not everyday common occurrences, they were recorded as happening. The role of the church in condoning homosexual marriages is also evident, according to Boswell. The Catholic Church, in particular, legitimized same-gender unions for over 1,500 years. This tradition was halted only in the 1800s. There were over 100 liturgies specifically for same-gender marriages. Since childbearing parts of marriage did not fit the same-gender unions, they were removed. As a replacement, the liturgies praised the companionable parts of marriage. For instance, a gay couple was cited as celebrating "brotherhood.” (Dorrell, 1994) Other religious denominations accept and support same-gender commitments. Religious ceremonies for gay male couples and lesbian couples have been performed in assorted religious persuasions, including, Buddhist, Episcopalian, Reconstructionist, Jewish, Reform Jewish, Presbyterian, Quaker, Unitarian and others (Where to Get a Religious Blessing, 1995). It is noteworthy that while many of the arguments against same-gender marriage pertain to religion, currently the only instances where Americans can have same-gender marriage rites performed are religious. The law does not recognize same-gender marriages, but many churches do. Female-female and male-male couples have existed throughout history and exist in great numbers today. The level of social recognition has varied through time, religions and specific cultures. However, homosexual relationships are not a new concept nor are they something that have just sprung out of the decaying American society. They have always existed, however they may not have always been a discussed topic nor have a great deal of couples wished to be socially open with the true nature of their relationship. Marriage in the United States has gone through many changes since the establishment of the country, transcending many elements that were once regulated, such as race of the couple. Making the gender of a marriage partner open to personal choice should be the next step in the evolution of marriage.
Quote: Matter-Eater Man:
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The social acceptance of same-gender relationships did not gain widespread condemnation until the 13th century, when religious orders stepped in and declared them immoral
The condemnation of sodomy pre-dates the Old Testament and New Testament of the Bible, and as I've earlier detailed in this topic, verses of Biblical scripture CLEARLY condemn homosexuality, from Genesis forward.
It was under Moses, around 1400 B.C. that written language began, and the verbal history of the Jews was first begun in Hebrew, Aramaic, and later (with the New Testament) Greek.
Written language began in Mesopotamia, Egypt and elsewhere, several hundred years prior to Moses writing the first five books of the Bible (i.e., The Pentateuch) and the Jews, previously uneducated nomadic shepherds, learned writing and other cultural ways of the Egyptians in the 300 years or so they lived in Egypt, prior to their later being enslaved by the Egyptians, and finally leaving Egypt in EXODUS. (All detailed in the latter half of Genesis and early chapters of Exodus).
But scripture, beginning with Genesis in 1400 B.C., clearly takes a hardline against homosexual practices.
Furthermore, any gay marriages by Presbyterians or any other Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish denomination is also a practice that clearly goes against scripture. Any Judao-Christian "service" that endorses or enacts gay marriage is Christian in name ONLY, and clearly does not follow what the Bible teaches.
Islam, which took hold in 600 to 700 A.D., as well condemns homosexuality, and well before the 13th century. (Which according to the article, was when homosexuality was suddenly allegedly "declared immoral". The pure and simple fact is homosexuality was widely condemned long before the 13th century. And not just by the Judao-Christian Bible. )
The written Bible clearly condemns homosexuality from its very beginning. Which again, predates the alleged 13th-century origin of condemning homosexuality by 2000 years.
And Jewish tradition condemning homosexuality predates much further than that, before written scripture, to the time of Abraham and Lot -- the time of Sodom and Gomorrah-- in Genesis chapters 18 and 19 which events are projected to have occurred between 2166 B.C. to 2066 B.C.)
And the Bible again sees widespread acceptance of homosexuality as a prophetic precursor to a society's destruction.
Looking at Babylonian, Greek and Roman cultures as examples, it seems that the Biblical perspective is quite accurate, that homosexuality marks the point of decline and downfall of those cultures.
Many of these cultures that endorsed homosexuality also practiced the occult, astrology, fortune-telling, human sacrifice and the drinking of human blood as well. Practices that are as frequently condemned as homosexuality in the Bible, and whose prevalence are also seen as prophetic signs, which are also occurring with increasing frequency in current culture.
Actually Rome adopted Christianity as it's religion before it was over ran by the Huns (not homosexuals) Anyways this is just evidence that gay weddings are nothing new & that some religions may have recognized them.
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr /><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">
Quotations by learned men from the 19th century:
"[Slavery] was established by decree of Almighty God...it is sanctioned in the Bible, in both Testaments, from Genesis to Revelation...it has existed in all ages, has been found among the people of the highest civilization, and in nations of the highest proficiency in the arts." Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederate States of America. 1,2
"There is not one verse in the Bible inhibiting slavery, but many regulating it. It is not then, we conclude, immoral." Rev. Alexander Campbell
"The right of holding slaves is clearly established in the Holy Scriptures, both by precept and example." Rev. R. Furman, D.D., Baptist, of South Carolina
"The hope of civilization itself hangs on the defeat of Negro suffrage." A statement by a prominent 19th-century southern Presbyterian pastor, cited by Rev. Jack Rogers, moderator of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
"The doom of Ham has been branded on the form and features of his African descendants. The hand of fate has united his color and destiny. Man cannot separate what God hath joined." United States Senator James Henry Hammond.
The quotation by Jefferson Davis, listed above, reflected the beliefs of many Americans in the 19th century. Slavery was seen as having been "sanctioned in the Bible." They argued that:
Biblical passages recognized, controlled, and regulated the practice.
The Bible permitted owners to beat their slaves severely, even to the point of killing them. However, as long as the slave lingered longer than 24 hours before dying of the abuse, the owner was not regarded as having committed a crime, because -- after all -- the slave was his property. 4
Paul had every opportunity to write in one of his Epistles that human slavery -- the owning of one person as a piece of property by another -- is profoundly evil. His letter to Philemon would have been an ideal opportunity to vilify slavery. But he wrote not one word of criticism.
Jesus could have condemned the practice. He might have done so. But there is no record of him having said anything negative about the institution.
Eventually, the abolitionists gained sufficient power to eradicate slavery in most areas of the world by the end of the 19th century. Slavery was eventually recognized as a extreme evil. But this paradigm shift in understanding came at a cost. Christians wondered why the Bible was so supportive of such an immoral practice. They questioned whether the Bible was entirely reliable. Perhaps there were other practices that it accepted as normal which were profoundly evil -- like genocide, torturing prisoners, raping female prisoners of war, executing religious minorities, burning some hookers alive, etc. The innocent faith that Christians had in "the Good Book" was lost -- never to be fully regained.
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Nowadays, in our enlightened age, we correctly recognise slavery as an intolerable abomination, against ever precept of human dignity, fairness and conscience. The Bible on this issue is wrong.
I take the same view on homosexuality. A refusal to allow or accept that some people choose to have sex with other free-thinking individuals of the same gender is pure intolerance.
Whoa. This is as far as I've read, so far, but I had to comment on this blatent missquote. Whoa.
The slavery listed in the Bible is not about superiority or anything like that. If someone stole form you, and they could not pay you back, then they worked off their debt as your slave. Or, someone could sell themselves into slavery to get out of debt, or to get off the streets, but, only for a short period of time. Hell, if you only had one pillow in your house, you had to give to your slave. And, when the slave paid off their debt, they had to leave. If they didn't, if they chose to remain a slave, then they had an ear pierced, to show their refusal to live free. There is a lot more, it is very complicated. I hate it when people misquote things like that. No matter how long ago they did it.
DavetWB, the year is 5764, the place...rob online.
Anyway, this is a great discussion. I still have a lot of catching up to do, so please don't expect me to respond to anything else for a while.
Don't mind me. I decided to edit out some things I posted. On second thought, they could spark discussion that I don't want to get into, and may have insulted some people, who I am not here to, nor do I wish to insult in any way.
BOSTON - The Massachusetts high court ruled Wednesday that only full, equal marriage rights for gay couples — rather than civil unions — would be constitutional, erasing any doubts that the nation's first same-sex marriages could take place in the state beginning in mid-May.
The court issued the opinion in response to a request from the state Senate about whether Vermont-style civil unions, which convey the state benefits of marriage — but not the title — would meet constitutional muster.
"The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal," the four justices who ruled in favor of gay marriage wrote in the advisory opinion. A bill that would allow for civil unions, but falls short of marriage, makes for "unconstitutional, inferior, and discriminatory status for same-sex couples."
The much-anticipated opinion sets the stage for next Wednesday's constitutional convention, where the Legislature will consider an amendment that would legally define marriage as a union between one man and one woman. Without the opinion, Senate President Robert Travaglini had said the vote would be delayed.
The soonest a constitutional amendment could end up on the ballot would be 2006, meaning that until then, the high court's decision will be Massachusetts law no matter what is decided at the constitutional convention.
The Supreme Judicial Court ruled in November that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry, and gave the Legislature six months to change state laws to make it happen.
But almost immediately, the vague wording of the ruling left lawmakers — and advocates on both side of the issue — uncertain if Vermont-style civil unions would satisfy the court's decision.
The state Senate asked for more guidance from the court and sought the advisory opinion, which was made public Wednesday morning when it was read into the Senate record.
When it was issued in November, the 4-3 ruling set off a firestorm of protest across the country among politicians, religious leaders and others opposed to providing landmark rights for gay couples to marry.
President Bush immediately denounced the decision and vowed to pursue legislation to protect the traditional definition of marriage. Church leaders in the heavily Roman Catholic state also pressed their parishioners to oppose efforts to allow gays to marry.
And legislators were prepared to vote on a proposed amendment to the state constitution that would seek to make the court's ruling moot by defining as marriage as a union between one man and one woman — thus expressly making same-sex marriages illegal in Massachusetts.
What the case represented, both sides agree, was a significant new milestone in a year that has seen broad new recognitions of gay rights in America, Canada and abroad, including a June U.S. Supreme Court decision striking a Texas ban on gay sex.
Legal experts, however, said that the long-awaited decision, while clearly stating that it is unconstitutional to bar gay couples from marriage, gave ambiguous instructions to the state Legislature.
Lawmakers remained uncertain if civil unions went far enough to live up to the court's ruling — or if actual marriages were required.
When a similar decision was issued in Vermont in 1999, the court told the Legislature that it could allow gay couples to marry or create a parallel institution that conveys all the state rights and benefits of marriage. The Legislature chose the second route, leading to the approval of civil unions in that state.
The Massachusetts decision made no mention of an alternative solution, but instead pointed to a recent decision in Ontario, Canada, that changed the common law definition of marriage to include same-sex couples and led to the issuance of marriage licenses there.
The state "has failed to identify any constitutionally adequate reason for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples," the court wrote. "Barred access to the protections, benefits and obligations of civil marriage, a person who enters into an intimate, exclusive union with another of the same sex is arbitrarily deprived of membership in one of our community's most rewarding and cherished institutions."
The Massachusetts case began in 2001, when seven gay couples went to their city and town halls to obtain marriage licenses. All were denied, leading them to sue the state Department of Public Health, which administers the state's marriage laws.
A Suffolk Superior Court judge threw out the case in 2002, ruling that nothing in state law gives gay couples the right to marry. The couples immediately appealed to the Supreme Judicial Court, which heard arguments in March.
The plaintiffs argued that barring them from marrying a partner of the same sex denied them access to an intrinsic human experience and violated basic constitutional rights.
Over the past decade, Massachusetts' high court has expanded the legal parameters of family, ruling that same-sex couples can adopt children and devising child visitation right for a former partner of a lesbian.
Massachusetts has one of the highest concentrations of gay households in the country with at 1.3 percent of the total number of coupled households, according to the 2000 census. In California, 1.4 percent of the coupled households are occupied by same-sex partners. Vermont and New York also registered at 1.3 percent, while in Washington, D.C., the rate is 5.1 percent
"But scripture, beginning with Genesis in 1400 B.C., clearly takes a hardline against homosexual practices.
Furthermore, any gay marriages by Presbyterians or any other Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish denomination is also a practice that clearly goes against scripture. Any Judao-Christian "service" that endorses or enacts gay marriage is Christian in name ONLY, and clearly does not follow what the Bible teaches. "
Yawn. This is the United States of America, not the United States of Jesus. If one can't see the difference, then you're a limited person.
BOSTON - Despite Massachusetts' highest court allowing same-sex marriages by summer, legislators opposed to the concept were weighing options to try to circumvent the ruling — either through a law or a constitutional amendment.
"The court has overstepped its boundary and has not let the legislative process to unfold the way it has on other issues," said Rep. Eugene O'Flaherty.
The 4-3 advisory ruling Wednesday by the Supreme Judicial Court creates a legislative dilemma that could force many uneasy lawmakers to choose sides on a contentious social issue.
The court Wednesday doused one compromise option, ruling that gay couples were entitled to all the benefits of marriage and that Vermont-style civil unions don't go far enough.
But some gay marriage opponents, including powerful House Speaker Thomas Finneran, said they haven't closed the door on other legislative responses.
"I intend to closely study today's advisory opinion," said Finneran. "I will refrain from any comment until I have thought through the options which remain for the people of Massachusetts and their elected representatives."
Opponents of gay marriage pin their hopes on part of the court's original ruling that said state law provided no "rational" basis for prohibiting same-sex couples from the benefits of marriage.
Some lawmakers, including Rep. Eugene O'Flaherty, hope to craft a bill providing a rational basis for the exclusion of gay couples from marriage while conveying some new benefits to same-sex couples.
"The court has overstepped its boundary and has not let the legislative process to unfold the way it has on other issues," O'Flaherty said.
The much-anticipated opinion came a week before next Wednesday's Constitutional Convention, where the Legislature will consider an amendment backed by Gov. Mitt Romney that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
"The spotlight is now shining brightly on the Constitutional Convention. I can't believe any lawmaker would want to run from this," said Rep. Philip Travis, who sponsored the amendment.
The soonest a constitutional amendment could end up on the ballot would be 2006, meaning that the nation's first gay marriage could take place in Massachusetts as soon as May.
"We've heard from the court, but not from the people," Romney said in a statement. "The people of Massachusetts should not be excluded from a decision as fundamental to our society as the definition of marriage."
Senate President Robert Travaglini, who will preside over the Constitutional Convention, said he needed time to talk with fellow senators before deciding what to do next.
"I want to have everyone stay in an objective and calm state as we plan and define what's the appropriate way to proceed," said Travaglini. "There is a lot of anxiety out there obviously surrounding the issue but I don't want to have it cloud or distort the discussion."
The advisory opinion was issued about three months after the court's original ruling that same-sex couples were entitled to all the benefits of marriage. That ruling prompted the Senate to ask if civil unions would satisfy the court.
Wednesday's opinion left no doubt.
"The history of our nation has demonstrated that separate is seldom, if ever, equal," four justices wrote in Wednesday's opinion. "For no rational reason the marriage laws of the Commonwealth discriminate against a defined class; no amount of tinkering with language will eradicate that stain."
Lawmakers who cheered the ruling said they welcomed the chance to stand up and be counted. Sen. Jarrett Barrios, a supporter of gay marriage, said the opinion treats gay and straight couples equally.
"Whatever your view is of marriage, it's my belief that fair-minded people oppose writing discrimination into the constitution," said Barrios, who is gay.
A marriage amendment will require the support of at least 101 members of the 200-member Legislature during the current legislative session and the same number in the new, two-year session that begins in January before going on the ballot.
There's no guarantee the question will even come up next week. The question is eighth on a list of 11 proposed amendments. Ahead of it are other controversial proposals, including one lengthening the term of lawmakers from two to four years.
At least one aspect of the case may still be subject to debate: Would marriages in Massachusetts have to be recognized legally in other states or by the federal government?
The federal government and 38 other states have enacted laws barring the recognition of any gay marriages in other jurisdictions. The Massachusetts court decision will likely lead to multiple lawsuits about whether gay marriage benefits can extend beyond the state's borders.
President Bush, reacting to the court ruling, said a constitutional amendment will be necessary to ban gay marriages if judges persist in approving them. The issue has the potential to become a hot factor in the presidential campaign.
Yeah I wish this just could be put on hold for a bit. I do agree with the courts decision but this is an issue that requires slow change over time. And in the scheme of all things political, theres much more important issues.
I just hope we don't change the laws here 'just because Canada did it'. LOL
As an Animal Science major, I found this interesting.
Quote: Love That Dare Not Squeak Its Name By DINITIA SMITH
Published: February 7, 2004
Roy and Silo, two chinstrap penguins at the Central Park Zoo in Manhattan, are completely devoted to each other. For nearly six years now, they have been inseparable. They exhibit what in penguin parlance is called "ecstatic behavior": that is, they entwine their necks, they vocalize to each other, they have sex. Silo and Roy are, to anthropomorphize a bit, gay penguins. When offered female companionship, they have adamantly refused it. And the females aren't interested in them, either.
At one time, the two seemed so desperate to incubate an egg together that they put a rock in their nest and sat on it, keeping it warm in the folds of their abdomens, said their chief keeper, Rob Gramzay. Finally, he gave them a fertile egg that needed care to hatch. Things went perfectly. Roy and Silo sat on it for the typical 34 days until a chick, Tango, was born. For the next two and a half months they raised Tango, keeping her warm and feeding her food from their beaks until she could go out into the world on her own. Mr. Gramzay is full of praise for them.
"They did a great job," he said. He was standing inside the glassed-in penguin exhibit, where Roy and Silo had just finished lunch. Penguins usually like a swim after they eat, and Silo was in the water. Roy had finished his dip and was up on the beach.
Roy and Silo are hardly unusual. Milou and Squawk, two young males, are also beginning to exhibit courtship behavior, hanging out with each other, billing and bowing. Before them, the Central Park Zoo had Georgey and Mickey, two female Gentoo penguins who tried to incubate eggs together. And Wendell and Cass, a devoted male African penguin pair, live at the New York Aquarium in Coney Island. Indeed, scientists have found homosexual behavior throughout the animal world.
This growing body of science has been increasingly drawn into charged debates about homosexuality in American society, on subjects from gay marriage to sodomy laws, despite reluctance from experts in the field to extrapolate from animals to humans. Gay groups argue that if homosexual behavior occurs in animals, it is natural, and therefore the rights of homosexuals should be protected. On the other hand, some conservative religious groups have condemned the same practices in the past, calling them "animalistic."
But if homosexuality occurs among animals, does that necessarily mean that it is natural for humans, too? And that raises a familiar question: if homosexuality is not a choice, but a result of natural forces that cannot be controlled, can it be immoral?
The open discussion of homosexual behavior in animals is relatively new. "There has been a certain cultural shyness about admitting it," said Frans de Waal, whose 1997 book, "Bonobo: The Forgotten Ape" (University of California Press), unleashed a torrent of discussion about animal sexuality. Bonobos, apes closely related to humans, are wildly energetic sexually. Studies show that whether observed in the wild or in captivity, nearly all are bisexual, and nearly half their sexual interactions are with the same sex. Female bonobos have been observed to engage in homosexual activity almost hourly.
Before his own book, "American scientists who investigated bonobos never discussed sex at all," said Mr. de Waal, director of the Living Links Center of the Yerkes Primate Center at Emory University in Atlanta. "Or they sometimes would show two females having sex together, and would say, `The females are very affectionate.' "
Then in 1999, Bruce Bagemihl published "Biological Exuberance: Animal Homosexuality and Natural Diversity" (St. Martin's Press), one of the first books of its kind to provide an overview of scholarly studies of same-sex behavior in animals. Mr. Bagemihl said homosexual behavior had been documented in some 450 species. (Homosexuality, he says, refers to any of these behaviors between members of the same sex: long-term bonding, sexual contact, courtship displays or the rearing of young.) Last summer the book was cited by the American Psychiatric Association and other groups in a "friend of the court" brief submitted to the Supreme Court in Lawrence v. Texas, a case challenging a Texas anti-sodomy law. The court struck down the law.
"Sexual Exuberance" was also cited in 2000 by gay rights groups opposed to Ballot Measure 9, a proposed Oregon statute prohibiting teaching about homosexuality or bisexuality in public schools. The measure lost.
In his book Mr. Bagemihl describes homosexual activity in a broad spectrum of animals. He asserts that while same-sex behavior is sometimes found in captivity, it is actually seen more frequently in studies of animals in the wild.
Among birds, for instance, studies show that 10 to 15 percent of female western gulls in some populations in the wild are homosexual. Females perform courtship rituals, like tossing their heads at each other or offering small gifts of food to each other, and they establish nests together. Occasionally they mate with males and produce fertile eggs but then return to their original same-sex partners. Their bonds, too, may persist for years.
Among mammals, male and female bottlenose dolphins frequently engage in homosexual activity, both in captivity and in the wild. Homosexuality is particularly common among young male dolphin calves. One male may protect another that is resting or healing from wounds inflicted by a predator. When one partner dies, the other may search for a new male mate. Researchers have noted that in some cases same-sex behavior is more common for dolphins in captivity.
Male and female rhesus macaques, a type of monkey, also exhibit homosexuality in captivity and in the wild. Males are affectionate to each other, touching, holding and embracing. Females smack their lips at each other and play games like hide-and-seek, peek-a-boo and follow the leader. And both sexes mount members of their own sex.
Paul L. Vasey, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Lethbridge in Canada, who studies homosexual behavior in Japanese macaques, is editing a new book on homosexual behavior in animals, to be published by Cambridge University Press. This kind of behavior among animals has been observed by scientists as far back as the 1700's, but Mr. Vasey said one reason there had been few books on the topic was that "people don't want to do the research because they don't want to have suspicions raised about their sexuality."
Some scientists say homosexual behavior in animals is not necessarily about sex. Marlene Zuk, a professor of biology at the University of California at Riverside and author of "Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can't Learn About Sex From Animals" (University of California Press, 2002), notes that scientists have speculated that homosexuality may have an evolutionary purpose, ensuring the survival of the species. By not producing their own offspring, homosexuals may help support or nurture their relatives' young. "That is a contribution to the gene pool," she said.
For Janet Mann, a professor of biology and psychology at Georgetown University, who has studied same-sex behavior in dolphin calves, their homosexuality "is about bond formation," she said, "not about being sexual for life."
She said that studies showed that adult male dolphins formed long-term alliances, sometimes in large groups. As adults, they cooperate to entice a single female and keep other males from her. Sometimes they share the female, or they may cooperate to help one male. "Male-male cooperation is extremely important," Ms. Mann said. The homosexual behavior of the young calves "could be practicing" for that later, crucial adult period, she added.
But, scientists say, just because homosexuality is observed in animals doesn't mean that it is only genetically based. "Homosexuality is extraordinarily complex and variable," Mr. Bagemihl said. "We look at animals as pure biology and pure genetics, and they are not." He noted that "the occurrence of same-sex behavior in animals provides support for the nurture side as well." He cited as an example the ruff, a type of Arctic sandpiper. There are four different classes of male ruffs, each differing from the others genetically. The two that differ most from each other are most similar in their homosexual behaviors.
Ms. Zuk said, "You have inclinations that are more or less supported by our genes and in some environmental circumstances get expressed." She used the analogy of right- or left-handedness, thought to be genetically based. "But you can teach naturally left-handed children to use their right hand," she pointed out.
Still, scientists warn about drawing conclusions about humans. "For some people, what animals do is a yardstick of what is and isn't natural," Mr. Vasey said. "They make a leap from saying if it's natural, it's morally and ethically desirable."
But he added: "Infanticide is widespread in the animal kingdom. To jump from that to say it is desirable makes no sense. We shouldn't be using animals to craft moral and social policies for the kinds of human societies we want to live in. Animals don't take care of the elderly. I don't particularly think that should be a platform for closing down nursing homes."
Mr. Bagemihl is also wary of extrapolating. "In Nazi Germany, one very common interpretation of homosexuality was that it was animalistic behavior, subhuman," he said.
What the animal studies do show, Ms. Zuk observed, is that "sexuality is a lot broader term than people want to think."
"You have this idea that the animal kingdom is strict, old-fashioned Roman Catholic," she said, "that they have sex just to procreate."
In bonobos, she noted, "you see expressions of sex outside the period when females are fertile. Suddenly you are beginning to see that sex is not necessarily about reproduction."
"Sexual expression means more than making babies," Ms. Zuk said. "Why are we surprised? People are animals."
It's difficult to make sense of everything we hear. I've seen just about as much that disagrees with those previous findings. Scientists are human beings too, and therefore there's an angle, however subtle, to what they observe and report. The trouble is that everything so far is descriptive evidence, various circumstances that have been observed. That's okay in and of itself, but when it's used as evidence of underlying factors without any conclusive supporting information that pertains directly to those underlying factors, you're still going out on a limb to say your side has THE ANSWER(tm).
SAN FRANCISCO - In an open challenge to California law, city authorities performed at least 15 same-sex weddings Thursday and issued about a dozen more marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.
By midafternoon, jubilant gay couples were lining up under City Hall's ornate gold dome and exchanging vows in two-minute ceremonies that followed one after another.
"Today a barrier to true justice has been removed," said Gavin Newsom, newly elected mayor of the city considered the capital of gay America.
No state legally sanctions gay marriage, and it remains unclear what practical value the marriage licenses will have. The weddings violate a ballot measure California voters approved in 2000 that defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman.
The move by San Francisco's mayor came as lawmakers in Massachusetts continued to debate a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage in that state, where the nation's first legally recognized same-sex weddings are set to take place this spring under a ruling from the Massachusetts high court.
The assembly-line nuptials began with longtime lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon, 79, and Del Martin, 83, who were hurriedly issued a married license and were wedded just before noon by City Assessor Mabel Teng in a closed-door civil ceremony at City Hall. The two have been a couple for 51 years.
About 30 couples crowded outside the San Francisco County Clerk's office awaiting licenses, many arm in arm. One of the women, wearing a white wedding dress and veil, encouraged couples to shout out their names and how long they had been together.
"I understand there are wrinkles that need to be worked out, but as far as I'm concerned, we will be married," said Molly McKay as she and her partner of eight years, Davina Kotulski, stood at the clerk's counter.
During one of the weddings, performed before TV cameras, the vows were rewritten so that "husband and wife" became "spouse for life."
A conservative group called the Campaign for California Families called the marriages a sham.
"These unlawful certificates are not worth the paper they are printed on. The renegade mayor of San Francisco has no authority to do this," said Randy Thomasson, executive director. "This is nothing more than a publicity stunt that disrespects our state law and system of government itself."
San Francisco officials insisted the licenses are legally binding and would immediately confer new benefits in everything from health coverage to funeral arrangements.
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer had no comment.
The gay marriages were timed by city officials to outmaneuver the conservative group. The group had planned to go to court on Friday to stop the mayor's announced plans to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. But city officials struck first.
Lyon and Martin said after their brief ceremony that they were going home to rest and did not plan anything to celebrate. The couple seemed proud of what they had done.
"Why shouldn't we" be able to marry? Lyon asked.
The mayor was not present at the morning ceremony but later presented Martin and Lyon with a signed copy of the state constitution with sections related to equal rights highlighted.
The two official witnesses were Kate Kendell, director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights and former city official Roberta Achtenberg.
The conservative group fighting gay marriage has also sued to try to block California's domestic partner law, which then-Gov. Gray Davis signed in September.
That law expands the rights of gay couples in areas ranging from health coverage and parental status to property ownership and funeral arrangements.
"The assembly-line nuptials began with longtime lesbian activists Phyllis Lyon, 79, and Del Martin, 83, who were hurriedly issued a married license and were wedded just before noon by City Assessor Mabel Teng in a closed-door civil ceremony at City Hall. The two have been a couple for 51 years. "
I just don't see how anyone can find a marriage between these women to be anything other than beautiful...my god, they've been a couple for 51 years!
I just don't see how anyone can find a marriage between these women to be anything other than beautiful
I find it quite easy to do so. I mean, they're fucking skeletons with sheet paper stretched over them. I really wouldn't like to be a witness for that wedding night.
Out of curiosity are there any straight married guys here that are against gay marriage? Those that are rutting around in the premarital bed or chronic masterbators might want to take a look in the mirror.
I think most gay guys have better things to do Seriously though, it's funny seeing people who are making these moral arguments yet don't practice what they preach.
i didnt see alot of moral arguments here, i seen alot of people saying its not the courts place to reverse the people will, because the court has an agenda....
Yeah most of the last 2 pages have been more focussed about the courts latest decision but the bulk of the thread is a different story. And will these same folk be upset if theres a constitutional amendment making sure no states have gay marriage even if a state wants it?
Quote: Article. V. The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress
if it is made an admendment it will have been approved by 3/4ths of the states....
Quote: Article. V. The Congress, whenever two thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose Amendments to this Constitution, or, on the Application of the Legislatures of two thirds of the several States, shall call a Convention for proposing Amendments, which, in either Case, shall be valid to all Intents and Purposes, as Part of this Constitution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three fourths of the several States, or by Conventions in three fourths thereof, as the one or the other Mode of Ratification may be proposed by the Congress
if it is made an admendment it will have been approved by 3/4ths of the states....
Ugh! OK majority does rule in that case. Social Studies was so boring at my school! And as I posted a couple of days ago I don't agree with a court deciding these types of things. Still think there is much hypocrisy when it comes to this issue. As others pointed out earlier I doubt the majority would be comfortable with the government really trying to protect the sanctity of marriage by it's worst offenders.
you might be right, but thats why we live in a democracy, its what the majority chooses. if the majority chooses to make a marriage a union between man and woman then that is the law. its not right for a court to arbitrarily(sp?) decide it doesnt like it so it wont happen. if the majority decided divorces werent allowed id have to live with that as well. do you also find it ironic that the same people who argued the alabamba jusdge should follow the law and not his beliefs arent making the same case about these judges?
We don't live in a real democracy, though, we live in a representative democracy. "The people" aren't the one's making the laws, individuals who supposedly represent the people are.
Misrepresent might be a better word for it. Society will not crumble if the government recognizes gay marriages. It didn't when the slaves were freed or when women gained the right to vote or civil rights just a couple of decades ago. Yet we have the same old tired arguments that popped up then reappearing in the here and now.
Quote: Animalman said: We don't live in a real democracy, though, we live in a representative democracy. "The people" aren't the one's making the laws, individuals who supposedly represent the people are.
CHICAGO - Mayor Richard Daley said he would have "no problem" with Cook County issuing marriage licenses to gay couples in Chicago, the nation's third largest city.
Entering a national debate over gay marriage, Daley urged sympathy for same-sex couples because "they love each other just as much as anyone else."
Daley also dismissed a suggestion Wednesday that marriage between gay couples would undermine the institution.
"Marriage has been undermined by divorce, so don't tell me about marriage," he said. "Don't blame the gay and lesbian, transgender and transsexual community."
Daley said only the county clerk's office can issue marriage licenses, and he stopped short of saying he would follow San Francisco's Mayor Gavin Newsom by approving marriage licenses for same-sex couples.
County Clerk David Orr said he was "game to looking at options," but only if a consensus could be built between Daley, city and county government and advocacy groups.
"I'm fed up with people being discriminated against because of their sexual orientation," Orr said. "(But) whatever you do when it comes to challenging laws, you want it to be effective and not knee-jerk."
Last fall the county board authorized Orr to issue certificates of domestic partnership that carry no legal rights.
Rick Garcia, political director for the gay rights group Equality Illinois, welcomed Daley's comments, saying they represent "another step in the right direction."
At least 38 states and the federal government have approved laws or amendments barring the recognition of gay marriage. Meanwhile, gay and lesbian couples from more than 20 states and Europe have flocked to San Francisco since city officials decided to begin marrying same-sex couples last week.
Massachusetts' highest court also recently ruled that its state constitution allows gay marriages.
I doubt it'll get past many people. The political leanings within this town notwithstanding, it's basically smack in the middle of the Midwest. You tell me.
New Mexico Clerk Issues Gay Marriage Licenses by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
Posted: February 20, 2004 11:22 a.m. ET Updated: February 20, 2004 2:44 p.m. ET
(Albuquerque, New Mexico) Sandoval County, a community of about 90,000 people just north of Albuquerque has became the second community in the country to begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
A lesbian couple was issued the first license and exchanged vows outside the county courthouse Friday as other same-sex couples lined up for their chance to tie the knot.
County Clerk Victoria Dunlap said she feared a lawsuit if she does not grant the licenses to gay couples.
Sandoval County attorney David Mathews agrees there is potential same-sex couples could sue under New Mexico law if the licenses were refused.
State law defines marriage as a civil contract between contracting parties, but does not mention gender.
When Dunlop made her decision she said she had not been approached by any same-sex couple seeking a license but after reading about the recent court decision in Massachusetts which has similar laws she became concerned that a refusal could end up in a lengthy and expensive court battle which the county would not win.
"This office won't say no until shown it's not permissible,'' said Dunlap.
Shortly after the word was out, gay and lesbian couples began arriving at the cler's office.
A spokesperson for state Attorney General Patricia Madrid, Sam Thompson, said the attorney general’s office never has been asked for an opinion on the issue.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: The President is today publically saying for the first time that he would support a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
Great. Use the document created by the Fore Fathers for the express purpose of expanding citizens' rights to decrease citizens' rights.
Damn, I do hate this president.
Jim
Or more accurately: SAVING the rights of those who believe marriage is one man/one woman, protecting that definition, which has endured for over 6000 years, from perversion.
I've already described the symbolic purity and commitment of marriage, as defined in the Bible, for practicing Christians and Jews.
And the clear view of homosexuality in the Bible, chapter and verse, from Genesis forward. Something morally impure, and a precursor of Armageddon, could never be endorsed in any legitimate Judao/Christian ceremony.
And separately from the Bible, the significance of marriage for those in Islamic, Buddhist, and Hindu cultures.
It's only secularist schmucks in Europe and North America who decadently oppose the will of the overwhelming majority of their populations, to sneak pro-gay rulings into law, through unlawful channels, bypassing legislation and consent of the majority, which allows these abberrations to become law.
Again:
If gays want to have civil union, that is acceptable to me. But changing the definition of marriage is absolutely unacceptable.
It is not even about rights, for gays pushing this agenda. It's about secularist liberals maliciously trying to undermine every last vestige of religious rights and institutions.
Dave said: "Or more accurately, SAVING the rights of those who believe marriage is one man/one woman, protecting that definition, which has endured for over 6000 years, from perversion."
Dave, this is the United States of America. It is not a Judeo-Christian theocracy. It was not set up to be run in that fashion regardless of how much The Ten Commandments influenced our nation's laws. If the Founding Fathers wanted the Bible followed explicitly, they would have said so.
The marriage of any man and woman is no more threatened by a gay civil union (I fully accept that if a religion says a gay union is verboten then it's verboten IN THAT RELIGION) than it is threatened by a black marrying a white.
You cannot deny a civil liberty to one group of people that is afforded by another group of people.
The Constitution protects people and expands the rights of people. Not a "definition."
And as a follow up...those who want to "save and protect" marriage by an amendment defining marriage heterosexually...how about we just set up an amendment that outlaws divorce. THAT's the real threat to marriage.
You get married and make it for life. No dissolution, civil or otherwise. To get a divorce is to commit a crime.
Divorce is not an evil thing. Sometimes it is necessary. Sometimes, loving someone just isn't enough.
Are people expected to remain married when all they do is yell at each other, which actually hurts children more than helps them?
And what if the couple have drifted apart spiritually/religously? What then? Are they supposed to remain toghether when one parent, and the children, believe in a certain way of life, but the other has chosen, for whatever reason, to stop believing, and to stop living that way?
And what about adultery? Should a woman be expected to remain married to a man who cheats on her? That's an exceptable relationship?
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Again: If gays want to have civil union, that is acceptable to me.
Unfortunately, no civil union exists that provides the same financial privileges and security as marriage. In this case, the enemies are the insurance companies who refuse to compromise.
Quote: Dave said: "Or more accurately, SAVING the rights of those who believe marriage is one man/one woman, protecting that definition, which has endured for over 6000 years, from perversion."
Dave, this is the United States of America. It is not a Judeo-Christian theocracy. It was not set up to be run in that fashion regardless of how much The Ten Commandments influenced our nation's laws. If the Founding Fathers wanted the Bible followed explicitly, they would have said so.
The marriage of any man and woman is no more threatened by a gay civil union (I fully accept that if a religion says a gay union is verboten then it's verboten IN THAT RELIGION) than it is threatened by a black marrying a white.
You cannot deny a civil liberty to one group of people that is afforded by another group of people.
The Constitution protects people and expands the rights of people. Not a "definition."
Jim
If I did not exert restraint on my response here, this could easily expand into a flame-war that would fill another two or three topic pages.
Feel free to re-read the arguments I made over the previous 10 topic pages, to save us from re-treading the same territory.
Answering your specific points, it's not entirely about religion. Many who are Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist (every major world religion) vaguely follow in that cultural tradition, but are not overly religious. But they still live by the concept of marriage = one man + one woman.
Being gay is not the same as being black or white or some other race. Being gay is a lifestyle choice. By your argument, we'd have to start giving minority protection rights to unabombers and skydivers and drug addicts and compulsive gamblers and (gasp ! Choke !) Christians.
( I mean hey, it's who they are, they aren't capable of being anything other than what they are. They shouldn't be treated differently because of what they're compelled to be, right? )
But we've already been through this argument several times.
The entire world, not just fundamentalist Christians, lives by the definition of marriage = one man + one woman.
Less than 2% of the U.S. is gay. So by what right, by what arrogance, does the gay community think it has the right to change the definition of marriage out from under the rest of us?
Let marriage keep its long-established definition, and civil union be established as the standard for gays. The term civil union makes no pretense of being sanctioned by God.
Although as I said a few pages ago, I find it hard to support ANY further rights for gays beyond what already exists, because any concessions are used by gay activists to push for more and more concessions, infringing on the rights of conservatives.
Gays will only be happy when Christians can't even say in a church that the Bible condemns homosexuality.
~
Penwing,
You're correct in saying the Bible allows for divorce under certain circumstances. The Old Testament allows for divorce in many circumstances.
In the New Testament, Christ himself states in Matthew that the only legitimate grounds for divorce is adultery. ( chapter 5: verses 31-32 ;chapter 19, verses 3-8, and also Mark 10: verses 2-12, and 1 Corinthians 7: verses 11-27, and Luke 16:verse 18 ) The New Testament has a much narrower set of circumstances that permit divorce.
The only non-adultery provision for divorce being if someone previously married as a non-Christian, and then became a Christian, if their spouse then leaves them, they can then select a Christian spouse ( 1 Corinthians 7: verses 12-16 ).
[ *** I edited this paragraph slightly after-the-fact, to include verses, and to write it more accurately than I previously had, from slightly faulty memory. ]
Although even adultery can be forgiven by a spouse, and a marriage can emerge even stronger from infidelity or other sources of contention.
But I certainly don't blame anyone for ending a marriage when they find their mate has been cheating on them.
WASHINGTON - President Bush urged approval of a constitutional amendment banning gay marriages on Tuesday, pushing a divisive social issue to the center of the election campaign and setting a clear policy contrast with Democratic challengers John Kerry and John Edwards.
Bush said "activist judges and local officials" from Massachusetts to San Francisco to New Mexico were attempting to redefine marriage and "change the most fundamental institution of civilization" by allowing same-sex weddings. "On a matter of such importance, the voice of the people must be heard," he said.
Democrats accused Bush of pandering to right-wing supporters and tinkering with the Constitution to divert attention from his record on jobs, health care and foreign policy. "He is looking for a wedge issue to divide the American people," Kerry said.
Both Kerry and Edwards said they oppose gay marriages but would not support a constitutional amendment.
Banning gay marriage is a top priority for Bush's conservative supporters, particularly those among religious and family-oriented groups. But while a majority of Americans — sometimes by as much as a 2-1 margin — oppose legalizing gay marriages, Bush's move could hold political risks, particularly if voters see him as intolerant or question his self-description as a "compassionate conservative."
"The president needs to worry about fair-minded swing voters in America, not a Republican base that he has locked up," said Patrick Guerriero, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, a gay GOP group.
Mindful of the high emotions and clear differences on the issue, Bush said, "We should also conduct this difficult debate in a manner worthy of our country, without bitterness or anger."
Conservatives were delighted Bush had plunged in. "There is no more important issue for our nation than the preservation of the institution of marriage," said Kelly Shackelford, president of the Texas-based Free Market Foundation, a family advocacy group.
Momentum for a constitutional amendment has grown as San Francisco officials have performed thousands of same-sex marriages and have challenged their state law barring such unions. In Massachusetts, the state's highest court has ruled that a state law falling short of allowing full-fledged marriage for gays would be unconstitutional.
Bush softened his announcement by leaving the door open for states to legalize civil unions, which gay rights groups say is an insufficient alternative to marriage. "The amendment should fully protect marriage while leaving the state legislatures free to make their own choices in defining legal arrangements other than marriage," said Bush, who had opposed legalizing civil unions when he was governor of Texas.
Republican officials said there was no rush to bring an amendment to the floor in the House. Some conservatives want a broader approach than Bush supports, and others oppose federalizing the issue, at least for now.
"The groups that are for a constitutional amendment are split over what it should be," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas. "We are trying to bring them all together and unify them."
California Republican Reps. David Dreier and Jerry Lewis said a constitutional amendment might not be necessary.
"I will say that I'm not supportive of amending the Constitution on this issue," said Dreier, a co-chairman of Bush's campaign in California in 2000. "I believe that this should go through the courts, and I think that we're at a point where it's not necessary." Lewis said changing the Constitution should be a last resort on almost any issue.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from San Francisco, said she would fight any amendment. "Never before has a constitutional amendment been used to discriminate against a group of people, and we must not start now," she said.
Amending the Constitution is not quick or simple. A two-thirds majority of both the House and Senate must pass an amendment, and then it would be sent to the states for ratification. It must be approved by three-fourths, or 38 of the 50. Bush's father pressed for a constitutional amendment to ban flag burning but it was not approved.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Bush believes that amendment legislation submitted by Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, R-Colo., meets his principles in protecting the "sanctity of marriage" between men and women. But Bush did not specifically embrace any particular legislation.
Bush's call for a gay-marriage amendment came as the president sought to regain his footing after he was thrown on the defensive about issues ranging from his Vietnam-era military record to missing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
"After more than two centuries of American jurisprudence and millennia of human experience, a few judges and local authorities are presuming to change the most fundamental institution of civilization," the president said.
Answering Bush, Kerry said, "All Americans should be concerned when a president who is in political trouble tries to tamper with the Constitution of the United States at the start of his re-election campaign."
"I believe the best way to protect gays and lesbians is through civil unions," Kerry said. "I believe the issue of marriage should be left to the states"
Edwards, campaigning in Georgia, where the state legislature is debating its own ban on gay marriage, said, "I don't personally support gay marriage myself. My position has always been that it's for the states to decide."
Being gay is not the same as being black or white or some other race. Being gay is a lifestyle choice.
I really HATE it when people use this in debates - especially when it's straight people trying to accomodate for what they fear or don't understand. Being OUT and gay is a lifestyle choice - the rest, is NOT KNOWN.
Dave, until you live a homosexual lifestyle, until you actually walk in a homosexual's shoes (and not just assume what it must be like), you can NOT state this as a fact, or even something you have any knowledge of. It is the exact same as saying you know what it is to be Chinese, or Black, or whatever - because unless we actually are, we simply don't, and can't.
Continue your debate, I welcome that - but don't throw out assumptions as facts.
No matter what scientific topics you pull up in favor of choice and lifestyle, I can challenge those with just as many of genetics.
The truth is that the answer is still unknown.
What I want to know is, just exactly *how* does allowing two homosexuals to marry (or drug addicts, as you like to use that so much) devalue YOUR wedding vows, or as a heterosexual male, anything you do? What difference does it make, to YOU, exactly? How does it threaten YOU? Nothing is being taken from YOU. I don't understand exactly why two people who love each other threatens YOU and YOURS so terribly. When it boils down to it, it really doesn't.
We could go into a whole other debate, which I won't start here - about how it really DOESN'T affect you - it just keeps us out of the legal systems so Christian America doesn't have to recognize us as an equal people - but out of being curious, I'd really like to know.
Being gay is not the same as being black or white or some other race. Being gay is a lifestyle choice.
I really HATE it when people use this in debates - especially when it's straight people trying to accomodate for what they fear or don't understand. Being OUT and gay is a lifestyle choice - the rest, is NOT KNOWN.
Dave, until you live a homosexual lifestyle, until you actually walk in a homosexual's shoes (and not just assume what it must be like), you can NOT state this as a fact, or even something you have any knowledge of. It is the exact same as saying you know what it is to be Chinese, or Black, or whatever - because unless we actually are, we simply don't, and can't.
Continue your debate, I welcome that - but don't throw out assumptions as facts.
No matter what scientific topics you pull up in favor of choice and lifestyle, I can challenge those with just as many of genetics.
The truth is that the answer is still unknown.
What I want to know is, just exactly *how* does allowing two homosexuals to marry (or drug addicts, as you like to use that so much) devalue YOUR wedding vows, or as a heterosexual male, anything you do? What difference does it make, to YOU, exactly? How does it threaten YOU? Nothing is being taken from YOU. I don't understand exactly why two people who love each other threatens YOU and YOURS so terribly. When it boils down to it, it really doesn't.
We could go into a whole other debate, which I won't start here - about how it really DOESN'T affect you - it just keeps us out of the legal systems so Christian America doesn't have to recognize us as an equal people - but out of being curious, I'd really like to know.
Your post indicates that you believe YOUR beliefs are the only ones that matter, and that anyone who disagrees with you has the right to be over-run by the agenda you advocate.
If only these ignorant Christians would just shut up and stand aside, you seem to say. Then we (gays) would have our freedom.
Well gee whiz, I don't know what it's like to be a gay man.
Well, you don't know what it's like to be a conservative white heterosexual male, surrounded by liberals who feel like white conservatives are the only ones in America who aren't entitled to opinion or protection from discrimination. And feel it's their right to constantly rip partisanly on conservative white America, but we aren't even allowed the right to have an opinion or respond.
We all have to face the heat of what we are. And while you like to piss and moan about what a hard road you have to walk as a gay man, the truth is, your experience is probably not much different than my own.
So get off your frickin' white stallion already.
As I just said in my previous post, marriage is sacred to many people, not just Christians. Many cultures, many other religions, and many who are not even religious, ALL recognize marriage as one man/one woman, and don't want that definition changed.
And many recognize "gay marriage" as an oxymoron and a perversion.
It's like changing the word for "grandma" to "dog shit".
Or the word "democracy" to "Rome, 400 A.D."
And I've consistently made this point repeatedly for 30 pages now, and gays like yourself consistently duck, weave, blunt, bypass, and plug your ears and hum, to avoid acknowledging that allowing gay marriage does affect me and my beliefs. It undermines my religious freedom to practice my Christian faith as it truly exists, and gay marriage would be the next step toward chipping away at that freedom, and working toward its complete annihilation in American culture and law.
( And whether you like it or not, religious freedom is the foundation on which American government was formed, and was intended to preserve. Specifically, the freedom to practice Christianity in its Biblical form, not in the form imposed on Europe by the Anglican and Catholic churches. )
As I just said in my previous post, legalizing gay marriage would not be the end of the gay rights issue, it's just the next step toward outlawing the practice of Christianity, as you and liberal schmucks like you slowly eradicate MY rights.
All you care about is your rights. You guys give idealistic lip-service to the rights of all people, but you don't give a damn about my rights being trampled on, so long as you get to do what you want.
And you know damned well what the counter-argument is to the nonsense you're spewing. The truth is, you just don't want to hear it.
But the point of gay/liberal rights snuffing out conservative traditions and values, and raising the level of decadence, permissiveness and chaos in our culture has been abundantly been made here, by myself and others.
You can plug your ears and resume humming now.
--------------------
"This Man, This Wonder Boy..."
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Well, you don't know what it's like to be a conservative white heterosexual male, surrounded by liberals who feel like white conservatives are the only ones in America who aren't entitled to opinion or protection from discrimination.
This is a decidedly different picture than the one you paint in your other posts, where you suggest that it's not just you that opposes gay marriage, but the whole world. Everybody. There, you're the many, being undermined by the few. Now, you're the few, being oppressed by the many.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Well, you don't know what it's like to be a conservative white heterosexual male, surrounded by liberals who feel like white conservatives are the only ones in America who aren't entitled to opinion or protection from discrimination.
This is a decidedly different picture than the one you paint in your other posts, where you suggest that it's not just you that opposes gay marriage, but the whole world. Everybody. There, you're the many, being undermined by the few. Now, you're the few, being oppressed by the many.
Which is it?
Your tone is condescending, but I'll roll with it.
I fail to see the inconsistency in my position that you allege. And I resent being accused of being inconsistent. I'm not.
There are only three nations on Earth that have legalized gay marriage (with an aggressive lobby in the U.S. attempting to make it the fourth).
The rest of the world does oppose gay marriage.
Within the U.S., I think gays are about 2% of the population, according to most official estimates I see. And liberals are roughly 50% of the population (gays contained within that 50%). But liberals in the media and courts are trying to unfairly leverage out conservative institutions and public thought, through unfair rulings and biased propaganda.
As I've quoted often, the media are statistically over 80% liberal. And while the news media is less than 20% conservative, the U.S. population is generally conservative by a much larger percentage.
But new generations growing up with liberal news and entertainment have increasingly cynical and warped values, with each new generation. The hegemonic influence of a liberal minority is slowly warping the majority.
Looking at American culture from a racial/ethnic perspective, white/European Americans are and have long been the majority in the U.S., but that is projected to decine to a minority of 43% or so by the year 2040, as non-European immigration, and domestic non-European birth rates increase at a faster rate than domestic white/European Americans (which are at pretty much zero growth rate, pretty much just having two children per family).
So there are two ways in which America is rapidly changing, like at no time in its history:
There is the racial perspective, of a declining European percentage.
And there is the cultural perspective, of liberals attempting to aggressively leverage out conservative institutions.
I think my area in Florida is changing both racially and culturally, at a much faster rate than the rest of the nation.
While I speak Spanish, I resent having to select English when I call my bank or use my ATM.
As I've detailed elsewhere, on the one hand, I find it exciting to meet so many people from so many places. But at the same time, I find it a bit threatening, that immigration and foreign presence in the U.S. has become so overwhelming. I would like to see immigration reduced by at least half, to allow recent immigrants to assimilate into American culture.
But I don't find the racial change in America nearly as threatening as the cultural change: the rise of gay marriage, gay adoption, and gay/liberal undermining of the values that I grew up with.
And swing clubs, rampant escort services and prostitution, and the number of people I've met personally who engage in group sex, promiscuity and drugs. And psychics, and gambling casinos, body piercing, tattoos...
Your post indicates that you believe YOUR beliefs are the only ones that matter, and that anyone who disagrees with you has the right to be overrun by the agenda you advocate.
There you made your first assumption on my post. I never said my beliefs are the only ones that matter -- but my rights? Should be equal to yours at this point and are not.
When something is being held from me that is given to you and I can't have it just because of your beliefs, yes, I'll get a little testy.
Infringing on rights and infringing on beliefs are TWO different things.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Well gee whiz, I don't know what it's like to be a gay man.
That's the only fact I found in your post. And because of this, you cannot state that "homosexuality is a choice" as a fact because it is something you perceive to be true.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
Gee, thanks for that. Notice I refrained from the language and lewd insults in my post to you. Here's my reply:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: We all have to face the heat of what we are. And while you like to piss and moan about what a hard road you have to walk as a gay man, the truth is, your experience is probably not much different than my own.
So get off your frickin' white stallion already.
See, I never belittled your experience. Maybe your beliefs, but not your experience. I'm not on a white stallion. I'm not trying to withhold anything from you. But you're withholding something from me, just because your belief says I shouldn't have it. My experience IS different from yours, because at this point in time, you -- as an American - are granted a right I am NOT - as an American. That doesn't sit well with me. And if me pursuing a right that you have bothers you, that's tough shit. No one is taking anything from you in my pursuit of it.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: And I've consistently made this point repeatedly for 30 pages now, and gays like yourself consistently duck, weave, blunt, bypass, and plug your ears and hum, to avoid acknowledging that allowing gay marriage does affect me and my beliefs. It undermines my religious freedom to practice my Christian faith as it truly exists, and gay marriage would be the next step toward chipping away at that freedom, and working toward its complete annihilation in American culture and law.
It seems you're the one here with his ears plugged.
I'm not the one ducking and weaving here. I asked you HOW, in your day-to-day life, does it affect you? What burden does two men who love each other place upon YOU? I still didn't get an answer.
It undermines your freedom? HOW?
It does NOT undermine your freedom (your RIGHT) to practice your religion as it now exists. That has got to be one of the most useless statements I have heard out of you yet. How many marriages dissolved this last week because of the gay marriages in California? NONE.
*NO ONE is asking that you give up your belief in God.
*NO ONE is asking that you participate in a homosexual marriage.
*NO ONE is asking that you lower your standards of YOUR marriage. How is MY marriage going to diminish YOURS? That makes NO fucking sense.
*NO ONE is trying to snuff out your religion, or freedom to practice that religion. ON THE OTHER HAND - YOUR religion is constantly imposing it's beliefs onto ME, through government. How is that fair? How is that equal? You constantly pit homosexuality into the same categories as pedophilia, drug addiction, thievery, etc., based on your BELIEF. For a religion so full of "thou shall not judge" - full of it!
You keep making the statement that no one is considering YOUR rights, but as far as I can see here, your rights haven't been trampled on at ALL. You keep coming at the issue like someone is trying to run you over, to take something from you - when NO ONE is! I could care less what you think of me, and vice versa, when we are on EQUAL ground.
Some things in American culture NEED chipping-away at.
The majority of people didn't want inter-racial marriages. The majority of people didn't want women to vote. The majority of people didn't want to end slavery. The rights of people should not and must not be held hostage to the whim of the people. The issue of civil rights is an absolute.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: ( And whether you like it or not, religious freedom is the foundation on which American government was formed, and was intended to preserve. Specifically, the freedom to practice Christianity in its Biblical form, not in the form imposed on Europe by the Anglican and Catholic churches. )
Freedom of religion also includes freedom FROM religion. However, I am denied my right because of an imposing Christian belief - How's that for ducking and dodging?
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: As I just said in my previous post, legalizing gay marriage would not be the end of the gay rights issue, it's just the next step toward outlawing the practice of Christianity, as you and liberal schmucks like you slowly eradicate MY rights.
Aha! Finally, we're getting to the bottom of things. Fear.
We're not out to get your religion, believe it or not. You are allowed to practice any belief you want - as long as it does not impose on others!
No one is trying to snuff out Christianity or rid you of any right. We don't want you to remove Christianity from your life or Jesus from your heart. We just want you to pick it up and put it back into your own home. Stop putting it in everyone's faces as the ONLY truth. If I wanted or chose to worship some cow Goddess - THAT IS MY RIGHT AS AN AMERICAN. As long as I didn't do it in your house, it doesn't INFRINGE on any right you have. If Jesus lives in your yard - keep him there, and out of mine. THAT IS MY RIGHT AS AN AMERICAN.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: All you care about is your rights. You guys give idealistic lip-service to the rights of all people, but you don't give a damn about my rights being trampled on, so long as you get to do what you want.
Nothing could be further from the truth. If the roles were reveresed and it were CHRISTIANS who weren't allowed to marry, us liberals would have a lot to say about THAT, too. I would have a problem if you and I were born of the same earth yet you were held in lower regard because you didn't think the same as I.
Us liberal schmucks, we're less about the snuffing these days and more into fairness for EVERYONE. This here ain't Puritan Americana anymore, pahdna.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
But the point of gay/liberal rights snuffing out conservative traditions and values, and raising the level of decadence, permissiveness and chaos in our culture has been abundantly been made here, by myself and others.
No harmful offense meant, Dave, because I don't know you. But the world IS changing, whether YOU like it or not. If your belief helps you sleep better at night, then I am all the more for it. I could go into depth about how *I* believe in God, as well - the CHRISTIAN God - but how I see the Bible as flawed as it was written by man - afraid of what they did not understand- and men are known for power - and corruption - and changing things to their liking. For all the educated world knows, Jesus was just another Koresh. A delusional who had a strong power of persuasion. I don't believe that. But I do not believe that God put homosexuals on this earth to live unhappily, either.
Dave TWB said: "All you care about is your rights. You guys give idealistic lip-service to the rights of all people, but you don't give a damn about my rights being trampled on, so long as you get to do what you want. "
We gay/bi people do care about your rights. We just want the same civil liberties you have. I thought this was America...
And that's what this is all about. Those in favor of gay marriages are seeking to broaden the definition of marriage so they do have protected rights, which under current conditions don't exist. Those opposed to it are seeking to maintain the current definition of marriage because they feel it would be eroded by what is seen as a very fundamental alteration. That's my most objective assessment of the situation.
I honestly don't know what it's like to walk in a homosexual's shoes. I was born a drug baby in a wildly dysfuctional family, but then adopted by a minister and his wife - who happen to be conservative (often I feel too conservative) - and I have never been abused or neglected. I believe I have found a spiritual path that gives me meaning, even though I often fall short of what I ought to be and don't represent my faith very well sometimes. I am happy with the life I have, and even though there are things that aren't perfect, I accept both the good and the bad.
Not everyone is as fortunate. I don't - I know I shouldn't - expect everyone to make the choices I have made for that very reason. I've said before that in all honesty I don't condone the homosexual lifestyle. But I honestly do care about people - all people - and I am a firm believer that what you do does not determine who you are. I can't say I would cast a vote to support altering the definition of marriage. But I have often demonstrated wherever I am that I can befriend people of other lifestyles, give them care and attention regardless of what I feel about what they do, and be there for them because of who they are, not what they do.
That's just the way I personally feel about all this. I'm sorry if this is offensive to any of you, but I can't in good conscience abandon what I believe. I honestly would not cast a vote supporting gay marriage, but neither will I ever willfully persecute gays or treat them hatefully. The essence of Christianity is to love everyone; NOT by glossing over what they do, but by doing what Jesus did - demonstrating in words and actions the love of God and its ability to change lives in all circumstances.
Quote: Well, you don't know what it's like to be a conservative white heterosexual male, surrounded by liberals who feel like white conservatives are the only ones in America who aren't entitled to opinion or protection from discrimination. And feel it's their right to constantly rip partisanly on conservative white America, but we aren't even allowed the right to have an opinion or respond.
Funny, seems like that's what you are doing right now. So often in these debates you accuse those who disagree with as squashing your right to express yourself, when they are only doing exactly the same as you: argueing their side.
Disagreeing with you and fighting their quarter is doing fuck all squared to your right to free speech.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: There are only three nations on Earth that have legalized gay marriage (with an aggressive lobby in the U.S. attempting to make it the fourth).
The three countries are The Netherlands, Belgium and Canada, right? Those are the 3 I know of.
Anyway, yes, as of today there are only three countries that have passed gay marriage-bills, but all three were passed in the last few years, and many more are in the process of discussing it. That would suggest that support for gay marriage is growing.
In another five years, the number of countries that allow it may very well double...or even triple.
Quote: But new generations growing up with liberal news and entertainment have increasingly cynical and warped values, with each new generation. The hegemonic influence of a liberal minority is slowly warping the majority.
I guess that's one way of looking at it. I think this is a recent historical trend only, though, and that, objectively, when you examine any era ripe with social change, each side tends to view the other as promoting "warped" values.
I will agree that the media takes a liberal stance on most social issues(yet still claims to be an unbiased, nonpartisan organization), but what I'm curious about is....why? How did this come about in the first place?
Your post indicates that you believe YOUR beliefs are the only ones that matter, and that anyone who disagrees with you has the right to be overrun by the agenda you advocate.
There you made your first assumption on my post. I never said my beliefs are the only ones that matter -- but my rights? Should be equal to yours at this point and are not.
When something is being held from me that is given to you and I can't have it just because of your beliefs, yes, I'll get a little testy.
Infringing on rights and infringing on beliefs are TWO different things.
I didn't assume anything. You outright said it.
Forgive me, but I just want to puke every time I see the "You can never know what it's like to be [ fill in the minority group whining about discrimination ]."
Not to single out your use of that argument, but just in general, every time I see it used. I find it a very unproductive and alienating stance.
What arrogance, to make a statement like that (again, the statement in general, not you personally).
In the history of the world, EVERY racial group has been oppressed, conquered or enslaved by another group.
So I wish we could dispense forever with that "You'll never know what it's like ..." crap.
You came on strong to me in your opening post, and then you were surprised that I responded in kind. But as long as this doesn't move into an overly personal exchange, I'm content to discuss the issue. But if you unleash that kind of emotionally charged victim-culture "You can never know what it's like to walk in my shoes..." baloney, I will, and have, identified that rhetoric for the bullcrap that it is.
Quote: KrazyXXXDJ said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Well gee whiz, I don't know what it's like to be a gay man.
That's the only fact I found in your post. And because of this, you cannot state that "homosexuality is a choice" as a fact because it is something you perceive to be true.
That's your opinion, which you're entitled to.
I merely stated my own counter-argument on the subject, one shared by the 60 to 65% of the population (in polls, at the very least) that does not want gay marriage to exist.
You again seem to say that because I don't advocate gay marriage or the gay lifestyle, that my opinion is invalid, and that I don't have the right to say that homosexuality is a choice.
Well too fricking bad.
You are indoctrinated in a belief-system that says homosexuality is inborn, and that you have no control over it.
But you cannot disprove what I, and roughly 60% (at least) of the nation sees, that homosexuality is a choice. And you have no right to tell me I can't say that.
There is no scientific proof to back your allegation that homosexuality is inborn, or to disprove what I've said: that homosexuality is a choice.
As I documented, there are still a number of psychologists who treat homosexuality as a treatable mental disorder, and think it is a mistake and a disservice to homosexuals who need treatment, to NOT treat homosexuality as a treatable disorder, as it was until 1973. (see pages 22 to 24 of this topic).
My "refreshing can of... S T F U !" image was a combination of responding to your telling me I don't have the right to say what I said, and trying to do so with a bit of humor. That's one of several graphics I've found that I've been dying to post, and I kind of squeezed it in.
But my apologies, I think it was perhaps more offensive to you than I intended, and the humor of it was lost in the seriousness of out discussion. Maybe you'd find it funnier outside the context of our discussion.
Some other graphics I've been dying to use, that are irrelevant to our discussion (and hopefully provide some comedy relief in their juvenile tongue-in-cheek-ness) :
These are not intended as slurs to gays, and some of these I've used in discussions with Whomod and others, in other topics (who are not gay). I don't believe in racial or ethnic slurs, and I wouldn't use them in that context. They're more just playful insults I'd use in, say, the OFF-TOPIC/OFFENSIVE POSTS section, as a playful banter, and not in a vicious context.
Just want to make that clear.
But in the context of this discussion, I fully deserved the giant bird you fired back at me. My apologies, the "can of S T F U" graphic was innappropriately placed in this more serious discussion.
Quote: KrazyXXXDJ said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: We all have to face the heat of what we are. And while you like to piss and moan about what a hard road you have to walk as a gay man, the truth is, your experience is probably not much different than my own.
So get off your frickin' white stallion already.
See, I never belittled your experience. Maybe your beliefs, but not your experience. I'm not on a white stallion. I'm not trying to withhold anything from you. But you're withholding something from me, just because your belief says I shouldn't have it. My experience IS different from yours, because at this point in time, you -- as an American - are granted a right I am NOT - as an American. That doesn't sit well with me. And if me pursuing a right that you have bothers you, that's tough shit. No one is taking anything from you in my pursuit of it.
Y'know, on re-reading my own comment here, I could have phrased what I said a bit more delicately, but again I responded harshly to some harsh statements of yours. I wish I'd said it more gently, but the point is made, either way.
I don't think I'm belittling your experience. Just the way it was expressed in "you can't ever know what it's like..." terms. A context that annoys me, coming from any minority.
And over the course of this very long topic, I've said several times that I'm not un-sympathetic to the difficulties of having gay desires or living the gay lifestyle.
But we all have our crosses to bear, in one form or another. The advantagers and the disadvantages. As I said earlier, white gay men have one of the highest per-capita incomes of any ethnic group. And I have no doubt there are disadvantages in some environments, as well as acceptance in others.
Maybe gays face discrimination in Topeka, Kansas or DeMoines, Iowa.
But they certainly don't in places like L.A., San Francisco, New York City, or in South Florida where I live, where there is an extremely large, visible and active gay culture. And the fact that I and others aren't fans of the gay lifestyle doesn't change their ability to enjoy that lifestyle one bit.
Quote: KrazyXXXDJ said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: And I've consistently made this point repeatedly for 30 pages now, and gays like yourself consistently duck, weave, blunt, bypass, and plug your ears and hum, to avoid acknowledging that allowing gay marriage does affect me and my beliefs. It undermines my religious freedom to practice my Christian faith as it truly exists, and gay marriage would be the next step toward chipping away at that freedom, and working toward its complete annihilation in American culture and law.
It seems you're the one here with his ears plugged.
I'm not the one ducking and weaving here. I asked you HOW, in your day-to-day life, does it affect you? What burden does two men who love each other place upon YOU? I still didn't get an answer.
It undermines your freedom? HOW?
It does NOT undermine your freedom (your RIGHT) to practice your religion as it now exists. That has got to be one of the most useless statements I have heard out of you yet. How many marriages dissolved this last week because of the gay marriages in California? NONE.
*NO ONE is asking that you give up your belief in God.
*NO ONE is asking that you participate in a homosexual marriage.
*NO ONE is asking that you lower your standards of YOUR marriage. How is MY marriage going to diminish YOURS? That makes NO fucking sense.
*NO ONE is trying to snuff out your religion, or freedom to practice that religion. ON THE OTHER HAND - YOUR religion is constantly imposing it's beliefs onto ME, through government. How is that fair? How is that equal? You constantly pit homosexuality into the same categories as pedophilia, drug addiction, thievery, etc., based on your BELIEF. For a religion so full of "thou shall not judge" - full of it!
You keep making the statement that no one is considering YOUR rights, but as far as I can see here, your rights haven't been trampled on at ALL. You keep coming at the issue like someone is trying to run you over, to take something from you - when NO ONE is! I could care less what you think of me, and vice versa, when we are on EQUAL ground.
Some things in American culture NEED chipping-away at.
The majority of people didn't want inter-racial marriages. The majority of people didn't want women to vote. The majority of people didn't want to end slavery. The rights of people should not and must not be held hostage to the whim of the people. The issue of civil rights is an absolute.
Again, I did answer this question. And you simply didn't like the answer:
1) Gay marriage undermines the institution of marriage as it exists in the Judao-Christian Bible. Gay marriage, as it exists already in Canada, the netherlands and Belgium, as it is proposed to be legislated in the United States, outlaws reading of scripture that says homosexuality is sexual immorality and detestable (GENESIS chapter 18 and 19, Sodom and Gommorah, EXODUS, etc, as quoted earlier). So gay marriage would outlaw teaching of the Bible in its true form. Which tramples on the rights of Christians.
But marriage (Biblically) is a sacred bond between one man/one woman, bound in a ceremony before God.
Marriage is (Biblically) a physical bond, as well as a symbol of purity, loyalty and faith.
The Bible is clear in its perspective of homosexuality, which from Genesis 18-19 forward (Sodom and Gommorah) is described as fornication, abberration, and detestable in the eyes of God. And a precursor of a civilization's destruction and collapse.
Now, in a democratic society, you don't have to believe that. But you also don't have the right to tell me how to practice Christianity, and pass laws that force me and other Christians to ignore what the Bible says about marriage, homoosexuality and other key Biblical/spiritual concepts.
And if the State or Federal government endorses gay marriage, the State takes sides against Judao-Christian faith, and would say that the Bible is wrong, and again, would be a first step toward banning public reading of these and other verses from the Bible.
And again, stomping on my ability to practice my religion.
It would also force me to raise my children in an environment that forces the acceptance of gay marriage, where my children are exposed from birth to other children raised by gay "married" couples, and thus would make it extremely difficult to raise my children in an environment that would not corrupt the Biblical definition of marriage I would be trying to teach my children.
As I said, there is an alternative:
gay civil union, which would allow gays all spousal medical, insurance and legal benefits, WITHOUT corrupting the definition of marriage. Spousal benefits in a secular context, that doesn't re-define marriage, and thus avoids corrupting/undermining the sacred Biblical definition of marriage.
But again, at this point I hesitate in conceding any further recognition for gay rights, because it wouldn't end with civil union, gays would just use this as a stepping stone, toward steamrolling marriage as well, and undermining my religious freedom.
Again, gays already have the rights to live as gays, work as gays, and receive benefits as gays, without proposed gay marriage legislation that would deprive Christians of their right to peacefully practice their religion without harassment.
2) Gay marriage is not the end result, it is the FIRST STEP toward eroding and wiping out Christian freedom of religion As I said, if gays push through all the changes they want, they will eradicate the ability to even quote the Bible regarding homosexuality and other related issues in a public forum.
They would label public speaking of these verses as a "hate crime".
Which is part of a larger battle the A.C.L.U. and other secularist groups are pushing, to wipe every last vestige of Judao-Christian biblical concepts from our culture and government.
Quote: KrazyXXXDJ said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: ( And whether you like it or not, religious freedom is the foundation on which American government was formed, and was intended to preserve. Specifically, the freedom to practice Christianity in its Biblical form, not in the form imposed on Europe by the Anglican and Catholic churches. )
Freedom of religion also includes freedom FROM religion. However, I am denied my right because of an imposing Christian belief - How's that for ducking and dodging?
To drive every last vestige of Bible reference from a government that was founded on Christian principles (as is being attempted by the A.C.L.U., gays and other secularists) would be a travesty that defies what founded our democracy in the first place.
Yes, you have the right to freedom FROM religion. That is consistent with the Biblical concept of free will, where one has the right to make an informed choice, whether or not to choose Christian faith.
But stacking the deck and driving every last reference to the Bible and biblical concepts from government and public thought is NOT what the signers of the Constitution and Declaration had in mind.
Quote: KrazyXXXDJ said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: As I just said in my previous post, legalizing gay marriage would not be the end of the gay rights issue, it's just the next step toward outlawing the practice of Christianity, as you and liberal schmucks like you slowly eradicate MY rights.
Aha! Finally, we're getting to the bottom of things. Fear.
We're not out to get your religion, believe it or not. You are allowed to practice any belief you want - as long as it does not impose on others!
No one is trying to snuff out Christianity or rid you of any right. We don't want you to remove Christianity from your life or Jesus from your heart. We just want you to pick it up and put it back into your own home. Stop putting it in everyone's faces as the ONLY truth. If I wanted or chose to worship some cow Goddess - THAT IS MY RIGHT AS AN AMERICAN. As long as I didn't do it in your house, it doesn't INFRINGE on any right you have. If Jesus lives in your yard - keep him there, and out of mine. THAT IS MY RIGHT AS AN AMERICAN.
Again, my quoted comments could have made the same point more gently, but I was responding to some pretty harsh rhetoric of yours.
It is not "Fear", it's reality, based on what gay activists have said is their ultimate goal.
Again, if all gays want is equal spousal rights, civil union would achieve that.
But in point of fact, the gay activist goal is to re-define the millenia-old concept of marriage itself, and undermine the literal and symbolic concepts that expand from marriage as defined in the Bible.
Whether or not you as one gay man agree with that gay agenda, THAT is where the gay activist agenda is going.
The objective of gay pressure on this issue is to maliciously undermine the Christian concept of marriage.
And urinate on the whole concept of Christian faith.
Quote: KrazyXXXDJ said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: All you care about is your rights. You guys give idealistic lip-service to the rights of all people, but you don't give a damn about my rights being trampled on, so long as you get to do what you want.
Nothing could be further from the truth. If the roles were reversed and it were CHRISTIANS who weren't allowed to marry, us liberals would have a lot to say about THAT, too. I would have a problem if you and I were born of the same earth yet you were held in lower regard because you didn't think the same as I.
Us liberal schmucks, we're less about the snuffing these days and more into fairness for EVERYONE. This here ain't Puritan Americana anymore, pahdna.
That is a selective omission of the facts. Christian faith, while the dominant religion of the U.S., is undermined every day, and no one but Christian advocacy groups pushes to legally preserve the religious freedoms our founding fathers intended (as is abundantly evident in their writings), that are being deliberately eroded by secularists.
Secularists are pushing to wipe away any Biblical reference from public institutions, and insure that, through liberal bias, a new generation is only subjected to a secularist perspective, insuring that a new generation is overwhelmingly secularist, and that Christianity is further marginalized through further deprivation of public representation in our culture.
And again, we see the fruit of that secularization:
Rampant teenage pregnancy, rampant drug use, group sex, kids shooting kids, kids shooting their parents, kids shooting teachers, gang violence, a huge spike in violent teenage crime, and on and on.
I think we were better off with the Ten Commandments and other Biblical concepts, and prayer, in our schools.
Quote: KrazyXXXDJ said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
But the point of gay/liberal rights snuffing out conservative traditions and values, and raising the level of decadence, permissiveness and chaos in our culture has been abundantly been made here, by myself and others.
No harmful offense meant, Dave, because I don't know you. But the world IS changing, whether YOU like it or not.
If your belief helps you sleep better at night, then I am all the more for it. I could go into depth about how *I* believe in God, as well - the CHRISTIAN God - but how I see the Bible as flawed as it was written by man - afraid of what they did not understand- and men are known for power - and corruption - and changing things to their liking. For all the educated world knows, Jesus was just another Koresh. A delusional who had a strong power of persuasion. I don't believe that. But I do not believe that God put homosexuals on this earth to live unhappily, either.
I understand your suspicion about the origins of the Bible, which is ostensibly written by men.
I'd suggest the book He Walked Among Us: Evidence For the Historical Jesus, by Josh McDowell and Bill Wilson, for some insight on that.
It looks at not only the Bible, but also extra-biblical evidence, asking not just what his followers said, but also what did his enemies say, including the Rabbi writings of his time, and Roman historians of the time, as well as early writings of the Christian church leaders as Christianity spread after the death and resurrection of Christ.
The new testament says "all scripture is God-breathed", meaning that despite it being written by men, these writings are inspired directly by God.
And the consistent message from the many writers of the Bible's books over a 1500-year period (beginning with Moses in 1400 B.C., and concluding with the books and letters of the New Testament around 100 A.D.), with writers who ranged from uneducated nomadic shepherds to kings and scholars and prophets, rabbis, fishermen and (Luke) a physician, through many eras and many kings and empires and conquest.
And yet through all these vastly different political periods and writers, the Bible has a remarkably consistent theme of mercy and redemption, and of a God who loves his creations, and despite their flaws, works for their greater good and salvation.
There are many elements in the Bible, from its thematic consistency and structure, to fulfillment of prophecy, prophecy that continues to be fulfilled even into the modern era, that indicate a supernatural hand beyond the ability of the men who wrote the Bible's 66 books.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Not to single out your use of that argument, but just in general, every time I see it used. I find it a very unproductive and alienating stance.
What arrogance, to make a statement like that (again, the statement in general, not you personally).
In the history of the world, EVERY racial group has been oppressed, conquered or enslaved by another group.
So I wish we could dispense forever with that "You'll never know what it's like ..." crap.
It is only a teaspoon of the same arrogance that those of us not in the Christian majority must put up with EVERY day. Not just homosexuals - this includes those of different religion and immigrant origin. We are constantly having Christian belief shoved in our face, as obviously the ONLY and the RIGHT way, when it is NOT, and when that is not what this country is about.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: You again seem to say that because I don't advocate gay marriage or the gay lifestyle, that my opinion is invalid, and that I don't have the right to say that homosexuality is a choice.
Well too fricking bad.
This was my original problem with your post, and I still back what I said.
You have the right to say and believe whatever you want, but you don't have the right to toss it around as factual information when it is NOT. What is fact is that the nature of homosexuality is still unknown. Your majority sticks to the answer of choice because it is safe and makes homosexuality easy to dismiss, but the fact is that your majority has no answer based on fact or hard evidence.
This is the same majority that believes in a God that might not even exist - that bases so much in faith, it has forgotten what fact and hard evidence is. Since the majority believes it, it MUST be true? ANNKH.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: You are indoctrinated in a belief-system that says homosexuality is inborn, and that you have no control over it.
But you cannot disprove what I, and roughly 60% of the nation sees, that homosexuality is a choice. And you have no right to tell me I can't say that.
When you say it like THAT - when homosexuality as a choice is what 60% (only a LITTLE over half) of what the nation SEES, that is a completely different statement than saying homosexuality as a choice is what the nation KNOWS. That is the point I'm arguing.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: There is no scientific proof to back your allegation that homosexuality is inborn, or to disprove what I've said: that homosexuality is a choice.
But, oh yes, there is just as much scientific proof that favors genetics as there is that favors choice. No, at this point, I can not prove my allegation, but neither can you prove yours. Because, like I said, the answer is unknown. There is no answer that is a fact.
We can sit here and exchange links all day, if you wish.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: But in the context of this discussion, I fully deserved the giant bird you fired back at me. My apologies, the "can of S T F U" graphic was innappropriately placed in this more serious discussion.
And my apologies, as well, for the bird. Maybe I *am* oversensative sometimes on the issue - a result of living in the crosshair of the majority (smack-dead in the Biblebelt).
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
Again, I did answer this question. And you simply didn't like the answer:
1) Gay marriage undermines the institution of marriage as it exists in the Judao-Christian Bible. Marriage is a sacred bond between one man/one woman, bound in a ceremony before God.
Marriage is (Biblically) a physical bond, as well as a symbol of purity, loyalty and faith. The Bible is also clear in its perspective of homosexuality, which from Genesis 18-19 forward (Sodom and Gommorah) is described as fornication, abberration, and detestable in the eyes of God. And a precursor of a civilization's destruction and collapse.
Now, in a democratic society, you don't have to believe that. But you also don't have the right to tell me how to practice Christianity, and pass laws that force me and other Christians to ignore what the Bible says about marriage, homoosexuality and other key Biblical/spiritual concepts.
And if the State or Federal government endorses gay marriage, the State takes sides against Judao-Christian faith, and would say that the Bible is wrong, and again, would be a first step toward banning public reading of these and other verses from the Bible.
And again, stomping on my ability to practice my religion.
Ok....I can see that. But that's a big stretch to "infringing on your rights" and delves into a LOT of the separation of church and state. I'm almost suspicious that may be an excuse that beats around the real issue, but I'll trust your statement and go with it anyway.
So what it boils down to here, is a matter of inconvenience, and who's is worse.
At this point, I can see where you are coming from. However, the options must be weighed - denying a minority what they perceive to be a right as an American, or asking the majority to adjust to a right that they don't see as a right in the first place because they are Christian.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: As I said, there is an alternative: gay civil union, which would allow gays all spousal medical, insurance and legal benefits, WITHOUT corrupting the definition of marriage. Spousal benefits in a secular context, that doesn't re-define marriage, and thus avoids corrupting/undermining the sacred Biblical definition of marriage.
And you know what, I'll even give an inch here. Because to many of us, that is what this is about. Not all of us are activists who want to change your definition of marriage because of the bonds of love- I personally don't want your word (marriage). I want equal recognition in government - on paper and in the books- denying me nothing that every other man has. Any and all rights, with the liberties and benefits therein.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: But again, at this point I hesitate in conceding any further recognition for gay rights, because it wouldn't end with civil union, gays would just use this as a stepping stone, toward steamrolling marriage as well, and undermining my religious freedom.
2) Gay marriage is not the end result, it is the FIRST STEP toward eroding and wiping out Christian freedom of religion As I said, if gays push through all the changes they want, they will eradicate the ability to even quote the Bible regarding homosexuality and other related issues in a public forum.
They would label public speaking of these verses as a "hate crime".
Which is part of a larger battle the A.C.L.U. and other secularist groups are pushing, to wipe every last vestige of Judao-Christian biblical concepts from out culture and government.
As I doubt it would ever go that far, it's possible. We now live in a country where everyone and all are welcomed. You can blame it on liberals of the past, and that much is true. Mistakes of the past, perhaps. I nor this generation of homosexuals opened the door to being PC.
But you cannot create a government for all men, turn around and make exceptions for some, and then withhold those exceptions from others. That kind of government will fail. So, they must, in some way or the other, adjust. If it means going back and changing the basic foundation that creates a more fair government for everyone, then sorry, I'm for it, but I also do not view homosexuals in the same light you do. The way I see it: Different is NOT Equal. The CONSTITUTION as it now reads, says that everyone is to be treated equal. You cannot amend the Constitution to contradict itself.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: To drive every last vestige of Bible reference from a government that was founded on Christian principles (as is being attempted by the A.C.L.U., gays and other secularists) would be a travesty that defies what founded our democracy in the first place.
Yes, you have the right to freedom FROM religion. That is consistent with the Biblical concept of free will, where one has the right to make an informed choice, whether or not to choose Christian faith.
But stacking the deck and drivin every last reference to the Bible and biblical concepts from government and public thought is NOT what the signers of the Constitution and Declaration had in mind.
As I said above, if adjusting to serve ALL the people fairly involves removing antiquated principles, and further marginalizing Christiany in governemnt, then it is possible that it cannot be avoided if it causes discomfort to the minority. The world is changing - HAS changed - continues to change - since the days the Constitution was drafted. The original Constitution would not work in today's society.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: The goal of gay pressure on this issue is to maliciously undermine the Christian concept of marriage.
And urinate on the whole concept of Christian faith.
That's how you see it. Another angle on it is pursuing the same freedoms every man and woman is granted in this country - not an attack on Christianity itself, but an attack on the government to adjust and serve the minority as well. It just so happens that Christianity is a major factor in this, and unwilling to yield in favor to fairness to everyone. You do not have to be Christian to know what is right or wrong, or to observe discrimination.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: I think we were better off the Ten Commandments and other Biblical concepts, and prayer, in our schools.
I have no problem with the Ten Commandments, as they personally do not call me out in front of God. Those commandments do not place me in the same category as drug addicts and thieves.
In fact, I think they are good mold - basic, moral code to live by. Right and wrong, plain as night and day. Prayer is a different issue - because again, not everyone that attends school is Christian. You have to draw the line at imposing on the minority somewhere. This is stepping on the freedom of religion of those who are not Christian.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
The new testament says "all scripture is God-breathed", meaning that despite it being written by men, these writings are inspired directly by God.
But that's another point of mine. Anyone with a majority of followers can say they received word from a higher power, and depending on the trust level, people will believe it.
Looking at that angle, the whole principle of Christian faith is the possible result of a mere powerful cult, and nothing more.
I do not believe that, but it is possible. And it is also possible that someone a little more homophobic than most wrote his whims into the Bible. Being that I believe that homosexuality is inborn, I do not believe that God placed homosexuals on this Earth to live unhappily.
Dave TWB said: "There is no scientific proof to back your allegation that homosexuality is inborn, or to disprove what I've said: that homosexuality is a choice. As I documented, there are still a number of psychologists who treat homosexuality as a treatable mental disorder, and think it is a mistake and a disservice to homosexuals who need treatment, to NOT treat homosexuality as a treatable disorder, as it was until 1973. (see pages 20 and 21 of this topic)."
Dave, unless you're a psychologist, with training to back it up, please stay away from psychological arguments, OK? It only makes you look foolish (more foolish?).
That there may be some clinicians who see homosexuality as a treatable "condition" does not add any scientific weight to your assertion that homosexuality (or bisexuality) is a choice.
The research into biological, physiological, and social-learning causes or origins or homosexuality continues, at a slow pace, which is the case for investigations into human behavior.
Regarding changes in attitude toward homosexuality by the clinical profession...there were times when no one would have questioned a white man's assertion that owning and controlling a black man was a legal, moral, and healthy thing to do. Nowadays, if a man had that attitude to the point that he was trying to act on it, we'd be insisting that he needed at some kind of psychological/psychiatric intervention.
The medical and psychological community's understanding of human health and behavior has evolved over the centuries. We no longer believe spirits make people sick. We may soon have evidence to say that people don't choose to be gay, too.
I mean, seriously, given the kind of invective you toss about, who'd WANT to be gay?
"1) Gay marriage undermines the institution of marriage as it exists in the Judao-Christian Bible. Marriage is a sacred bond between one man/one woman, bound in a ceremony before God."
This is not the United States of Jesus or the United States of Yahweh.
In response to the stuff about people being born gay:
I don't have my source right now, but I noticed in an online article that a large majority of homosexuals who went into a type of rehab program were actually rehabilitated. There were other documents that went over the patients' lifestyles and how they were doing in the long run. Most had already been dating the opposite sex. This wouldn't have meant anything to me until I found out that these same homosexuals said they were BORN gay. It only takes one person to say that, then go straight and tip the balance of credibility.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: 1) Gay marriage undermines the institution of marriage as it exists in the Judao-Christian Bible. Marriage is a sacred bond between one man/one woman, bound in a ceremony before God.
This is not the United States of Jesus or the United States of Yahweh.
Jim
I guess I should be sympathetic to the fact that you've clearly got some issues, and take it in stride that you find it so cathartic to vent on me.
This is the United States of America, whose form of government is clearly founded by Christians, and based on Christian principles, such as "all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights...".
They believed in the teaching of the Bible in schools, and only saw limitation of religion's part in government to prevent a state-imposed forcing of one form of Christianity on the nation, as occured in Europe under the Roman Catholic church, and under the Anglican church in England.
So in many ways it is the "United States of Yahweh", because without Biblical principles, our government would never have been formed by the men who strongly
believed in Yahweh, Jesus, and the Bible.
~
CrazyXXXDJ,
thanks for your thoughtful and lengthy response, I'm glad we were able to both clarify our positions, and I have a better idea where you're coming from.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Dave TWB said: "There is no scientific proof to back your allegation that homosexuality is inborn, or to disprove what I've said: that homosexuality is a choice.
As I documented, there are still a number of psychologists who treat homosexuality as a treatable mental disorder, and think it is a mistake and a disservice to homosexuals who need treatment, to NOT treat homosexuality as a treatable disorder, as it was until 1973. (see pages 22 thru 26 of this topic)."
Dave, unless you're a psychologist, with training to back it up, please stay away from psychological arguments, OK?
It only makes you look foolish (more foolish?).
I already gave a counter-response to this the first time you said this, on page 24 of this topic.
I don't have to be an attorney to know my rights under the law.
Regarding your attacks on my ability as a non-psychologist to understand the scientific counter-response to the gay argument, that says homosexuality is not a treatable illness, ( scientific evidence of the type that Pariah was just referring to, in his above post) :
I don't have to be a physician or a pharmacist to read usage directions for an anti-biotic.
I don't have to be a fisherman to know what a fish is.
And I don't have to be a historian or economist to read newspapers, books and studies of economic trends, and have a knowledge of recent history or the economy.
And similarly --and to the point-- I don't have to be a psychologist to read and understand a psychological study and its conclusions.
Your insults are not facts. And your pathological need to insult me and paint my opinion as "foolish" only makes you look foolish. And your comments go way beyond civility and reason, in what should be a simple discussion of the issue. If you could only refrain from bitterly personal remarks that only undermine your own credibility.
Quote: Jim Jackson said:
That there may be some clinicians who see homosexuality as a treatable "condition" does not add any scientific weight to your assertion that homosexuality (or bisexuality) is a choice.
That is what you'd like people reading this to believe. Part of your holy war to slander all counter-argument to your own opinion.
Quote: Jim Jackson said:
The research into biological, physiological, and social-learning causes or origins or homosexuality continues, at a slow pace, which is the case for investigations into human behavior.
This is blather. When you have something conclusive to post, you can claim that I'm wrong.
But I'm confident that will never happen.
Many attempts by gay (and pro-gay) scientists to manufacture "proof" have been reported. The evidence doesn't exist, and I'm confident it never will.
If and until absolute proof to the contrary emerges (and it won't), the psychological studies I posted are just as valid as your own chosen beliefs on the nature of homosexuality.
Quote: Jim Jackson said:
Regarding changes in attitude toward homosexuality by the clinical profession...there were times when no one would have questioned a white man's assertion that owning and controlling a black man was a legal, moral, and healthy thing to do. Nowadays, if a man had that attitude to the point that he was trying to act on it, we'd be insisting that he needed at some kind of psychological/psychiatric intervention.
The medical and psychological community's understanding of human health and behavior has evolved over the centuries. We no longer believe spirits make people sick. We may soon have evidence to say that people don't choose to be gay, too.
That is a distorted argument.
Even black church and political groups have said they resent this comparison of denial of gay rights to discrimination against blacks.
Race is not gender-preference-lifestyle-choice.
The key word there being choice.
Being gay isn't visible on someone's face, they have to disclose their homosexuality for it to become an issue. And as I said, gays certainly don't suffer from wage discrimination.
Another distortion of the facts on your part to make an emotional, anger-inducing argument.
Quote: Jim Jackson said:
I mean, seriously, given the kind of invective you toss about, who'd WANT to be gay?
Jim
More of your attempts to misrepresent me. I haven't launched any epithets or invectives or hate rhetoric. I've simply discussed the issue and offered counter-argument to your slanted propaganda that it's impossible to question that homosexuality is inborn.
There are certainly counter-arguments to the view held widely by gays, and I've simply offered them here, in as respectful a way as I've been permitted to.
--------------------
"This Man, This Wonder Boy..."
Oops. Somehow, I had a duplicate post here, that I just omitted.
I'll inject a little comedy relief instead, some jokes told to me by a gay co-worker.
~
Why do girls run faster than boys?
Boys have stickshifts.
~
If two gay men and two lesbian women leave at the same time on a vacation, which will arrive first?
The women. They'll get there lickity split, while the men are still home packing their fudge. .
~
And this one e-mailed to me by my best friend:
A Mississippi woodpecker and a Texas woodpecker were sitting on a tree in Mississippi. They were arguing about which state had the toughest trees to peck.
The Mississippi woodpecker said his state had a tree that no woodpecker could peck.
The Texas woodpecker challenged him, and they went to the tree, and the Texas woodpecker was able to peck it, no problem.
The Mississippi woodpecker was in awe.
The Texas woodpecker then challenged the Mississippi woodpecker to peck a tree in Texas, that no woodpecker there had been able to peck successfully.
But after both flew to Texas to find the tree, the Mississsippi woodpecker was able to peck the tree with no problem.
The two woodpeckers were now confused.
How is it that the Texas woodpecker was able to peck the Mississippi tree, and the Mississippi woodpecker was able to peck the Texas tree, when neither one was able to peck the tree in their own state?
After thinking for some time, they both came to the same conclusion:
Your pecker's always harder when you're away from home !
--------------------
"This Man, This Wonder Boy..."
Quote: Pariah said: In response to the stuff about people being born gay:
I don't have my source right now, but I noticed in an online article that a large majority of homosexuals who went into a type of rehab program were actually rehabilitated. There were other documents that went over the patients' lifestyles and how they were doing in the long run. Most had already been dating the opposite sex. This wouldn't have meant anything to me until I found out that these same homosexuals said they were BORN gay. It only takes one person to say that, then go straight and tip the balance of credibility.
I'd be interested to hear where you saw this. I've never heard of a gay person being "rehabilitated"....nor have I ever heard of a program set up to rehabilitate gay people. Infact, I don't believe I've ever heard of a gay person referring to their sexual orientation as something in need of rehabilitation. Are we talking about homosexuals, or pederasts(people that are medically classified as being sick)?
Sigh, everytime this ventures into the science area, the antigays have the amazing power to twist facts & studies at the speed of light. Then tell us we're the ones twisting & misrepresenting. DTWB previously dismissed the VAST majority of psycholigists because evidently there was some study showing people in that profession have a higher suicide rate. Then he presents the few that share in his opinion as fact. It's not.
As for the recent study, keep in mind the people undergoing the therapy were people who desperately didn't want to be gay. Plus it only followed them for so long. (I think a 6 months to a year)
Other studies funded by people & organization with a clear agenda tend to keep no or bad records or are now living with their life partners.
Quote: Animalman said: I've never heard of a gay person being "rehabilitated"....nor have I ever heard of a program set up to rehabilitate gay people. Infact, I don't believe I've ever heard of a gay person referring to their sexual orientation as something in need of rehabilitation.
You should watch the independent film "But I'm a Cheerleader" then, which deals with this very subject.
You'll hear most evangelists from time to time bragging about their programs where they "cure" homosexuality. I don't know a whole lot about the subject, but the interviews I've read with the people who have been "saved" just makes them sound completely and utterly brainwashed. My theory is that they do an A Clockwork Orange job on them.
...just so I don't get dragged into the middle of this, I'm letting you all know that the last line was tongue-in-cheek.
Quote: Pariah said: In response to the stuff about people being born gay:
I don't have my source right now, but I noticed in an online article that a large majority of homosexuals who went into a type of rehab program were actually rehabilitated. There were other documents that went over the patients' lifestyles and how they were doing in the long run. Most had already been dating the opposite sex. This wouldn't have meant anything to me until I found out that these same homosexuals said they were BORN gay. It only takes one person to say that, then go straight and tip the balance of credibility.
I'd be interested to hear where you saw this. I've never heard of a gay person being "rehabilitated"....nor have I ever heard of a program set up to rehabilitate gay people. Infact, I don't believe I've ever heard of a gay person referring to their sexual orientation as something in need of rehabilitation. Are we talking about homosexuals, or pederasts(people that are medically classified as being sick)?
I'm looking for it right now. And no, they weren't being classified as sick (not openly anyway). It was because gay people responded to the program with success that they called it "rehabilitation" I'm thinking. Of course gay people weren't referring to it as such either, I'm sure they were submitting themselves just to prove a point....Maybe get some scratch on the side.
Quote: Kristogar Velo said: I don't know a whole lot about the subject, but the interviews I've read with the people who have been "saved" just makes them sound completely and utterly brainwashed. My theory is that they do an A Clockwork Orange job on them.
...just so I don't get dragged into the middle of this, I'm letting you all know that the last line was tongue-in-cheek.
Heh, I was going to say something similar, but I thought it would be taken the wrong way. Thanks for saying it for me.
As for the recent study, keep in mind the people undergoing the therapy were people who desperately didn't want to be gay. Plus it only followed them for so long. (I think a 6 months to a year)
Other studies funded by people & organization with a clear agenda tend to keep no or bad records or are now living with their life partners.
This doesn't make a bit of difference MEM. If they're born gay based off of the reasoning being handed here, they're going to STAY that way.
Also...
There were interviews that noted their adamant voices in assuring that they were BORN gay. They weren't desperately trying to change anything.
Quote: Kristogar Velo said: I don't know a whole lot about the subject, but the interviews I've read with the people who have been "saved" just makes them sound completely and utterly brainwashed. My theory is that they do an A Clockwork Orange job on them.
...just so I don't get dragged into the middle of this, I'm letting you all know that the last line was tongue-in-cheek.
Heh, I was going to say something similar, but I thought it would be taken the wrong way. Thanks for saying it for me.
Still shouldn't make any difference if they're born gay.
Quote: Pariah said: Still shouldn't make any difference if they're born gay.
....if they were brainwashed? Brainwashing could make an Irishman sober. Once you break a human being down, you could convince them they're anything.
I'm not saying that's what happened(and again, I would like to read more about this program you're talking about), but if it was brainwashing, being born a certain way wouldn't make the slightest bit of difference.
As for the recent study, keep in mind the people undergoing the therapy were people who desperately didn't want to be gay. Plus it only followed them for so long. (I think a 6 months to a year)
Other studies funded by people & organization with a clear agenda tend to keep no or bad records or are now living with their life partners.
This doesn't make a bit of difference MEM. If they're born gay based off of the reasoning being handed here, they're going to STAY that way.
Also...
There were interviews that noted their adamant voices in assuring that they were BORN gay. They weren't desperately trying to change anything.
You're reading a different article then me then. The one I read just last week certainly was made up of those who desperately wanted to change. Even then the "cure" rate was very low. Can't imagine why anyone would go into conversion therapy otherwise. If you find it & get the chance please post a link.
As for it not making a difference, not sure I follow you on that one but I'll give it a shot. You demand an absolute 0 percent conversion rate, even one proves it's not a genetic trait? Again any time I've read about this stuff, it's for gays who are intensley "cutting the wrist time" unhappy with their homosexuality. A common theme I've come across reading survivor stories after therapy, these people came from parents that would not accept their child being gay. Imagine a child growing up thinking they're damned & that their abhominations! Thats a pretty powerful incentive to want to be normal. If I had to guess the therapy might help these people fool themselves for a bit of time. That tiny success rate gets smaller as time goes by though. I suspect thats the reason we don't see records tracking patients for any length of time. The antigay groups that fund these things are not interested in that data.
MEM, that's all nice and lovely, but I said before that the gay patients were proving a point. They KNEW they were gay, but ended up not being gay. That's exactly what the program targeted (if only I could find the fucking page).
If I'm wrong and you're factoring this in, then are you just saying that those kids who aren't accepted would become ungay in no time because they WANT to? I mean, to me, with all the reasoning being passed around about being naturally gay, it shouldn't make a difference. And going about explaining the conversion like it's psychosematic doesn't make much sense either considering that those kids were raised in a straight environment.
Dave TWB: "This is the United States of America, whose form of government is clearly founded by Christians, and based on Christian principles"
I don't have evidence in front of me to debate your point about the founding fathers being Christian...and trust me, this is debatable point...but...these Christian principles you speak of are NOT made explicit in the US Constitution. The freedom of religion makes explict the fact that this is not a J-C theocracy. The Bible is not the US. Constitution.
Jim
PS. The reason I aim any of this at you is because you're the biggest mouth and potentially the narrowest mind on this subject in this forum.
I wasn't gonna jump in on this point, but I've seen a number of men leave the homosexual lifestyle and not go back and not be miserable for the rest of our lives. Our church assisted the Exodus Int'l organization in their programs for homosexuals who wanted to leave it behind. These guys came to us and announced they were sick of their lives, that they were going nowhere, that they felt empty, unfulfilled, sick of what they were doing.
We didn't throw the book at them - they already knew what they needed to know. What we did do is really the only thing that works - and possibly what the church has failed most embarrassingly to do until now. We didn't wait for them to miraculously totally 'clean up' to accept them. We accepted them just as they were and showed them the love and attention they hadn't gotten elsewhere.
Several families each took one of those men and 'adopted' them for a year, inviting them to come live in their homes, and basically treated them as part of the family. No big, drawn-out lectures about how it's an abomination or how they were going to hell or anything like that. (I seriously doubt there are any gay men who haven't heard that more times than they can count.)
No, they were just part of the family. Everyone in the church spent time with them, got to know them better, and we all basically did our best to show these guys that they were loved simply for who they were. At the end of that year, we let them decide what they were going to do, and kept in touch with those who couldn't stay in the area at least once a week. After five years, not one of those twenty men has gone back to the gay lifestyle.
I'm not concerned with whether or not gays are born with a tendency toward a certain lifestyle. I'm not concerned with how politicizers might disagree with what we're doing - or how churches might disagree with what we're doing (and quite a few do). All we're trying to do is prove that it's possible to find acceptance and love without being enslaved to tendencies toward a destructive lifestyle (which is what they called it, btw). We didn't pull a 'Clockwork Orange' move on them. We just made sure they experienced what they hadn't yet been given - a feeling of worth beyond the things they did, a realization that you do have control over what you do (even if that control only extends as far as going to get help) and you are more than the sum of the choices you make.
Say what you want about me or my church or our methods, but I know dozens of men who are leading fulfilled lives today, after leaving the gay lifestyle behind. It's entirely possible, no matter how un-PC or potentially 'offensive' it might be. It's just up to people to decide for themselves whether or not to give it a try.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: ""all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights..."
Got it. But he didn't say "Jesus," or "Yahweh," or "the God of Abraham." And he didn't say any names for a reason.
He said it because it was implicit, Jim. There was no PC movement back then, and even though there was a diversity of patterns of worship among the churches in the colonies (the preservation of which was one of the primary reasons for the founding of the colonies in the first place), they all ascribed worship to the same God. Even deists and Freemasons (the only 'religious minorities' of the day) completely understood this, and it wouldn't have been anything but representative to go ahead and say Yahweh (or Jehovah, the Roman-alphabet transliteration of Yahweh) or any other Judeo-Christian name for God.
Slightly different religious and political environment back then.
PS. The reason I aim any of this at you is because you're the biggest mouth and potentially the narrowest mind on this subject in this forum.
I think you're just a jackass, who needlessly drags this issue out because of some kind of vendetta against me.
The big mouth and narrow mind insult, it seems to me, more aptly applies to you.
I generally try not to insult, except in retaliation for comments directed at me that can't be ignored, and excluding that situation, simply try to discuss the issue. Whereas you insult me in pretty much every post.
The other points you raise have already been answered in the topic. Most of them at least 20 times. Learn to read.
~
Thanks for your comments, Capt. Sammitch. The psychological counselors I first mentioned on page 22 of this topic similarly have people come to them (as opposed to approaching gays).
And reading their treatment criteria (at their link), it's clear that they likewise present a loving, welcoming and nurturing environment to get gays introduced to an alternative to the homosexual lifestyle, and clearly have the goal in mind of allowing them to live happier and more fulfilling lives.
As opposed to the God hates homosexuals and You're going to Hell approach of some evangelist groups.
Which as you say, is offputting.
( I don't want to imply that what your church does is identical to what this group of psychologists does. I'm sure it's not. Just that they have a vaguely similar loving/caring approach, as opposed to a fire-and-brimstone approach )
I only raise the "abomination" Biblical description here in this topic because others have alleged that Judao-Christian marriage is compatible with gay marriage. And in answer to that, have made clear what the Bible says, consistently throughout.
But that's not how I'd approach a gay person, unless a gay person alleged that Biblical marriage and gay marriage are compatible. Which has been done many times in this topic.
Sammitch: "He said it because it was implicit, Jim. "
It make no sense that these extremely intelligent men, who've just won a revolution and who make the first amendment to the Consitution ABOUT FREEDOM OF RELIGION, to leave something THAT IMPORTANT implicit.
I read "homophobia" as daring to voice an intelligent opinion that bucks the opinion of the gay/liberal community, and being falsely labelled a "hater" of some kind, to undermine dismissively the logic and intelligence of those views.
The role of Christianity as an essential element in American democracy is clear in the writings of the founding fathers.
The only fear of our founding fathers was that one form of Christianity would possibly rise to dominate how Christianity was practiced in the United States, as the Roman Catholic church had dominated Europe. They valued Christianity as an essential element in democracy, and in education, as is reflected in these quotes:
Quote: Religion is the only solid basis of good morals; therefore education should teach the precepts of religion, and the duties of man toward God. Gouverneur Morris, signer of the Constitution.
from The Life of Gouverneur Morris by Jared Sparks, vol 3, p 483
There was a belief by the founding fathers that previous attempts at democracy had inevitably failed because of the absence of Biblical principles in their foundation, as in the Greek and Roman empires.
Their belief was that without Christian teaching and principles, democracy could only descend into chaos and self-destruction. That only the Bible could make democracy in the United States turn out differently:
Quote: Democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security; and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths. James Madison
from The Federalist on the New Constitution, p 53
Quote: Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a Democracy that did not commit suicide. John Adams
from Works, John Adams, vol 6, p 484, from a letter by Adams.
Quote: All the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, opression, slavery, and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible. Noah Webster.
from The History of the United States, by Webster, p 309
Quote: The only true basis of all government [is] the laws of God and nature. For government is an ordinance of Heaven, designed by the all-benevolent Creator. Samuel Adams
from Writings, vol 1 p 269
Quote: The propitious smiles of Heaven can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right which Heaven itself has ordained... It is impossible to rightly govern without God and the Bible. George Washington,
from A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol 1, pp52-53
Quote: The law dictated by God Himself is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this. Alexander Hamilton
from The Papers of Alexander Hamilton by Harold C. Syret, vol 1, p 87
Quote: It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Patrick Henry
from God's Providence in American History, by Steve Dawson, p 1
The concept "separation of Church and State" is in no U.S. document of government. It is a creation in the 20th century, from a phrase Jefferson wrote in a personal letter to a friend.
It is NOT in any of Jefferson's books. But technically, it is in one of his writings. It is one phrase by Jefferson, not something he passionately argued for.
But in any case, the role of Christianity in forming the principles of American democracy is clear. And the desire that Christian principles would continue to be an enduring part of that democracy, as long as American democracy continues to exist.
Quote: The concept "separation of Church and State" is in no U.S. document of government. It is a creation in the 20th century, from a phrase Jefferson wrote in a personal letter to a friend. It is NOT in any of Jefferson's books. But technically, it is in one of his writings. It is one phrase by Jefferson, not something he passionately argued for.
But in any case, the role of Christianity in forming the principles of American democracy is clear. And the desire that Christian principles would continue to be an enduring part of that democracy, as long as American democracy continues to exist.
Says who? The millions of Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc, etc in your country? Or you?
The following is being posted on behalf of a friend of mine named Mike who doesn't have a working ID at this particular message board...
Quote: I've been reading this monster of a thread for quite a while now. I have to admit, it's quite fascinating. Some strong arguments have been put forth here. I do have a few opinions of my own.
A few dates for you. 5-23-02 12-29-03 1-02-04 1-05-04 1-11-04 1-13-04 1-14-04 1-17-04 1-21-04 1-24-04
These, for the record, are the dates in which Dave The Wonder Boy posted on threads in the Women forum of this board. The majority of these threads contained pornographic pictures which Dave admits to approving of.
These are the dates in which Dave The Wonder Boy posted pornographic images of his own, some of which clearly came from sites which require an expensive monthly fee. Some of the images also seem to have come from a spam e-mail recieved by Dave, which he looked into further just out of "curiousity".
Now, I'm no Christian. Never have been. Unless I'm too much mistaken, though, both the manufacture and enjoyment of pornography is considered a sin by Christians. This is merely a theory based on personal experience, but it's rare to find a man who has memberships to at least two Internet porn sites who doesn't masturbate to the images found there. One must also realize that masturbation is also a sin in the eyes of Christians.
Now, Dave, I don't want it to seem like I'm picking on you here, but one must guess that, based on the evidence, you spend a hell of a lot of time surfing the Net for porn. Some of the days you spent posting porn on this board were even Sundays, Dave. I may need correction on that point, actually. Do Christians consider Sunday to be the Sabbath, or is that just a Catholic thing?
Mind you, I'm not one to judge. If you want to spend your free time sinning, Dave, then more power to you. Still, the frequency with which you seem to enjoy your porn indicates that this is a serious problem. One that a good Christian might even seek redemption and forgiveness for. Have you spoken about this to your pastor yet? Or, in lieu of that, prayed to God for guidance on this matter? If these questions are too personal, Dave, do let me know.
Still, I would have to guess that you have not, considering how recent some of those dates are. One could theorize that you don't really see this as a sin, or perhaps as a smaller sin not really worthy of God's wrath. Certainly not as bad as, for example, homosexuality. One might start to think that you, like so many other Christians, only pay lip service to your "faith". For example, you wallow in the filth of pornography, because you personally enjoy it. Yet, you are willing to deny homosexuals the rights due to all tax-paying Americans simply because it would infringe upon your rights to pursue your faith. Rather convenient, isn't it?
For the record, what is your personal belief on pornography, Dave? Will you be standing up to be counted amongst those who wish to see it outlawed? Surely you will, as it goes so blatantly against the Christian values that you clutch so fervently to your bosom.
It's odd to me, I admit. You are more than willing to class homosexuals as lower-class citizens because of your religious beliefs, yet you spend a great deal of time sinning, and spreading that sin to your fellow perverts here. Do you know what they say about a man who has strong feelings against homosexuality, and spends a great deal of his time proclaiming loudly about his attraction to the opposite sex? Like you, Dave, I am no psychiatrist. Perhaps we can all come to our own conclusions here.
I'm just curious, Dave. Feel free to ignore my questions if you like. Looking at the evidence, though, one might start to think that your opposition to gay marriage has to do with some deep personal bias, and that you're using the Bible to excuse this resentment. I know that a good porn-loving Christian like you would never do such a thing, though.
Uhm.....Dude, sample pictures have watermarks too. So this guy has drawn to almost faulty conclusions. I say this because I once heard Dave say something along the lines of, "do people actually pay for this?"
Danny, this guy you're quoting seems rather obsessed-- With Dave in particular. Even I wouldn't bother to note dates to argue credibility. All he need to do is look at current arguments Dave made. Seeing as how he's not doing this.......Well.... And really, implying that because someone looks at porn makes him a hypocrite is WAY off base. Especially when it has to do with straight porn (and really, you couldn't conisder the stuff he posted real porn). You know even REALLY devout Catholics (like my family) don't have problems with nude models. And saying that bias would arrive from looking at pictures that would coincide with his sexuality is a stupid pursuit (in this type of argument none the less). It's way too broad an argument to be narrowed on one side of the sexual spectrum.
What's more, trying to argue all of this with uninformed views is beyond idiotic. This guy's not only presuming to know what is considered a sin in the Catholic/Christian eyes, but he's also presuming to know the intensity of the sins themselves. He's also perpetuating a stereotype that red blooded humans can't be just as easily attracted to others despite title of religion.
Tell your friend to do more research and stop trying to use pusillanimous flanking tactics to try and hurt the validity someone's opinion. It shows the beyond desparate acts of someone running out of solid arguments.
~~~
Dave, I'm sorry if I overstepped my grounds, but he might as well have been insulting me too.
Quote: Or you could post that shit at Kamphausen's boards. Home of dumbshit comic geeks. I tried for ages to argue the gay marriage thing with some Christian fuckknob and the guy still refuses to grasp the basic concepts of reason and compassion.
I have a couple of questions? Do you really have a "friend" who wrote this or are you so spineless that you made your friend up? It's funnt that you call this the home of dumbshit comic geeks, and yet you Knoll nerds are so scared of differing views you wont approve membership of anyone who won't join in the clique mentality. Fact is, these boards are home to the NB's the most powerful force in the online world, you jealousy speaks volumes! You may now go back to you falling over each other for reaffirmation at the Knoll....we win again!
"I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust upon a girl. I know full well that the Almighty God sends calamity on those who do" (Job 31:1-3, The Living Bible).
"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28).
Quote: Or you could post that shit at Kamphausen's boards. Home of dumbshit comic geeks. I tried for ages to argue the gay marriage thing with some Christian fuckknob and the guy still refuses to grasp the basic concepts of reason and compassion.
I have a couple of questions? Do you really have a "friend" who wrote this or are you so spineless that you made your friend up? It's funnt that you call this the home of dumbshit comic geeks, and yet you Knoll nerds are so scared of differing views you wont approve membership of anyone who won't join in the clique mentality. Fact is, these boards are home to the NB's the most powerful force in the online world, you jealousy speaks volumes! You may now go back to you falling over each other for reaffirmation at the Knoll....we win again!
Is that the same Danny who was falling all over himself to get accepted by the NBs?
APA Reissues Warning Over 'Reparative' Therapy Wednesday, February 16th 2000
WASHINGTON -- The American Psychiatric Association has issued an updated fact sheet on the potential harm caused by "reparative therapy," adding its condemnation of the practice to the persistent national debate over whether gay men and lesbians can become heterosexual using therapeutic techniques.
The Cox News Service reports the updated fact-sheet on "Homosexual and Bisexual Issues," issued on Feb. 5, reaffirms the organization's position that there is no clinical evidence that psychiatric intervention has any lasting impact on changing a patient's sexual orientation. It also reaffirmed that some studies show it can, in fact, be harmful.
Overview of this issue > Ex-Gay and Conversion Ministries Web Sites > APA Q&A on Homosexuality Other Data Lounge stories > Washington DC Send this article to a friend"Sexual orientation, like gender identity, appears to be established early in life," the APA says. While the group acknowledges that anecdotal reports contend psychotherapy has helped change gay men and lesbians' sexual orientation "for some motivated individuals for limited periods of time," the association also said "such changes often are accompanied by depression, anxiety and other symptoms."
The organization said the most effective long-term therapeutic solution for people suffering guilt, shame and self-hatred over their same-sex desires is aimed at reaffirming their sense of worth in what the APA calls a homophobic society.
"Relief of homophobia allows for better psychological functioning," the statement explained. "Those who have integrated their sexual orientation into a positive sense of themselves function at a healthier psychological level than those who have not." -- C. Barillas, Editor
Pariah I can't find any article that matches what you described. So I can't really comment on it.
Captain Sammich, if those guys are truly content then I'm happy for them. Not quite sure how that would somehow change their attraction to the same sex though. I know plenty of gays that seem to come from happy religous homes. Mine was practically the Brady Bunch. It still didn't make me straight, it did however make me a better,stronger person. And all 20 changing their orientation? Narth & these other de-gaying groups don't claim anything like that even & as posted above the APA still says reparative therapy can even cause harm in some cases.
Quote: "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust upon a girl. I know full well that the Almighty God sends calamity on those who do" (Job 31:1-3, The Living Bible).
"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28).
Venial sin. Not required in confession. ACTING upon lust however is a mortal sin and therefore required for confession.
God's more lenient than the apostles and prophets because they have to sruggle so much to keep themselves in check. St. Augustine is the greatest example of overdoing......Strictness when it comes to sex in the church. He created the biggest stigma using his desired lifestyle as an example. His trouble in converting from a player into a chaste person was really hard, so he always spoke with a lot of harshness. Circumstances differ, but this isn't unlike the reasons for the outlooks the others adopted.
Anyway, the way I'm seeing it, those verses are telling us to be careful. Period. Temptation is hard to overcome.
Quote: Or you could post that shit at Kamphausen's boards. Home of dumbshit comic geeks. I tried for ages to argue the gay marriage thing with some Christian fuckknob and the guy still refuses to grasp the basic concepts of reason and compassion.
I have a couple of questions? Do you really have a "friend" who wrote this or are you so spineless that you made your friend up?
It does seem kinda odd that this friend has time to record the dates of Dave the whatever's posts, but can't just fucking register the name "Mike" or something to make his own post...
Unfortunately, it's not imaginary, unless Mad Hatter is one of Danny's alts:
Quote: Or you could post that shit at Kamphausen's boards. Home of dumbshit comic geeks. I tried for ages to argue the gay marriage thing with some Christian fuckknob and the guy still refuses to grasp the basic concepts of reason and compassion.
I have a couple of questions? Do you really have a "friend" who wrote this or are you so spineless that you made your friend up? It's funnt that you call this the home of dumbshit comic geeks, and yet you Knoll nerds are so scared of differing views you wont approve membership of anyone who won't join in the clique mentality. Fact is, these boards are home to the NB's the most powerful force in the online world, you jealousy speaks volumes! You may now go back to you falling over each other for reaffirmation at the Knoll....we win again!
Please the Knoll is a place where aspiring "writers" can talk about whats so terribly wrong about the comic's industry while they struggle with the minimum wage jobs.
Quote: MAD HATTER said: Responses have already come in, with not a shred of sense among them. I've immediately discounted BSAMS' rambling, as the fact that our membership criteria here is only that the person in question be literate seems to have escaped him.
Quote: "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look with lust upon a girl. I know full well that the Almighty God sends calamity on those who do" (Job 31:1-3, The Living Bible).
"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28).
Venial sin. Not required in confession. ACTING upon lust however is a mortal sin and therefore required for confession.
God's more lenient than the apostles and prophets because they have to sruggle so much to keep themselves in check. St. Augustine is the greatest example of overdoing......Strictness when it comes to sex in the church. He created the biggest stigma using his desired lifestyle as an example. His trouble in converting from a player into a chaste person was really hard, so he always spoke with a lot of harshness. Circumstances differ, but this isn't unlike the reasons for the outlooks the others adopted.
Anyway, the way I'm seeing it, those verses are telling us to be careful. Period. Temptation is hard to overcome.
So despite that they say one thing it really means something else? Where is God more lenient? In Leviticus he's very strict on sperm usage & in some fairly strange ways (by todays standards at least) but I don't see him being more lenient.
Somebody should tell Mad Hatter he doesn't even need a valid e-mail address to post at this place. As probably anyone who's posted with many alt IDs could tell you, just register the name, put down any e-mail address you feel like, and log in. You don't even need to read the confirmation e-mail.
Wait, he's been reading this thread. So I guess I'm letting him know...
Aside from the sexual orientation debate raging on here, i wanted to bring this back up because it personally offended me. Now i'm assuming that most everyone here is a white male so perhaps these comments didn't come across as immflammatory as the thought of 2 men getting it on. However......
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Looking at American culture from a racial/ethnic perspective, white/European Americans are and have long been the majority in the U.S., but that is projected to decine to a minority of 43% or so by the year 2040, as non-European immigration, and domestic non-European birth rates increase at a faster rate than domestic white/European Americans (which are at pretty much zero growth rate, pretty much just having two children per family).
So there are two ways in which America is rapidly changing, like at no time in its history:
There is the racial perspective, of a declining European percentage.
And there is the cultural perspective, of liberals attempting to aggressively leverage out conservative institutions.
I think my area in Florida is changing both racially and culturally, at a much faster rate than the rest of the nation.
While I speak Spanish, I resent having to select English when I call my bank or use my ATM.
As I've detailed elsewhere, on the one hand, I find it exciting to meet so many people from so many places. But at the same time, I find it a bit threatening, that immigration and foreign presence in the U.S. has become so overwhelming. I would like to see immigration reduced by at least half, to allow recent immigrants to assimilate into American culture.
But I don't find the racial change in America nearly as threatening as the cultural change: the rise of gay marriage, gay adoption, and gay/liberal undermining of the values that I grew up with.
And swing clubs, rampant escort services and prostitution, and the number of people I've met personally who engage in group sex, promiscuity and drugs. And psychics, and gambling casinos, body piercing, tattoos...
This is not my fricking America.
As someone pointed out somewhere earlier, I think the biggest thing we're facing from a cultural perspective is FEAR.
I just want to say something regarding America one day no longer being the bastion of straight white male supermacy. SO FRICKIN WHAT??!
It certainly is MY AMERICA. And it's the America to millions of people who live together happily with their differences and cultures intact. In Los Angeles, in New York, in Chicago and a growing number of American cities.
To those who reject diversity, well, pretty soon, there won't be a Montana or Arizona where they can flee to 'whiter pastures'. They'll just have to swallow their bigotry and wish their daughters well as they take that nice young black or asian or latino guy to the prom. That or else start fucking each other more to increase their white numbers.
As far as ASSimiliation, I take that to mean the "melting pot" approach. The old Ellis Island ploy of making the Russian "Bogdon" into the Americanized Bobby, the Ukranian "Rudov's" into Rudolph's, the Jose's into "Joe". Why?
Because the white man fears and is repelled by the very notion of ethnicity??
That everything 'not like us' has to be completely obliterated into a nice facsimile of WASP blandness? Yes America is changing.That is not scary in the least. Except perhaps to bigots and white supremacists. People aern't going to come to America any more and "become" what others tell them they have to be in order to be accepted into the mainstream. Which of course is a WASP. So yeah, that offends people hence "english only" laws and immigration wedge rhetoric in the political discourse.
"You don't make me. I AM ME" - John Lydon
Also, whether anyone engages in group sex, in homosexual sex, in body peircing or tattoing and gambling. Again. SO WHAT??!!!
I assumed we we're a free country. Free to embrace or reject puritanical values and ideas. It seems the fact that people who reject the pentecostal mindset far outnumber those who do is what scares you too. And I fail to see any 'sinfulness' in body art. If you step back though, it really sounds like something out of theTaliban Guide to better living. But i guess this is the road you take when you try to legislate 'sanctity'.
As far as Florida, I'm encouraged that at least one area of the deep south will soon resemble other less repressive, more cosmopolitian areas such as the 2 coasts (LA & NY) rather than say, Georgia or Alabama and hopefully drag the rest of the region out of the Confederacy and into the 21st century where the rest of the nation happily resides.
And on to gay marriage......
Again, FEAR. Fear that the old ways are falling by the wayside. Hence a militant conservatism to ensure that everyone once more remembers their place in society.
Now i'm off. As some of you may have noticed, i'm making myself more scarce on account of this place resembling a hate group meeting half the time (namely this thread) amd a curiosity to see if the right wing vitrol would find new targets to vent their paranioa. I see it has.
COMMENTARY Keep Your Tired, Poor Stereotypes Colorful cultural quilt has replaced the 'melting pot.'
By Stanley Karnow, Stanley Karnow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in history in 1990. His most recent book is "Paris in the Fifties" (Times Books, 1997).
Chauvinists worried that immigration threatens to blemish the nation's "purity" might look at the Washington suburb where I live. It was a drowsy, lily-white stretch of farms, stables and split-level houses when we moved there 30 years ago. Since then, it has burgeoned into a multicultural, multicolored, multilingual enclave — dramatic evidence that the U.S., despite its manifold defects, is a beacon for throngs from everywhere.
In contrast to the wretched, tempest-tost, huddled masses sketched by Emma Lazarus in her celebrated poem, many newcomers are educated, skilled, wealthy and fluent in English. They disembark attuned to the best and the worst of the U.S. from their exposure to its movies, radio programs and television shows, or from the Internet. Their teenagers sport baseball caps and Levi's, ride skateboards and are acquainted with Coke, Big Macs, Mickey Mouse, Madonna and Elvis. Others who come may fit Lazarus' description. But rich or poor, they come eager to work hard for a better life.
My neighbors include a German architect and his Iranian wife, a Palestinian contractor, a Korean scientist and a car salesman from Madagascar. An Indian physician converted her home into a miniature Taj Mahal, replete with bronze elephants on the lawn.
The local clinic employs an acupuncturist versed in the subtleties of yang and yin. Filipinos nurse the elderly. The mechanic at the garage is Senegalese, the attendants Mongolian and Pakistani. My barber is a French-Jewish woman who traces her lineage back to Tunisia. The shop is owned by a Korean. We rely for repairs on a group of Jamaican carpenters, electricians, painters and plumbers. Our part-time gardener is a Salvadoran. Initially he came into the area by bus, but now he has a truck.
The supermarket is staffed by Filipinos, Cameroonians, Haitians, Latinos, Indians, Thais and a Tibetan. It's stocked with borscht, matzo, couscous, mango chutney, shitake mushrooms, lemon grass, taro and varied herbs. There are dozens of kinds of rices and noodles.
The community center offers classes in tai chi chuan, karate and yoga. Books, periodicals and videos, tapes and DVDs in Chinese, Japanese, Hindi, Italian, Korean, Russian, Tagalog and Vietnamese are available at the public library. At the elementary school, a teacher from Beijing is "immersing" kindergartners in the rudiments of Mandarin. One morning, when I casually dropped in on them, they were perched on the stools and gleefully chanting ditties in rote, reminding me of toddlers in Hong Kong, my base as a correspondent during the 1960s.
This spectacular demographic transformation owes its genesis to President Lyndon Johnson. In 1965, consistent with his sweeping liberal agenda, he persuaded Congress to legislate a progressive immigration law. Among other things, it repealed the patently racist statute promoted in 1924 by jingoists and super-patriots that cut legal immigration by half as a device to curb the admission of "undesirables" from Eastern and Southern Europe. Today, 30 million Americans are foreign-born.
The "melting pot" concept, glorified as the paradigm, turned out to be an illusion, primarily because people sought to preserve their distinct identities. We are closer to the notion of "cultural pluralism" broached in 1925 by the Jewish philosopher Horace Kallen. Dismayed by the thought of dissolving his pedigree in an Anglocentric caldron, he suggested a "loose federation of nationalities … cooperating voluntarily through a multiplicity of autonomous institutions." Die-hard conformists vehemently decried his proposal as a gambit for championing "hyphenated" Americanism. But he was remarkably prescient.
The syrupy Norman Rockwell illustration of the country as an exclusive WASP domain has faded into oblivion as we evolve into a land of diverse minorities. The danger, however, is that unum may be eclipsed by pluribus, and we become a fragmented society. The phenomenon is apparent on college campuses, where student activists, prodded by their politically correct professors, stridently clamor for segregated dining halls, fraternities, lounges and curriculums. Immigrants are impervious to this trend.
Recently, while paying a bill at the gas station, I noticed that the black cashier was perusing a newspaper in an language unfamiliar to me. "I'm Ethiopian," he explained, then asked me: "Are you Jewish?" Amazed, I replied, "Yes." "So am I," he replied, adding "shalom" as he handed me my change.
Quote: Send this article to a friend"Sexual orientation, like gender identity, appears to be established early in life," the APA says.
This part fuels my case it seems. If it's ESTABLISHED, you're not actually born with it.
Quote:
This was from the link that fully explains their position...
What Causes a Person To Have a Particular Sexual Orientation? There are numerous theories about the origins of a person's sexual orientation; most scientists today agree that sexual orientation is most likely the result of a complex interaction of environmental, cognitive and biological factors. In most people, sexual orientation is shaped at an early age. There is also considerable recent evidence to suggest that biology, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors, play a significant role in a person's sexuality. In summary, it is important to recognize that there are probably many reasons for a person's sexual orientation and the reasons may be different for different people.
Quote: So despite that they say one thing it really means something else? Where is God more lenient? In Leviticus he's very strict on sperm usage & in some fairly strange ways (by todays standards at least) but I don't see him being more lenient.
Dude, there was no masturbation involved. There was no waste of seed. These were examples of thought and lustful longing. It's the physical violations that matter most. Leviticus went over physical abominations.
Quote: There is also considerable recent evidence to suggest that biology, including genetic or inborn hormonal factors, play a significant role in a person's sexuality.
Really? Is it all conclusive? What are they basing it on?
Quote: Now i'm off. As some of you may have noticed, i'm making myself more scarce on account of this place resembling a hate group meeting half the time (namely this thread) amd a curiosity to see if the right wing vitrol would find new targets to vent their paranioa. I see it has.
Quote: Send this article to a friend"Sexual orientation, like gender identity, appears to be established early in life," the APA says.
This part fuels my case it seems. If it's ESTABLISHED, you're not actually born with it.
Quote:
On the same note, it also establishes you're not BORN straight either. Your sexuality develops as you grow older.
But then the whole "choose to be gay" issue is mainly one of people wanting to find excuses to hate. If you can argue that people CHOOSE a life of persecution and discrimination, then you really don't have to feel bad about being the one doing the persecuting. After all "they CHOOSE to offend me and bring it upon themselves with their choices in life".
Here are some quotes by Vice President Dick Cheney from the 2000 vice presidential debate. On gay and lesbian relationships:
Quote: "The fact of the matter is we live in a free society, and freedom means freedom for everybody. We don't get to choose, and shouldn't be able to choose and say, 'You get to live free, but you don't.' "
On gay and lesbian civil unions or marriage:
Quote: "I think the fact of the matter, of course, is that matter is regulated by the states. I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area."
I guess he would now amend his statement to say "unless we need to use it as a wedge issue to help our chances of getting reelected in 2004."
On the same note, it also establishes you're not BORN straight either. Your sexuality develops as you grow older.
But then the whole "choose to be gay" issue is mainly one of people wanting to find excuses to hate. If you can argue that people CHOOSE a life of persecution and discrimination, then you really don't have to feel bad about being the one doing the persecuting. After all "they CHOOSE to offend me and bring it upon themselves with their choices in life".
Again:
It seems you totally ignored the issue and drifted off course just to launch another smear campaign. Yeah, I'm pretty much not surprised.
I think I made it rather apparent that I'm arguing that people CHOOSE to go about using their bodies in an unhealthy, wrong, and particularly dangerous manner. Of course me main qualms with same sex marriage arise because it is an abomination, but because I've actually been focusing on the latter line of reasoning moreso, allow me to get a bit more in depth.
I don't belive we choose to be anything. It all just happens due to a conglomeration of random events that shape us. Those same events lead us to have attractions to our own sex, small boys/girls, to kill people because it SEEMS right, cannibalize, etc.. I don't NECESSARILY think that people CHOOSED to be the way they are (I believe that a great deal of people choose, but they're beside the point because of their particular statistic). I do, however, believe that people CHOOSE to do and not do what they percieve as faulty actions. Whether it FELT natural or not would make no difference in this case. It is in this right that I see gay people CHOOSING to be gay. To reiterate: Yes, I am comparing homosexuality to the numerous existing fetishes and psychological disorders that exist. No different than my depression or that lady who lives across the street from me who's into bondage.....
It may sound like I'm being very strict, but it is indeed possible to avoid or (especially in this case) overcome being gay. I see it no differently than me forcing myself to not touch myself. All of you who don't share my opinion may consider this repression of emotion, sexual energy, whatever! But consider the following:
You've actually stumbled onto a corellation here Whomod. We choose to do right or wrong. That's a given......
Now, we know that being straight is the only natural sexual establishment. And we also know that having homosexual sex is the wrong way to go about: A) Stimulating nerves and Reproduction.
We also know that promoting hate is wrong and spreading peace right. Hate is unhealthy in every sense of the word, it's unhealthy even in the ways I described up top.
So lets break it down:
Hate is wrong and causes damage, therefore, we must CHOOSE to stay away from it.
Homosexuality is wrong and causes damage, therefore, we must CHOOSE to stay away from it (just like you want us to CHOOSE to stay away from a life of discriminating and persecuting).
Hey look at that! I found a connection between societal etiquette and religious/moral (Catholic in my case) constraint.
Gay Marriage: Is D.C. Next? by Paul Johnson 365Gay.com Newscenter Washington Bureau Chief
Posted: February 28, 2004 12:01 a.m. ET
(Washington, D.C.) Same-sex marriage may be come coming to George W. Bush's own front door.
District of Columbia City Administrator Robert Bobb said Friday that officials are looking into whether the city can legally perform same-sex marriages.
Interviewed on Georgetown University radio station WAMU, Bobb said that Mayor Anthony Williams has asked the Corporation Counsel to look into the legal and constitutional issues.
The city already has a domestic partners law on the books, but Williams came out last week in favor of same-sex marriage. Williams said he is "on record as far back as the 1998 campaign in recognizing that marriage ought to apply to everybody."
Asked about the President's backing on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, the mayor says he's glad Congress cleared the way for the District to implement its domestic partners program in early 2001. The city's health department has been issuing domestic partner registration certificates since July of 2002.
In the two weeks since San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples nearly 4,000 couples have married, the most notable being Rosie and Kelli O'Donnell on Thursday. (story)
On Friday the mayor of a small village north of New York City performed more than twenty marriages for same-sex couples. (story) Last week a suburb of Phoenix issued marriage licenses to about about 100 gay and lesbian couples before the state Attorney General put a stop to it. (story). Chicago's mayor Daley has also said he would not object to same-sex marriages in the Windy City.
In May same-sex marriage will be legal in Massachusetts. (story)
Quote: Or you could post that shit at Kamphausen's boards. Home of dumbshit comic geeks. I tried for ages to argue the gay marriage thing with some Christian fuckknob and the guy still refuses to grasp the basic concepts of reason and compassion.
I have a couple of questions? Do you really have a "friend" who wrote this or are you so spineless that you made your friend up?
It does seem kinda odd that this friend has time to record the dates of Dave the whatever's posts, but can't just fucking register the name "Mike" or something to make his own post...
Unfortunately, it's not imaginary, unless Mad Hatter is one of Danny's alts:
.....seems i already got under hatters skin .... i love this stuff
Quote: It's Rob Kamphausen's boards for his personal site, Cuck. What's your e-mail, Martin???? Lord, someone help me. If this Christian cocksucker gets gets up on his high horse one more time without my being able to respond...well, I won't be responsible for my actions.
i may be wrong but isnt this the guy the midget who changed his convention plans because of RONIN? i'd hate to see what he does if someone gets on their high horse again oooooohhhh.....and remember he wont be responsible! they shoulda renamed it the dorky knoll.....they still aint figured it's just a message board, theirs nothing he can do but make a long winded geekdom post.....
Quote: So despite that they say one thing it really means something else? Where is God more lenient? In Leviticus he's very strict on sperm usage & in some fairly strange ways (by todays standards at least) but I don't see him being more lenient.
Dude, there was no masturbation involved. There was no waste of seed. These were examples of thought and lustful longing. It's the physical violations that matter most. Leviticus went over physical abominations.
I pointed out Leviticus because that was the one place God speaks about sex that I remembered off hand. Are there passages in the Bible that indicate something else concerning masterbation? Internet search brings up stuff like this...
Yes. Masturbation is a sin even if you are not thinking “sexual thoughts” while doing it.
Genesis 38:8-10 records the incident where God slew Onan for purposely spilling his seed, ie. Masturbation. (You will notice that it had nothing to do about whether he was thinking sexual thoughts.)
"Then Judah said to Onan, 'Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother.' But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death also." (Genesis 38:8-10) Some theologians try to explain away this passage by saying that it was not Onan's act of purposely spilling his semen that angered God, but rather that it was Onan’s refusal to raise up children for his brother (the levirate marriage law) which offended God to the point that He punished Onan with death. However, though in Judah's day it was the custom of those people to give the widow in marriage to one of the brothers of the deceased husband, God had not yet instituted the levirate marriage law. God does not institute that law until Deut 25:5ff. And even if that law were to be applied in Onan's case, the punishment for refusing to carry out that law was only the removal of the man’s sandal and then spitting in his face--not death (see Deut 25:9). So why did God punish Onan with death? The only other thing Onan did was to purposely spill his seed (waste it). That is the answer. The reason why God punishes Onan with death is because he purposely spilled and wasted his seed in an act that is meant to be open to the possibility of God creating new life through that act.
In addition, masturbating usually, if not always, involves at least imagining sexual encounters with other persons in order to achieve orgasm. This sounds an awful lot like lusting to me. And lusting after imaginary women (or men as the case may be) while masturbating is still lusting - which our Lord condemned. (Mt. 5:28).
On the same note, it also establishes you're not BORN straight either. Your sexuality develops as you grow older.
But then the whole "choose to be gay" issue is mainly one of people wanting to find excuses to hate. If you can argue that people CHOOSE a life of persecution and discrimination, then you really don't have to feel bad about being the one doing the persecuting. After all "they CHOOSE to offend me and bring it upon themselves with their choices in life".
Again:
It seems you totally ignored the issue and drifted off course just to launch another smear campaign. Yeah, I'm pretty much not surprised.
I think I made it rather apparent that I'm arguing that people CHOOSE to go about using their bodies in an unhealthy, wrong, and particularly dangerous manner. Of course me main qualms with same sex marriage arise because it is an abomination, but because I've actually been focusing on the latter line of reasoning moreso, allow me to get a bit more in depth.
I don't belive we choose to be anything. It all just happens due to a conglomeration of random events that shape us. Those same events lead us to have attractions to our own sex, small boys/girls, to kill people because it SEEMS right, cannibalize, etc.. I don't NECESSARILY think that people CHOOSED to be the way they are (I believe that a great deal of people choose, but they're beside the point because of their particular statistic). I do, however, believe that people CHOOSE to do and not do what they percieve as faulty actions. Whether it FELT natural or not would make no difference in this case. It is in this right that I see gay people CHOOSING to be gay. To reiterate: Yes, I am comparing homosexuality to the numerous existing fetishes and psychological disorders that exist. No different than my depression or that lady who lives across the street from me who's into bondage.....
It may sound like I'm being very strict, but it is indeed possible to avoid or (especially in this case) overcome being gay. I see it no differently than me forcing myself to not touch myself. All of you who don't share my opinion may consider this repression of emotion, sexual energy, whatever! But consider the following:
You've actually stumbled onto a corellation here Whomod. We choose to do right or wrong. That's a given......
Now, we know that being straight is the only natural sexual establishment. And we also know that having homosexual sex is the wrong way to go about: A) Stimulating nerves and Reproduction.
We also know that promoting hate is wrong and spreading peace right. Hate is unhealthy in every sense of the word, it's unhealthy even in the ways I described up top.
So lets break it down:
Hate is wrong and causes damage, therefore, we must CHOOSE to stay away from it.
Homosexuality is wrong and causes damage, therefore, we must CHOOSE to stay away from it (just like you want us to CHOOSE to stay away from a life of discriminating and persecuting).
Hey look at that! I found a connection between societal etiquette and religious/moral (Catholic in my case) constraint.
See where your wrong in the homosexual/fetish comparison it doesn't take into account love. You and others that do this never get past the sexual act. Being in a 14 plus year monogomous relationship, I can tell you it's not lust but love that has kept the boyfriend & I together. Any straight or gay couple thats been together for any length of time will tell you that. You say "We know" but actually I don't think you do. Now I could have made different choices ranging between celibacy & promiscuity but no matter what, my attraction for the same sex would still be there.
Quote: Kristogar Velo said: Somebody should tell Mad Hatter he doesn't even need a valid e-mail address to post at this place. As probably anyone who's posted with many alt IDs could tell you, just register the name, put down any e-mail address you feel like, and log in. You don't even need to read the confirmation e-mail.
Wait, he's been reading this thread. So I guess I'm letting him know...
You cant blame him for being unable to register,I'm sure he's still a little crazy from his breakdown after Athanon was destroyed on his watch. He's a cutter.
Pale Contributor Member # 19 posted February 28, 2004 01:51 AM -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://www.robkamphausen.com/ It's highly populated with fucktards, though.
Y'know whats sad? These guys still cant escape the message board trap,even with thier fabulous lives working at video stores they still cant handle human contact. I guess they have nothing else to do when they're not losing thier wives,girlfriends or attempting suicide. And in response to "Pale", At least the fucktards arent afraid to let them into thier message board,you fucking pussies.
Quote: Rob Kamphausen said: what is the legal reasoning why gay people can not be married in the US?
Because George Bush said so! Dammit Robbie! Watch the news once in a while! Bush is denying you your right to marry Nowhereman! I know that ticks you off to no end! Storm the White House! Vote Democratic! Do whatever it takes until you get the man you love Robbie!
Geez, you know, where to begin? As I open this response post, there have been 41 posts since I was here yesterday ( 41 !!!! ). And there will probably be 5 or 6 more before I finish my response and post.
Quote: Danny said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
The concept "separation of Church and State" is in no U.S. document of government. It is a creation in the 20th century, from a phrase Jefferson wrote in a personal letter to a friend.
It is NOT in any of Jefferson's books. But technically, it is in one of his writings. It is one phrase by Jefferson, not something he passionately argued for.
But in any case, the role of Christianity in forming the principles of American democracy is clear. And the desire that Christian principles would continue to be an enduring part of that democracy, as long as American democracy continues to exist.
Says who? The millions of Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc, etc in your country? Or you?
The founding fathers who drafted the Declaration and Constitution, Danny.
As is abundantly clear in their personal writings, some of which I posted above, if you'd bothered to simply read it.
But I'm sure you'd rather just ignore the facts and call me an "ignorant fuckwad" or whatever else you said on the GRASSY KNOLL boards.
Never let such a piddly thing as the facts get in the way of your half-baked liberal views.
Quote: Danny said: The following is being posted on behalf of a friend of mine named Mike who doesn't have a working ID at this particular message board...
Quote: (uncredited and posted in an immature and cowardly way, but thanks to Britneyspearsatemyshorts, we all know now who it was posted by) Mad Hatter: I've been reading this monster of a thread for quite a while now. I have to admit, it's quite fascinating. Some strong arguments have been put forth here. I do have a few opinions of my own.
A few dates for you.
5-23-02
12-29-03
1-02-04
1-05-04
1-11-04
1-13-04
1-14-04
1-17-04
1-21-04
1-24-04
These, for the record, are the dates in which Dave The Wonder Boy posted on threads in the Women forum of this board. The majority of these threads contained pornographic pictures which Dave admits to approving of.
These are the dates in which Dave The Wonder Boy posted pornographic images of his own, some of which clearly came from sites which require an expensive monthly fee. Some of the images also seem to have come from a spam e-mail recieved by Dave, which he looked into further just out of "curiousity".
Now, I'm no Christian. Never have been. Unless I'm too much mistaken, though, both the manufacture and enjoyment of pornography is considered a sin by Christians. This is merely a theory based on personal experience, but it's rare to find a man who has memberships to at least two Internet porn sites who doesn't masturbate to the images found there. One must also realize that masturbation is also a sin in the eyes of Christians.
Now, Dave, I don't want it to seem like I'm picking on you here, but one must guess that, based on the evidence, you spend a hell of a lot of time surfing the Net for porn. Some of the days you spent posting porn on this board were even Sundays, Dave. I may need correction on that point, actually. Do Christians consider Sunday to be the Sabbath, or is that just a Catholic thing?
Mind you, I'm not one to judge. If you want to spend your free time sinning, Dave, then more power to you. Still, the frequency with which you seem to enjoy your porn indicates that this is a serious problem. One that a good Christian might even seek redemption and forgiveness for. Have you spoken about this to your pastor yet? Or, in lieu of that, prayed to God for guidance on this matter? If these questions are too personal, Dave, do let me know.
Still, I would have to guess that you have not, considering how recent some of those dates are. One could theorize that you don't really see this as a sin, or perhaps as a smaller sin not really worthy of God's wrath. Certainly not as bad as, for example, homosexuality. One might start to think that you, like so many other Christians, only pay lip service to your "faith". For example, you wallow in the filth of pornography, because you personally enjoy it. Yet, you are willing to deny homosexuals the rights due to all tax-paying Americans simply because it would infringe upon your rights to pursue your faith. Rather convenient, isn't it?
For the record, what is your personal belief on pornography, Dave? Will you be standing up to be counted amongst those who wish to see it outlawed? Surely you will, as it goes so blatantly against the Christian values that you clutch so fervently to your bosom.
It's odd to me, I admit. You are more than willing to class homosexuals as lower-class citizens because of your religious beliefs, yet you spend a great deal of time sinning, and spreading that sin to your fellow perverts here. Do you know what they say about a man who has strong feelings against homosexuality, and spends a great deal of his time proclaiming loudly about his attraction to the opposite sex? Like you, Dave, I am no psychiatrist. Perhaps we can all come to our own conclusions here.
I'm just curious, Dave. Feel free to ignore my questions if you like. Looking at the evidence, though, one might start to think that your opposition to gay marriage has to do with some deep personal bias, and that you're using the Bible to excuse this resentment. I know that a good porn-loving Christian like you would never do such a thing, though.
Again, I never had any encounter that I'm aware of prior to this with this Mad Hatter person who's deposited himself up my rectal cavity like a proctologist's rubber glove, and I'd be even more blind-sided if Britney hadn't posted a link to all this pretentiousness.
Following Britney's link led me to this:
( from the GRASSY KNOLL message boards... )
( "Bullshit", appropriately, is the name of the topic section where these two topics are posted. )
Given that Mad Hatter has already heavily edited his opening post to the "Daniel..." topic, to attempt to wipe out the inconsistencies and weaseliness that others here have pointed out in the 41 posts (so far) that have beeen made since I was here last (many thanks, Britney, Pariah, Kristogar Velo, DrZSmith, and Franta ).
Mad Hatter's appeal to Danny to post his own weaseliness has been omitted through self-editing of his opening post to the "Daniel..." topic for some unknown reason, over on the GRASSY KNOLL boards.
But the weaseliness is already known here to all of us.
And his formerly absolute statements have been lightened to "appears to be", "apparently", and "often", and other less committed qualifiers for his accusations, in the "Daniel..." topic.
( A topic which, again, would be hidden from my knowledge, if not for Britney's posting a link, which neither of these two cowards had the courage to post here. )
Mad Hatter's comments are yet another example of liberals who can't argue the issue, who instead attack the messenger, to attempt to harass and humiliate them into silence under a flood of false allegations.
A tactic used frequently in this topic by Jim Jackson, Dave, Whomod, Matter Eater Man and others of the gay/liberal persuasion. You guys constantly resort to dismissive labels and smear tactics, rather than discussing on the merits of the issue.
One liberal schmuck has told me to: "Go for the ball, not the man."
Even as he constantly goes for the man (me), and not the ball.
And somehow, in his relentless wrongheaded posturing pretentiousness, never sees the hypocrisy of what he's doing.
Play on, Maestro !
So once again, I'm hit with 500 words of false accusation, put on the defensive for no reason, and will probably be committed to 10,000 words of explanation to clarify what the truth is.
And in your infinite oh-so-superior liberal wisdom, you'll still continue with your insults and false characterizations, no matter how thoroughly I answer and disprove what you've alleged.
Some very rich ironies here.
1) That you try to tell me that I'm a bad Christian, without even being a Christian yourself, while in fact having a contempt for Cristianity, and by all appearances, not having the slightest CLUE what Bible verses I'm allegedly violating.
Oh, Kettle, thou art black.
2) The thesis of what I've argued, since page 2 of this topic is "Marriage" has been an institution for 6000-plus years. Gays can have Civil Union (a marriage equivalent) and have the same rights as married heterosexuals under the law in our democracy.
But they should not attempt to change the definition of marriage, which would violate the clear Biblical views of Judaism and Christianity, and freedom to practice those religions in their Bible-based fundamentalist form.
And would violate similar institutions in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam.
And would also force acceptance of gays onto agnostics and atheists --who don't buy into any fundamentalist religion, but also still don't believe in "gay marriage".
That is what I've been saying since page 2, with crystal clarity. And any gay/liberal/secularist reading this topic who doesn't get my point by now, clearly doesn't want to get my point. The point has been made a hundred different ways.
I could be a Hindu or a secular humanist just arguing the Christian point of view here, and still be making this point, based on what gay marriage entails, and what Bible scripture clearly says about homosexuality(although obviously I am a Christian).
But my argument is valid regardless: "gay marriage" is **not** a concept that's compatible with the Bible, the Bible clearly condemns homosexuality.
I'm not condemning homosexuals as evil. I'm merely pointing out the Bible's stance on the issue (virtually all the verses have been posted here). Pointing out that homosexuality is incompatible with the Judao/Christian concept of marriage, and that of all the world's major religions.
I make it clear that both extramarital hetero-sex and homosexuality are both forms of adultery. I've been equal in my comments throughout, I have not singled out gays, while not similarly defining the Biblical stance on heterosexual adultery, in some partisan double-standard. As you allege falsely.
3) It's a misrepresentation to say I'm attempting to, or even advocating an attempt to, "discriminate" against gays or deny them rights. I've said consistently since page 2 of this topic that I don't oppose gay civil union, which would give gays full rights within a secular framework, without re-writing Judaism and Christianity, and the Bible they are based on.
Civil union would not render public discussion of the Bible verses condemning homosexuality a "hate crime", and thus warp the ability to teach the moral standard the Bible clearly teaches.
Legalizing "gay marriage" would.
And similarly, would make a hate-crime of similar verses and beliefs from the books of faith for other religions.
Or again, would similarly suppress the rights of atheists and agnostics who while not religious, still don't believe in gay marriage, and don't want it legally imposed on them.
4) Neither pornography or masturbation are specifically addressed in the Bible. ( Nor are television, movies, the internet, air travel, antibiotics, guns, atomic weapons, recorded music, music videos, abortion, birth control, or a million other issues, that could all be argued to be protective, enlightening and beneficial to mankind, or decadent, unnatural and destructive.)
And there is VERY diverse opinion on these issues among the Christian community.
Whereas the Bible is extremely specific about the severity of adultery and homosexual behavior.
Your interpretation is your own interpretation, and NOT from the Bible.
The Matthew verse: "he who looks at a woman with desire has already committed adultery in his heart", does not clearly draw the line between desire and adultery. To look at a woman in a dress or a bikini and think she's attractive, is much different than planning to have sex with her, and conspiring a plan to do so.
A frequently voiced analysis of that verse is that only when that desire becomes a plan to seduce her, does it become a sin. (The interpretation footnoted in my NIV study Bible, and other Bible references I've read.)
One Christian book on sexuality I read called masturbation "God's greatest gift", a way to satisfy desire without committing adultery.
But again, the Bible does not clearly say masturbation or pornography are a sin. These are interpretations, and interpretations vary.
By your standard, I can't watch rated R movies, watch TV sitcoms, or look at a pretty girl at a shopping mall or the beach, because any of those things could incite desire.
But your clear lack of knowledge of Biblical scripture, and stated contempt for Christian beliefs, and frequent blasphemous remarks in your posts (yes, I looked at your recent posts at GRASSY KNOLL. After all, you apparently looked at all 869 of my posts here, and I felt obligated to at least look at the most recent 50 of yours, to see who this person was who had to use Danny to attack me, and couldn't even post the links to the GRASSY KNOLL topics, where this pompous liberal exercise in condescension of conservative/Christian views originated. And where since yesterday you've spinelessly edited Danny out of your initial post to the "Daniel..." topic, to hide how you pressed another --Danny-- to do your character assassination for you ).
More directly, what you allege specifically against me:
5) You count my posts to the WOMEN forum, and automatically assume that because I posted there, that all my posts are approval of, viewing of, and endorsement of, pornography.
The title of the section is WOMEN, not PORNOGRAPHY.
WOMEN covers a much wider scope. Even when nude or semi-nude pictures are posted.
Despite your distortion, many of my posts are an appreciation and reverence for women, discussion of their beauty and what I as a man personally find attractive in women in ALL aspects:
physically, in personality, and emotionally, relationship issues, advice to a guy who was having a rough time being in love with a girl who had no regard for him, and my own similar experience with a former love of my own.
I discuss one woman so beautiful, I said that if she was alive in Roman times, there'd be marble statues of her all over Europe now.
On one where someone posted Playboy photos of twins, I said "I've got a hankerin' for some double mint gum".
A terrible thing, that.
I mostly just express absolute awe for women, and their feminine, flirtatious ways, and express enthusiasm for the mystery that is woman.
Which, I think, is vastly different than "Man, I'd like to nail her !'
But whatever, think what you want.
All the images I posted are from free sites that were solicited by e-mail to me. As I said in at least two of the topics I posted to. ( Again, thanks Pariah. You saw it, so obviously some people out there can read and understand. )
I've mostly been pretty selective about what I post. Mostly pin-up girls like you'd see on a magazine cover.
Or at most, like a Playboy centerfold, nothing too explicit. The greek statue lady was the most explicit, and I thought she was so beautiful, I didn't want to omit any photos, regardless of how revealing they were.
There was one "porn" post of mine from May of 2002 that you listed, that I didn't even recall.
I thought I posted to the WOMEN section for the first time in December 2003.
So I checked it out:
Quote: Re: vote for rob's hot girl, week of 5-20-02 topic:
#41653 - Thu May 23 2002 03:59 PM
Quote: Originally posted by THE Franta: Laura Dern!
Oh yeah !
Laura Dern is a major hottie, who somehow gets overlooked.
Despite her being in Jurassic Park, Rambling Rose, Wild At Heart, Blue Velvet, October Sky, Citizen Ruth, and a number of other great lesser-known movies.
It seems to be by her own design that she hasn't become a major star.
Pretty incriminating stuff. Clear evidence of my masturbatory tendencies, my obsession and long hours looking at porn. My clear rejection of all Christian principles and scripture. Terrible, terrible stuff !
I once looked at about 100 of my own previous posts, and that took me several hours. So I guess I really should be flattered that you felt such a need to review my posts (consuming days? weeks ?), and retentively tabulate statistics of them. Even though you did it for the petty reason of lame-ly trying to "gotcha !" me.
But flattering as that is, I find your condescension baseless and pompous, and I feel that you are the intolerant one, who has such a burning need to stereotype myself and other Christians and conservatives, so you can rationalize the oh-so-allegedly-intellectual-superiority of your liberal embracement of homosexuality and gay marriage.
Never questioning your own lack of respect for Christianity, and your intolerance of Christian views, and outright urination on Christian beliefs.
I might be more inclined to join you on your boards, if I had a similar tendency to use the word "fuck" five times per sentence.
Oh yes, so morally and intellectually superior.
Quote: Mad Hatter (again, channeled in a cowardly way through Danny): Now, Dave, I don't want it to seem like I'm picking on you here...
Ohhhh nooooo, of course not ! Gee, where would I get an idea like that?
Clearly, you don't want real answers, you just want to call me names and stick it to me for not being an oh-so-enlightened superior liberal like yourself.
And clearly, you don't even have enough spine to discuss your real intentions.
Whatever.
Your intent is clear enough.
--------------------
"This Man, This Wonder Boy..."
Quote: britneyspearsatemyshorts said: ....of course i can see them still being a little sore about a certain group of non existent people shutting down their last board .....
Pig Iron should be happy, he's finally got some real friends now!
An example of Mad Hatter's pretentious, intolerant, blasphemy-filled urination on the Judao-Christian position (in its full indignant glory, preserved here in case he chooses to soften the evidence in a cowardly fashion later, as he's already done on the Daniel... topic).
Quote: Mad Hatter
Contributor
Member # 4
posted February 16, 2004 12:21 PM
I've heard rumors that one of those "election" things is forthcoming. Seems like we just had one, but I guess we're due again. One can tell when election time is coming up by the amount of time and energy spent on ignoring the daily issues that face us all in favor of demanding to know the truth about forty year-old military records.
There's a certain logic to this, I suppose. If you want to prove that the current president is a horrifying liar, you'd have to go back that far. Years may pass before we can conclusively prove that his entire administration is cemented in bullshit. I mean, the odds are against it, but we could conceivably find a cluster of nuclear weapons buried in the Iraqi sand tomorrow.
One of the issues currently being thrown around actually does affect people in their daily lives. The gays want to marry. Each other. People who share similar genitalia want to legally be man and husband, or woman and wife. As we all know, allowing this will anger fictional old men who live in the sky, and the chances are good that said old men will choose to end the universe with a snap of their fingers to punish us for daring to not care about what pokes whose colon and why. In defense of all those who have expressed a preference for an intact universe, American politicians have taken their stand against gay marriage.
The reasons for this are many and varied. Upon first glance. Upon looking deeper, one finds that there is no legal basis for such a decision, and that it is mostly a method of imposing religious "morals" upon the rest of us, and is basically a thin covering for severe homophobia. Still, let's be sporting and treat each of these arguments for a whole universe to the coverage that they deserve.
The purpose of marriage is to procreate. Gays can't do that, so fuck you.
I must have missed that day in Bible study. I was under the impression that God preferred us not to procreate unless we had done the marriage thing first. Which is fair, as I'm pretty sure that he had even forbidden practice procreating without the marriage having been performed first. I don't recall Adam and Eve (along with Dick Clark, Earth's first inhabitants) having had the benefit of clergy, but I suppose it was understood what with them being the only two people around. This, of course, makes the life of all religious people easier. If you're a Godly fellow who finds himself alone in a room with a lady, immediately lock the door and demand that she fuck you. It's God's law.
Should this be true, then we've been fucking this marriage thing up all along. A ton of heterosexual people cannot procreate. Some crazy bastards even choose not to. Personally, I swore it in front of a thousand people in a ritual blood oath, but that was more of a general consensus than a following of God's law. Logically, we should be denying marriage rights to all those who either cannot or will not pollute the earth with their seed. I'd like to see us get started on that.
Letting the fags marry will make my straight dysfunctional marriage meaningless, so fuck you.
Man, you religious people are strict. I can distinctly remembering you churchies vociferously lobbying against divorce laws and Who Wants To Marry A Millionare. I remember the public pain and misery you people aired to the world upon learning that 70% of all marriages end in divorce, which can be obtained in some states of the Union in under an hour and for thirty bucks and a drink token. I remember the public denouncing of all those who have contributed to the 85% of all marriages that suffer from some sort of adultery. Oh, I know your pain well.
Upon reflection, I don't remember that at all. In fact, I can't recall any of these facts being decried with the passion that gay marriage has been. One might even think that you people are using this as a flimsy excuse to prevent the legal acceptance of shit that your uptight Bible Belt ass ain't comfortable with. A braver man than I might call this theory of yours complete bullshit. A smarter man than I might point out that only two people in the world can render a marriage void and meaningless. An angrier man than I might call you all a bunch of hypocritical, bigoted cunts without the intelligece present in most forms of simple bacteria.
We haven't allowed gays to marry in the past. It's tradition, and you don't screw with tradition, so fuck you.
How very true. Of course, in the past, we didn't let anyone of a differing race marry. Some races couldn't even marry people of their own mochalicious skin tone. We changed that, eventually. In fact, the definition of marriage has consistently changed over the years, depending upon how far we've chosen to remove our head from our rectum. If there's any valid tradition here, it's the one that states that we must all stay in a state of violent ignorance until the people we're trampling on make a huge enough fuss.
This country was founded on Judeo-Christian principles, and that forbids gay marriage, so fuck you.
Not exactly, no. We have a lot of laws, and some of them are consistent with the Judeo-Christian principles bearing the greatest reek of common sense. Thou shalt not kill, thou shall not steal, thou shalt not spread peanut butter onto thine vagina for the purposes of soliciting oral sex from thine housepet, and so on. We took more than a few of our clues from the Bible, yes, but this does not mean that we run the country based strictly upon God's law. There are all manner of people living in the States, and not all of them are the same. There isn't a gay person alive who's trying to tell you that all churches should be forced, by law, to marry every fag that steps up to the altar. See, they know that this would be wrong. They're not actually trying to force their beliefs on you. What they're saying is that the government, the legal body that we elect to run the country for us poorly, has no right to decide that any one group of citizens isn't worthy of the rights that all tax-paying Americans enjoy. Those poor queer bastards are all caught up in that "all men are created equal, no matter how much they love the cock" thing.
No one's forcing a lifestyle on you. And if they are, they're not forcing anything on you that isn't being done on a daily basis by the thousands of non-Christian Americans who get married every damn day. I know what you religious people are saying. "All gays are against the law of God, and I cannot be touched by their gayness without condemning myself to hell". I also know what you're thinking. "Gay people make me uncomfortable, and I'm going to fight it by using the time-honored tradition of using the Bible to justify my hatred of those different from I".
Great. Best of luck with that. Now let me set this straight for you. America is supposed to stand for something. Equality under the law, freedom of thought and belief for everyone, and poor-quality electronics. No matter how fucking holy your reasoning may be, it's pretty damn un-American to tell a group of people that they are second-class citizens, and that although we expect them to contribute to American society in all the ways that we do, we won't be allowing them to share the same privileges. That is, in technical terminology, fucked and wrong. Your life will not change one bit if gays get to marry. Worried that your Christian-owned business will have to provide benefits for gay spouses? Suck it up, Flanders. That's America. I personally have had to deal with all manner of people who offend me with their very presence. I've found that the same rules which allow them to offend me give me the option of offending them right back. The price of freedom is high, my friends. In order to ensure that people tolerate your bigoted backwards ass, people are going to expect you to do the same to them. If you're not willing to do that, then I suggest you start looking up the rent costs in Vatican City.
Worried that the acceptance of homosexuality will lead to the downfall of American society? Fucking hell, people, it was falling down long before this issue came up, and there are a million reasons why that don't involve dick in any way. If it makes you feel any better, the Roman Empire was full of gay hijinks, and lasted five fucking centuries. On a more ironic note, Christianity and politicians did far more to end the empire than the fags did. Heed and take note.
The bottom line is, the gays have it right. They're asking for nothing special. Just simple equality. Your asinine beliefs are forcing people to bypass the law and marry them anyway (look up any news article about what's currently going on in San Francisco. This is either insane bravery or pure political toadying. I haven't decided yet). If God is so against this, then he can send another one of those cleansing floods down here. I'll be happy to volunteer my services as one of the straight people who stay on the Ark to make sure the species survives. When all is said and done, there is no legal reason for this. The very ideals that America was founded upon forbid this. You people have no reason to be against gay marriage save for the religious. It won't affect your taxes. It won't endanger your soul, and it won't send America spiralling down the crapper any faster than it already is. Fact of the matter is, you people do more damage to the mighty US of A than a million married fags could ever do. So fuck you.
Fondling the cock of justice without a license,
The Mad Hatter
Before you bemoan the intolerance of Christians and conservatives, you might try exerting a bit yourself.
I respect that you have a different view than those of us on the other side of the issue. Your hyperbole, condescension, and utter contempt for beliefs you don't share, and absolute refusal to see the argument that civil union offers the same freedoms without stomping on another man's religion, makes me a lot more hostile to your comments than I would otherwise be.
Freedom of speech, yes. But try not to slander and urinate on what you choose not to understand.
...i really get a kick out of how they make inflamatory remarks and edit them out later, they built there little insulated "community" and forgot other people could read it
4) Neither pornography or masturbation are specifically addressed in the Bible. ( Nor are television, movies, the internet, air travel, antibiotics, guns, atomic weapons, recorded music, music videos, abortion, birth control, or a million other issues, that could all be argued to be protective, enlightening and beneficial to mankind, or decadent, unnatural and destructive.) And there is VERY diverse opinion on these issues among the Christian community.
Whereas the Bible is extremely specific about the severity of adultery and homosexual behavior.
Your interpretation is your own interpretation, and NOT from the Bible.
The Matthew verse "he who looks at a woman with desire has already committed adultery in his heart", does not clearly draw the line between desire and adultery. To look at a woman in a dress or a bikini and think she's attractive, is much different than planning to have sex with her, and conspiring a plan to do so. One analysis of that verse is that only when that desire becomes a plan to seduce her, does it become a sin.
One Christian book on sexuality I read called masturbation "God's greatest gift", a way to satisfy desire without committing adultery. But again, the Bible does not clearly say masturbation or pornography are a sin. These are interpretations, and interpretations vary.
By your standard, I can't watch rated R movies, watch TV sitcoms, or look at a pretty girl at a shopping mall or the beach, because any of those things could incite desire.
-------------------- "This Man, This Wonder Boy..."
Well not that I care what you or anybody does for sexual pleasure (as long as it's not harming anyone) but the Bible does make it clear that lust is a sin. To masterbate you must lust (sin). So for people that take the stance that everything in the Bible is 100% true & overlook the obvious because it would mean they would have to control their sexual impulses is hypocrasy.
Rosie O'Donnell married her lesbian lover Kelli Carpenter yesterday in San Francisco - following President George W. Bush's vow to outlaw gay weddings. The American funnywoman was horrified when she discovered the Republican leader planned to file a lawsuit to stop the city's practice of gay marriage and immediately flew there to exchange vows with Carpenter. But the happy couple do not intend to follow the traditional practice of taking a honeymoon - instead they flew straight back to their native New York to attend a parent's day. Rosie says, "We really did, we got married. Some people asked us where we will be going on our honeymoon. With four kids under the age of eight, there will be no honeymoon." Earlier Rosie had hit out at President Bush fuming, "I think the actions of the president are, in my opinion, the most vile and hateful words ever spoken by a sitting president. I am stunned and I'm horrified."
Quote: So despite that they say one thing it really means something else? Where is God more lenient? In Leviticus he's very strict on sperm usage & in some fairly strange ways (by todays standards at least) but I don't see him being more lenient.
Dude, there was no masturbation involved. There was no waste of seed. These were examples of thought and lustful longing. It's the physical violations that matter most. Leviticus went over physical abominations.
I pointed out Leviticus because that was the one place God speaks about sex that I remembered off hand. Are there passages in the Bible that indicate something else concerning masterbation? Internet search brings up stuff like this...
Yes. Masturbation is a sin even if you are not thinking “sexual thoughts” while doing it.
Genesis 38:8-10 records the incident where God slew Onan for purposely spilling his seed, ie. Masturbation. (You will notice that it had nothing to do about whether he was thinking sexual thoughts.)
"Then Judah said to Onan, 'Lie with your brother's wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to produce offspring for your brother.' But Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so whenever he lay with his brother's wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from producing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the LORD's sight; so he put him to death also." (Genesis 38:8-10)
Some theologians try to explain away this passage by saying that it was not Onan's act of purposely spilling his semen that angered God, but rather that it was Onan’s refusal to raise up children for his brother (the levirate marriage law) which offended God to the point that He punished Onan with death. However, though in Judah's day it was the custom of those people to give the widow in marriage to one of the brothers of the deceased husband, God had not yet instituted the levirate marriage law. God does not institute that law until Deut 25:5ff. And even if that law were to be applied in Onan's case, the punishment for refusing to carry out that law was only the removal of the man’s sandal and then spitting in his face--not death (see Deut 25:9). So why did God punish Onan with death? The only other thing Onan did was to purposely spill his seed (waste it). That is the answer. The reason why God punishes Onan with death is because he purposely spilled and wasted his seed in an act that is meant to be open to the possibility of God creating new life through that act.
In addition, masturbating usually, if not always, involves at least imagining sexual encounters with other persons in order to achieve orgasm. This sounds an awful lot like lusting to me. And lusting after imaginary women (or men as the case may be) while masturbating is still lusting - which our Lord condemned. (Mt. 5:28).
MEM, I don't see anything that changes the situation any. I went over the seriousness of wasting seed over the less significant sin of lustful thoughts. I concur that having thoughts about sex is a type of masturbation, but it's still not wasting sperm. It says that it CAN lead to ejaculate loss, but in this case, there was/is none. And really, I've never gotten myself off on thought alone.
See where your wrong in the homosexual/fetish comparison it doesn't take into account love. You and others that do this never get past the sexual act. Being in a 14 plus year monogomous relationship, I can tell you it's not lust but love that has kept the boyfriend & I together. Any straight or gay couple thats been together for any length of time will tell you that. You say "We know" but actually I don't think you do. Now I could have made different choices ranging between celibacy & promiscuity but no matter what, my attraction for the same sex would still be there.
Hey, I never said love couldn't exist there. Love can be extraordinarily deep in any direction you point at. But love is symbolized in many other ways than sex (this goes under straight relationships as well). Sexual pleasure (even tainted pleasure) doesn't have to be the only way to get a point across that you love someone. That was the excuse that the people of NAMBLA and (their female counterpart) Butterfly Kisses used. Just because you see it as A way to love someone, doesn't mean it should be seen as an applicable way.
Example (note: I've already gone over the dangers of homosexual sex and the fetish qualities it hones): What if someone wanted to establish that they loved someone with an equally dangerous method by killing themself--What's worse is if they would get a sort of sexual gratification out of the act.
Anyway, my point is that you can't use that type of justification here. Principle would call for us to allow any type of form of symbolism of love between two people or.......Things (in a noticeably OR subtlely dangerous fashion). Remember that you can't use statistics and majority to help your case either. The whole point of homosexuality is that there is a true individual love, and therefore, it is indeed justified. Meaning, that if (as I exemplified before) someone wanted to kill themselves to say they love someone, it would also be LAWFULLY justified to allow people to do that shite.
4) Neither pornography or masturbation are specifically addressed in the Bible. ( Nor are television, movies, the internet, air travel, antibiotics, guns, atomic weapons, recorded music, music videos, abortion, birth control, or a million other issues, that could all be argued to be protective, enlightening and beneficial to mankind, or decadent, unnatural and destructive.)
And there is VERY diverse opinion on these issues among the Christian community.
Whereas the Bible is extremely specific about the severity of adultery and homosexual behavior.
Your interpretation is your own interpretation, and NOT from the Bible.
The Matthew verse "he who looks at a woman with desire has already committed adultery in his heart", does not clearly draw the line between desire and adultery. To look at a woman in a dress or a bikini and think she's attractive, is much different than planning to have sex with her, and conspiring a plan to do so.
One analysis of that verse is that only when that desire becomes a plan to seduce her, does it become a sin.
One Christian book on sexuality I read called masturbation "God's greatest gift", a way to satisfy desire without committing adultery.
But again, the Bible does not clearly say masturbation or pornography are a sin. These are interpretations, and interpretations vary.
By your standard, I can't watch rated R movies, watch TV sitcoms, or look at a pretty girl at a shopping mall or the beach, because any of those things could incite desire.
Well not that I care what you or anybody does for sexual pleasure (as long as it's not harming anyone) but the Bible does make it clear that lust is a sin. To masterbate you must lust (sin). So for people that take the stance that everything in the Bible is 100% true & overlook the obvious because it would mean they would have to control their sexual impulses is hypocrasy.
I might actually take your accusations
of "hypocrisy" seriously, if I thought you had a clue what you were talking about, and had some actual
familiarity with the Bible and what it says.
I mean geez, first off, you can't even correctly SPELL the word
hypocrisy.
And I'd wager you know even less about the Bible.
I just explained, partly in the section you quoted from me
above (that you clearly didn't thoroughly read), that the
Bible doesn't have any specific discussion of
masturbation. So again, there is no contradiction in what
I've said.
And that's irrelevant anyway, because masturbation and porn
has nothing to do with what I posted.
You assume just because I post to the WOMEN section,
that everything I posted there is porn, or approval of
porn.
As I said, the title is the WOMEN section, not the PORN
section.
It is assumed that just because I posted a few pictures, or
simply commented on a few pictures, that this is some
grand endorsement of all porn.
Like I said, the pictures I posted and commented on are
pretty mild. They're just pin-up girls, almost none of
them exceeding what you'd see at the beach. And I don't
think any of them rise to the level of stroke fodder.
I can honestly say I've never masturbated to internet
porn. I'm still the master of my domain.
Most of the time I just delete this stuff when it's e-
mailed to me, and for a change of pace, I'd seen a lot of
similar stuff in the WOMEN section, and what the heck, I
posted a few pictures.
I posted there regularly for a few weeks, and then got
bored and drifted elsewhere. Like I told Amy off the
boards, you can only say "Woo !" and "This girl is SO
hot !!" so many times.
In the WOMEN section, there are discussions of
relationships, actors and actresses, dating, what men and
women find attractive in the opposite sex, and other
aspects of women.
But mostly discussion of attractive movie and TV stars,
swimsuit models, and other high-profile women, including
the occasional porn star. But that's not all the
WOMEN section is.
It's a lighter, more humor-laden topic section, and was a
welcome break for me from the recently smothering
seriousness and knock-down drag-outs in the DEEP THOUGHTS
section.
The WOMEN forum is not exactly the forum where you make
political posturing on the right or wrongness of
masturbation, porn, and so forth. Pretentious schmucks who
take themselves way too seriously (not naming names )
probably wouldn't enjoy it much over there.
And truth told, I was getting a little bored with it as
well, like I said. because it's more just pictures, and I
began to crave more discussion again.
I posted there regularly for about two or three weeks, did
my best to contribute what I could, and then moved on. I
went there and posted again for the first time in over a
month a few days ago, when someone e-mailed me privately
and asked me to contribute to one of his topics.
On the issue of porn and masturbation, like I said, there
is no specific Biblical stance on it, so I don't have any
real objection to either. My stance may change on that, if
a Christian well versed in the Bible can convince me
otherwise.
I know there's porn addiction out there, but just like
drinking too much wine or eating too many twinkies on a
regular basis, anything abused to an extreme can be bad.
Basically, if porn takes a form that is depraved or
degrading to men and women, I object to it (bondage and
discipline, urination videos, violent porn, etc.)
Or if it becomes an obsessive addiction.
And sex between couples in porn is obviously fornication,
and porn actors and actresses are exchanging money for sex,
which is prostitution, which the Bible obviously condemns.
But centerfolds in magazines like Playboy and Penthouse,
I don't see as wrong (although I'm thinking of 80's-and-
prior Penthouse, I haven't looked through it in a number of
years, and it may be a lot more explicit now than I remember).
Or even female masturbation in pictures or video, which
still doesn't cross the fornication/prostitution line.
Since nude or semi-nude women posing is just images and not
sex or prostitution, and someone can feel desire but
cannot actually pursue the woman in the images, I don't
see that as leading to sin.
Arguably, if a guy looks at porn and loses mastery of his
domain, that satisfies his desire and lessens his
inclination to premarital/extramarital sex.
And stepping away from singles, among married couples, one
partner often desires sex more than the other, and
masturbation is a way to let the one with the stronger
libido get it out of their system. Which could ease
tension that would otherwise exist in the marriage.
And other examples, but you get the point.
So since there's no specific verse dealing with it, I'm
still on the fence regarding how I feel about porn, despite
the arguments of many in the Christian community.
Maybe sometime I'll talk to someone familiar with scripture
who will convince me that pin-up girls are wrong too, but
until then I remain ambivalent to some degree on the
issues of porn and masturbation.
See where your wrong in the homosexual/fetish comparison it doesn't take into account love. You and others that do this never get past the sexual act. Being in a 14 plus year monogomous relationship, I can tell you it's not lust but love that has kept the boyfriend & I together. Any straight or gay couple thats been together for any length of time will tell you that. You say "We know" but actually I don't think you do. Now I could have made different choices ranging between celibacy & promiscuity but no matter what, my attraction for the same sex would still be there.
Hey, I never said love couldn't exist there. Love can be extraordinarily deep in any direction you point at. But love is symbolized in many other ways than sex (this goes under straight relationships as well). Sexual pleasure (even tainted pleasure) doesn't have to be the only way to get a point across that you love someone. That was the excuse that the people of NAMBLA and (their female counterpart) Butterfly Kisses used. Just because you see it as A way to love someone, doesn't mean it should be seen as an applicable way.
Example (note: I've already gone over the dangers of homosexual sex and the fetish qualities it hones): What if someone wanted to establish that they loved someone with an equally dangerous method by killing themself--What's worse is if they would get a sort of sexual gratification out of the act.
Anyway, my point is that you can't use that type of justification here. Principle would call for us to allow any type of form of symbolism of love between two people or.......Things (in a noticeably OR subtlely dangerous fashion). Remember that you can't use statistics and majority to help your case either. The whole point of homosexuality is that there is a true individual love, and therefore, it is indeed justified. Meaning, that if (as I exemplified before) someone wanted to kill themselves to say they love someone, it would also be LAWFULLY justified to allow people to do that shite.
Actually love does set Homosexual & Heterosexual apart from those other things. A fetishes for example, is lust. The object doesn't love you back. Pedophiles are in lust with a child. If they truly loved the child they wouldn't take advantage or harm them. Furthermore the pedophile is interested in the youthful state the child's body & mind are in. Once that is gone the pedophile moves on to another object of desire.
4) Neither pornography or masturbation are specifically addressed in the Bible. ( Nor are television, movies, the Internet, air travel, antibiotics, guns, atomic weapons, recorded music, music videos, abortion, birth control, or a million other issues, that could all be argued to be protective, enlightening and beneficial to mankind, or decadent, unnatural and destructive.) And there is VERY diverse opinion on these issues among the Christian community.
Whereas the Bible is extremely specific about the severity of adultery and homosexual behavior.
Your interpretation is your own interpretation, and NOT from the Bible.
The Matthew verse "he who looks at a woman with desire has already committed adultery in his heart", does not clearly draw the line between desire and adultery. To look at a woman in a dress or a bikini and think she's attractive, is much different from planning to have sex with her, and conspiring a plan to do so. One analysis of that verse is that only when that desire becomes a plan to seduce her, does it become a sin.
One Christian book on sexuality I read called masturbation "God's greatest gift", a way to satisfy desire without committing adultery. But again, the Bible does not clearly say masturbation or pornography are a sin. These are interpretations, and interpretations vary.
By your standard, I can't watch rated R movies, watch TV sitcoms, or look at a pretty girl at a shopping mall or the beach, because any of those things could incite desire.
Well, not that I care what you or anybody does for sexual pleasure (as long as it's not harming anyone) but the Bible does make it clear that lust is a sin. To masturbate you must lust (sin). So for people that take the stance that everything in the Bible is 100% true & overlook the obvious because it would mean they would have to control their sexual impulses is hypocrisy
I might actually take your accusations of "hypocrisy" seriously, if I thought you had a clue what you were talking about, and had some actual familiarity with the Bible and what it says.
I mean geez, first off, you can't even correctly SPELL the word hypocrisy.
And I'd wager you know even less about the Bible.
Well, I did misspell a word, it was something typed quickly & I didn't give it a second look. I guess I'm a bit more forgiving on spelling then you. Actually what I posted wasn't very complex. Quite simple Masturbation=Lust=Sin. You can go ahead & ask somebody knowledgeable at your church but I don't think your going to get a different answer.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
I just explained, partly in the section you quoted from me above (that you clearly didn't thoroughly read), that the Bible doesn't have any specific discussion of masturbation. So again, there is no contradiction in what I've said.
I think you used a Bible quote to dismiss somebody's argument, about Jesus saying he couldn't write every sin down for the world isn't large enough to contain the many books it would take. The Bible may not specifically address masturbation but it quite clearly covers lust. There is absolutely nothing in the Bible endorsing the practice.
Up until very recently the Christian religion certainly had the interpretation that masturbation was wrong. It was even called self abuse.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: I can honestly say I've never masturbated to Internet porn. I'm still the master of my domain.
This sounds like Clinton speak. Just to be clear, your saying you don't masturbate at all? The master of your domain comment implies you have never masturbated. If that is true then your certainly no hypocrite and I'm in awe of your extraordinary will power.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Most of the time I just delete this stuff when it's e- mailed to me, and for a change of pace, I'd seen a lot of similar stuff in the WOMEN section, and what the heck, I posted a few pictures. I posted there regularly for a few weeks, and then got bored and drifted elsewhere. Like I told Amy off the boards, you can only say "Woo !" and "This girl is SO hot !!" so many times.
In the WOMEN section, there are discussions of relationships, actors and actresses, dating, what men and women find attractive in the opposite sex, and other aspects of women. But mostly discussion of attractive movie and TV stars, swimsuit models, and other high-profile women, including the occasional porn star. But that's not all the WOMEN section is.
It's a lighter, more humor-laden topic section, and was a welcome break for me from the recently smothering seriousness and knock-down drag-outs in the DEEP THOUGHTS section. The WOMEN forum is not exactly the forum where you make political posturing on the right or wrongness of masturbation, porn, and so forth. Pretentious schmucks who take themselves way too seriously (not naming names ) probably wouldn't enjoy it much over there.
Well, to be fair, since I'm gay the women forum really isn't a place that holds my interest. Actually agree with you & share pretty much the same sentiment about pretentious schmucks who take themselves way to seriously
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: I know there's porn addiction out there, but just like drinking too much wine or eating too many twinkies on a regular basis, anything abused to an extreme can be bad. Basically, if porn takes a form that is depraved or degrading to men and women, I object to it (bondage and discipline, urination videos, violent porn, etc.)
Or if it becomes an obsessive addiction.
And sex between couples in porn is obviously fornication, and porn actors and actresses are exchanging money for sex, which is prostitution, which the Bible obviously condemns.
But centerfolds in magazines like Playboy and Penthouse, I don't see as wrong (although I'm thinking of 80's-and- prior Penthouse, I haven't looked through it in a number of years, and it may be a lot more explicit now than I remember). Or even female masturbation in pictures or video, which still doesn't cross the fornication/prostitution line.
Since nude or semi-nude women posing is just images and not sex or prostitution, and someone can feel desire but cannot actually pursue the woman in the images, I don't see that as leading to sin. Arguably, if a guy looks at porn and loses mastery of his domain, that satisfies his desire and lessens his inclination to premarital/extramarital sex.
And stepping away from singles, among married couples, one partner often desires sex more than the other, and masturbation is a way to let the one with the stronger libido get it out of their system. Which could ease tension that would otherwise exist in the marriage.
And other examples, but you get the point.
So since there's no specific verse dealing with it, I'm still on the fence regarding how I feel about porn, despite the arguments of many in the Christian community.
Maybe sometime I'll talk to someone familiar with scripture who will convince me that pin-up girls are wrong too, but until then I remain ambivalent to some degree on the issues of porn and masturbation.
What you say is essentially the bright side of masturbation. The single guy masturbating is essentially lusting/sinning to avoid a bigger sin. He can't control his sex urges.
The married couple situation, the person blowing off steam would have to be careful not to "do" to much or fantasies about somebody else. With an aging relationship masturbation could easily become the problem.
Since you don't or never have masturbated I doubt you have to worry about pin up girls. At that point I would certainly just take your word that it's just an admiration of their beauty. Again I was just making the simple observation that you can't masturbate without lust which is a sin, very much talked about in the Bible. While you may not be a hypocrite, many in your camp doubtfully don't control their sexual urges. Any type of data I've seen on masturbation, shows that male masturbation is way up there in the 90 percentile. For those that judge others on homosexual behavior while not controlling themselves are indeed hypocrites.
Matter Eater Man, how many times are you going to come back
and ask the same question, that's already been answered?
It is not "Clinton speak" to say that the Bible does not
specifically address masturbation or pornography, or less-
than-pornographic enticing images of women.
That is an absolute fact.
There is no such verse in the Bible.
The specific point where these images become sinful is not
specifically stated.
And my take is, if masturbation were a sin, or at the
lesser argument here, if looking at scantily clad or
semi-nude images of women were prohibited, the Bible
would specifically SAY these things were sinful.
In ancient times, they could have been jerking off to
suggestive statues of women, or painted pictures.
The Bible would have specifically addressed this, if it
were sinful.
Like I said ( and Pariah also said) the interpretation of
the Matthew verse...
(chapter 5:verses 27-28, "anyone who looks at a woman
lustfully, has already committed adultery with her in his
heart")
...is widely held to mean that if you look at a woman with
the intent and motive to seduce her, THAT is when it
becomes adultery in one's heart.
But simultaneously, yes, many believe that looking at a woman
with the slightest desire violates Jesus' standard in the
Matthew verse.
But the right Biblical course of action is open to interpretation.
While not specifically addressed in the Bible, many Christian churches and individuals hold to a stricter interpretation, and are critical of sexual content in movies, television and advertising, gyrating sexual images in music videos, and other popular culture, which constantly incite desire to sell their product.
That's certainly a valid interpretation, held by many.
Myself included.
I actually think the antics and lyrics of Britney Spears
are a lot more culturally damaging than a centerfold or semi-
nude pictures of a girl, like the ones in the WOMEN
section.
Because a centerfold is clearly a fantasy for men, and not
typical of how a woman stands or poses naturally in real
life, whereas Britney Spears and other celebrities project
an image as if it were reality, and fashionable "normal" behavior.
A role model.
And by presenting itself as real, cultivates a new
reality, that promotes as the new status quo such behaviors as group sex, promiscuity, bisexuality, and other cultural icons
that promote bondage and other degrading behavior as chic,
and a new standard for the mainstream, the cutting edge
of "cool".
Which deliberately promotes the idea that "everybody's doing it",
and peer pressure to do it.
A non-sexual example is the TV series Miami Vice. No one in
Miami dressed like that in the 80's, but a month or two after
the TV series began, everyone in Miami dressed like
Crockett and Tubbs. A clear example of life imitating art.
Before popular culture promoted it, virtually no one
was really doing it. But after popular culture sold the
idea to the public, everybody is doing it.
Pin-ups go back to the time of at least Rita Hayworth. And
probably further back, to the origins of photography in
the late 19th century.
Some obscure semi-nude photos projecting "lust" didn't
change the culture, despite decades of pin-ups.
What's happening through mainstream images and role models
is degrading the standard in our culture.
I mean, when I walk down a street, or around female clients or
co-workers during work, or at the mall, or the beach, or
the movie theatre, or in a restaurant, I see attractive
women and have sexual thoughts at least a hundred times a
day.
Is that in itself sinful?
That's as open to interpretation as sinful, as looking at a
centerfold, according to Matthew 5:27-28.
Again,
With my interpretation of actual scripture, I draw the
line at which "sin" occurs, with images that depict actual
sex, where fornication or prostitution (as I described
above) is actually occurring.
That is what it literally says.
But you got me to thinking...
In the larger picture, reading into the deeper
interpretation, the spirit of the scripture, and not
just the scriptural letter of it, the idea of scripture is
that we are all inherently sinful, and disobey
scripture (i.e., God's standard of behavior for all human
beings) countless ways, in both thought and action, every day.
It is a lesson in humility as Christians, that we are all
saved by grace, and no one has earned superior redemption,
all have fallen short of worthiness of salvation. That
salvation cannot be earned, it is a gift.
Quote: Ephesians 2: verses 1-9 :
Made Alive in Christ
1 As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins,
2 in which you used to live when you followed the ways of
this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the
spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient.
3 All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying
the cravings of our sinful nature[1] and following its
desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature
objects of wrath.
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich
in mercy,
5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in
transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved.
6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him
in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
7 in order that in the coming ages he might show the
incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness
to us in Christ Jesus.
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--
and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--
9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
10 For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus
to do good works, which God prepared in advance
for us to do.
20 Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.
Righteousness Through Faith
21 But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify.
22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference,
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.
25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished--
26 he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.
27 Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith.
In that reading, desire for a woman at the mall or the
beach is equally sinful with looking at semi-nude internet
photos or whacking it to a GLAMOUR magazine (yes,
Seinfeld reference )
It's a lesson in humility, that no one is perfect, that
only God is pure enough to judge, and that all are equally
sinful in the eyes of God, and only through faith in God
and following belief in Jesus as the promised Savior
prophecied in the Old Testament, do we receive purification
through faith in the afterlife.
I know what you want me to say, Matter Eater Man, is that
homosexuality is no more or less a grave offense than
looking at a woman with lust, or masturbating, or looking
at images of semi-naked women online, or fornication or
adultery.
I don't fully understand the difference, but fornication
and adultery are more severe crimes in the Bible( and again,
homosexuality is a form of adultery, as I've said
repeatedly throughout this topic. I'm not singling
out "the homos" for a greater condemnation, I've stated
both, hetero- and homo- adultery are condemned, and that's
what the Bible says about both).
And the Bible does make a distinction of greater severity
for these more serious offenses.
Widespread homosexuality is a sign of end-time prophecy coming to fulfillment.
All people are equally sinful in the eyes of God, but
certain acts are given greater condemnation. I don't
fully understand the details of how that plays out, but
that's what it says.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Actually love does set Homosexual & Heterosexual apart from those other things. A fetishes for example, is lust. The object doesn't love you back. Pedophiles are in lust with a child. If they truly loved the child they wouldn't take advantage or harm them. Furthermore the pedophile is interested in the youthful state the child's body & mind are in. Once that is gone the pedophile moves on to another object of desire.
MEM, the love doesn't have to be returned to establish it's wrong and (to paraphrase) wasn't meant to be. All you need is the physical differences that create the incompatibility in the situation
Even so...
You're making some huge exceptions here. That pedophile you used in your scenario might have a different definition of love. They might think that they wouldn't actually be taking advantage of the child, but expressing affection normally. Here, love can be given by a child to a pedophile and the (very well could be) equally loving pedophile might return that said love by statchitorically(sp) raping him/her. What the topper here is the ever important element of impression. That child might see pedophilia as the norm from there after. Same goes for animals too.
The only real equalizer to all the situations that contain legally/sexually cognizant individuals is age of consent. And this counts for absolutely nothing. Because consent doesn't change the fact, which I explained before, that love is no excuse for physical acts which put the body at a potentially high risk--There are other ways of expressing and signifying love. Very physically friendly ways.
I found this list somewhere. I couldn't stop rolling with laughter after I read it.
It's funny cuz it's true.
Quote: TOP 9 ways you know your a christian.
1. You vigorously deny the existence of thousands of Gods claimed by other religions,but feel outraged when someone denies the exixtence of yours.
2. You feel "dehumanized" when scientists say that people evolved from other life forms, but you have no problem with the Biblical claim that we were created from dirt.
3.You believe that the entire population of this planet with the exeption of those who share your beliefs--though exluding all those in rival sects-will spend eternity in an infinate hell of suffering. And yet you consider your Religion the most "tolerant" and " loving".
4 - You laugh at polytheists, but you have no problem believing in a Triune God.
5 - Your face turns purple when you hear of the "atrocities" attributed to Allah, but you don't even flinch when hearing about how God/Jehovah slaughtered all the babies of Egypt in "Exodus" and ordered the elimination of entire ethnic groups in "Joshua" including women, children, and trees!
6 - You laugh at Hindu beliefs that deify humans, and Greek claims about gods sleeping with women, but you have no problem believing that the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary, who then gave birth to a man-god who got killed, came back to life and then ascended into the sky.
7 - You are willing to spend your life looking for little loopholes in the scientifically established age of Earth (few billion years), but you find nothing wrong with believing dates recorded by Bronze Age tribesmen sitting in their tents and guessing that Earth is a few generations old.
8 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.
9 - You define 0.01% as a "high success rate" when it comes to answered prayers. You consider that to be evidence that prayer works. And you think that the remaining 99.99% FAILURE was simply the will of God.
I didn't mean to imply that everyone at Rob's is a dumbshit. Yes, the place has its share of dumbshits, but the same could be said of any board that size you're likely to find on the net. I wouldn't post there if there weren't some cool people I happily get along with. There just happens to be some dumbshits too. This is no slight against Rob, or the people at his boards that I do like.
Quote: 8 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.
This one's not out of date - some of these southern churches still do this. It's quite scary when visiting!
Whomod, I'm sorry that you're so pissed off at whatever handful of Christians it was that didn't do right by you. But I don't appreciate your sweeping, derogatory overgeneralizations. I haven't done anything to you, and neither have 99 percent of the people you're blasting by making just such a statement.
When it comes to issues of this magnitude, I try to live by a certain time-honored quote that I find quite applicable. "Whereof we do not know, we ought not speak." You'd make a lot more friends if you gave it a shot as well.
Quote: 8 - While modern science, history, geology, biology, and physics have failed to convince you otherwise, some idiot rolling around on the floor speaking in "tongues" may be all the evidence you need to "prove" Christianity.
This one's not out of date - some of these southern churches still do this. It's quite scary when visiting!
Yeah, I've been to Southern Baptist churches that still do that. They're weird, though not really the norm.
Quote: Captain Sammitch said:When it comes to issues of this magnitude, I try to live by a certain time-honored quote that I find quite applicable. "Whereof we do not know, we ought not speak." You'd make a lot more friends if you gave it a shot as well.
Just a suggestion.
If that's the case, DaveTWB wouldn't have anything at all to say about probably anything.
So what criteria do you judge people with? Yes GayLA & Pariah go out of their way to annoy people but G-Man puts together well constructed posts even if you dont agree with what he says! I for one rarely agree with him but I also rarely agree with you or Jim Jackson,so does that make you two "fucktards"?
Animalman has also had some less than sterling arguments that very few people agree with so does that make him a "fucktard"?
No it doesnt,cause everyone is entitled to their opinions,but you are an elitist wanker who actually thinks only your opinion & those that agree with you count!
Now lets take Dave (Typhoid variety),he is one guy who knows that this world takes all kinds to get along. He enjoys both ridiculous posts & well thought out serious posts. Dave is equally at home with guys like GayLA or guys like you & Jim Jackson. Lighten up dude,smell the same coffee Dave has,and stop obsessing over who is & who isnt cool!
Hurm.......I'd like to say that this post was made by either JQ or MEM. But judging from the more passive writing and less condescending tone (not to mention the SN).....I'm gonna say it's Darknight613.
I feel I should clarify something. I didn't mean to imply that everyone at Rob's is a dumbshit. Yes, the place has its share of dumbshits, but the same could be said of any board that size you're likely to find on the net. I wouldn't post there if there weren't some cool people I happily get along with. There just happens to be some dumbshits too. This is no slight against Rob, or the people at his boards that I do like.
Quote: posted by Midknight Contributor
Member # 96 posted March 02, 2004 05:44 AM
Quote: Originally shat out by whomod: 1. Matter Eater Man.
2. (Typhoid) Dave
3. KrazyXXXDJ
4. Animalman
and
5. Jim Jackson.
There. I've listed the only people there who aern't fucktards.And here's the fucktards.
1)Mr.JLA
2)Dave TWB
3)Pariah
4)The G-Man
Everyone else there falls in between the 2 poles. Rob tries to keep it cool so I respect that. Still, I don't think he's all that removed from the latter list though.You're welcome.
So what criteria do you judge people with?
Yes GayLA [ Mister JLA? ] & Pariah go out of their way to annoy people but G-Man puts together well constructed posts even if you dont agree with what he says!
I for one rarely agree with him but I also rarely agree with you or Jim Jackson,so does that make you two "fucktards"?
Animalman has also had some less than sterling arguments that very few people agree with so does that make him a "fucktard"?No it doesnt,cause everyone is entitled to their opinions,but you are an elitist wanker who actually thinks only your opinion & those that agree with you count!
Now lets take Dave (Typhoid variety),he is one guy who knows that this world takes all kinds to get along.
He enjoys both ridiculous posts & well thought out serious posts.
Dave is equally at home with guys like GayLA or guys like you & Jim Jackson.
Lighten up dude,smell the same coffee Dave has,and stop obsessing over who is & who isnt cool!
Quote: Mad Hatter Contributor
Member # 4 , posted March 02, 2004 10:35 AM
.
For the record, people who make less than sterling arguments using Internet shorthand are, in fact, fucktards. People who accuse others of being elitist are often simply those who don't wish to express themselves in whole words and refuse to put any actual logical thought into their stance. And people who come here to carry on grudges from other boards, attacking the people they followed over without contributing anything of actual worth, find themselves without membership pretty damn quickly.
Man, I love this.
It's why I didn't rush to post a response on your GRASSY KNOLL boards. Because you already spinelessly edited out every contradiction you were called on, I figured as much, that as moderator of your forum, you'll edit and delete posts of your opposition as well.
And consistent with that, you'll delete any members or opinions from your smug, pretentious GRASSY KNOLL community that don't fit neatly into your condescending, pretentious liberal worldview.
This is classic liberalism. Scream and posture loudly about the cause of free speech. And then slander, ridicule and shut out any views that contradict your own.
Once again, liberals think that free speech is a right that only they should have.
On the subject of Dave (Typhoid Dave ) without getting into it, I hold a different view than Midknight. On topics such as this Gay Marriage topic, Islamic ignorance, the Iraq war topics, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, he has a great tendency toward bypassing the issue and resorting to labels and namecalling.
Pig Iron is a poster who I think is the model of moderation and conciliatory diplomacy. Even when I disagree with him, he does so respectfully, and I don't feel slandered, misrepresented or insulted by what he says.
Although there are apparently some topics where he's had a
major clash with the Nature Boys, which I haven't seen. But the barbs they exchange indicate a heated conflict
I've missed.
I find myself most frequently agreeing with G-Man. He backs his opinion with documentation and clear argument better than anyone here. His opposition treats them pretty much the way they treat me, and he takes it in stride with remarkable civility.
Mister JLA, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Llance, Kristogar Velo, Pariah and others here I find myself agreeing with almost always.
They post, at turns, playful banter and avoid deep discussion, and in my opinion, by doing so give the rude, insulting, irrational and skewed emotional liberal arguments here the lack of seriousness these liberal arguments deserve.
And at other turns they post articles and interviews that expose the liberal crap arguments for the flawed logic that they are.
But either way, I find myself agreeing with close to 100% of what they post on political issues.
While I disagree frequently with JQ, he seems open to hearing both sides.
I've had clashes with Darknight613 and Animalman, and agree with maybe 10% of what they post. And while Animalman doesn't like to be labelled a liberal, and may not be, his political leanings are certainly to the left of my own. But despite earlier clashes, I at least admire their efforts at civility, as things have gone forward between us.
And Whomod... geez, buddy !
I don't think there's anyone on these or the DC boards who has expressed so much unrestrained anger at conservatives, Republicans, and Bush in particular. Your 10 stereotypes of Christians at the top of this page being just yet another example.
While at times you post articles with real information from mainstream sources, so much of what you post is pure hate, pure venom, pointlessly inflammatory, without any credible information.
And then you have the audacity to call anyone else hateful ?!?
No one else on these boards approaches your hatred and antagonism.
Jim Jackson, far beyond Whomod, all you have to contribute are insults as well. You seem to be a very unhappy person. And you lash out and personalize the debate when addressing me, because it really gets your goat that there are facts that contradict your pro-gay world view.
And unable to prove me wrong, your only alternative is to insult me.
[ ****** POSTSCRIPT, 3/14/2004:
Since I posted this, three more examples have given more documentation of the tactics used on GRASSY KNOLL:
Mad Hatter has given further evidence of his shameless stupidity, first with deceitfully editing posts of other RKMB members who have gone to GRASSY KNOLL, and then quickly after deleting them as members:
So what criteria do you judge people with? Yes GayLA & Pariah go out of their way to annoy people but G-Man puts together well constructed posts even if you dont agree with what he says! I for one rarely agree with him but I also rarely agree with you or Jim Jackson,so does that make you two "fucktards"?
Animalman has also had some less than sterling arguments that very few people agree with so does that make him a "fucktard"?
No it doesnt,cause everyone is entitled to their opinions,but you are an elitist wanker who actually thinks only your opinion & those that agree with you count!
Now lets take Dave (Typhoid variety),he is one guy who knows that this world takes all kinds to get along. He enjoys both ridiculous posts & well thought out serious posts. Dave is equally at home with guys like GayLA or guys like you & Jim Jackson. Lighten up dude,smell the same coffee Dave has,and stop obsessing over who is & who isnt cool!
Hurm.......I'd like to say that this post was made by either JQ or MEM. But judging from the more passive writing and less condescending tone (not to mention the SN).....I'm gonna say it's Darknight613.
Quote: -On her radio show recently, Dr Laura Schlesinger said that, as an observant Orthodox Jew, homosexuality is an abomination according to Leviticus 18:22, and cannot be condoned under any circumstance. The following response is an open letter to Dr. Laura, penned by a University of Va. professor, which was posted on the Internet. It's funny, as well as informative:
Dear Dr. Laura:
Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. ... End of debate.
I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God's Law and how to follow them.
1. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord - Lev.1:9. The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.
4. Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
5. I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2. The passage clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
6. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev. 19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? - Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.
Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.
Your adoring fan,
James M. Kauffman, Ed.D. Professor Emeritus Dept. of Curriculum, Instruction, and Special Education University of Virginia
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Matter Eater Man, how many times are you going to come back and ask the same question, that's already been answered?
It is not "Clinton speak" to say that the Bible does not specifically address masturbation or pornography, or less- than-pornographic enticing images of women.
That was in response to this:
Quote:------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dave the Wonder Boy said: I can honestly say I've never masturbated to Internet porn. I'm still the master of my domain. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ This sounds like Clinton speak. Just to be clear, your saying you don't masturbate at all? The master of your domain comment implies you have never masturbated. If that is true then your certainly no hypocrite and I'm in awe of your extraordinary will power.
You should be a politician A yes or no (or none of your business) would have sufficed but instead you applied what I was asking to something else. I'll just take that as a "none of your business" answer, OK?
I do think I understand what your saying. We all sin, and even if masturbation and looking at women with desire, are sins you will be forgiven. Masturbation is not mentioned in the Bible & Homosexuality (with harsh penalties) is. OK I agree with that. It's apparent that we differ on how we view the Bible. I take a more liberal view obviously when it comes to the Bible. I just don't see the passages pertaining to homosexuality to make sense, reflect modern homosexuality or God for that matter. Even you switch interpretive styles when it comes to...
(chapter 5:verses 27-28, "anyone who looks at a woman lustfully, has already committed adultery with her in his heart")
Instead of taking it literally, you ask what does it mean? Your interpretations works for you. Mine works for me.
I'll end this post with a riddle.
There are two penises. One is gay, the other straight. Both ejaculate due to male stimulation. Which penis just sinned?
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Actually love does set Homosexual & Heterosexual apart from those other things. A fetishes for example, is lust. The object doesn't love you back. Pedophiles are in lust with a child. If they truly loved the child they wouldn't take advantage or harm them. Furthermore the pedophile is interested in the youthful state the child's body & mind are in. Once that is gone the pedophile moves on to another object of desire.
MEM, the love doesn't have to be returned to establish it's wrong and (to paraphrase) wasn't meant to be. All you need is the physical differences that create the incompatibility in the situation
Even so...
You're making some huge exceptions here. That pedophile you used in your scenario might have a different definition of love. They might think that they wouldn't actually be taking advantage of the child, but expressing affection normally. Here, love can be given by a child to a pedophile and the (very well could be) equally loving pedophile might return that said love by statchitorically(sp) raping him/her. What the topper here is the ever important element of impression. That child might see pedophilia as the norm from there after. Same goes for animals too.
The only real equalizer to all the situations that contain legally/sexually cognizant individuals is age of consent. And this counts for absolutely nothing. Because consent doesn't change the fact, which I explained before, that love is no excuse for physical acts which put the body at a potentially high risk--There are other ways of expressing and signifying love. Very physically friendly ways.
Well, I don't buy the homosexuality is dangerous argument. Promiscuity is dangerous but that can apply to anyone. I'm comfortable with my stance.
*shrug* Okay then. I find that promiscuity and homosexuality are both equally dangerous though. The same amount of risque lies within both I find. It's just even worse when you put them together.
I'm not wanting to restart a flame war, which seems to happen every time I chime in, so I've been doing less of it lately. Truly, I am curious - How is homosexuality as dangerous as promiscuity, outside of what the Bible says? Having one man commited to one man is a whole lot different than one married man who cheats on his wife with 2 or 3 women?
Yes, the two combined are dangerous - but equally so with heterosexuality and promiscuity - A.I.D.S affects both - and it's not just AIDS out there.
Promiscuity is a stereotype that follows gays and sometimes, sadly - proves to be true. But that's because civil unions and marriages are new ground. They were never an option before. Legal bindings could possibly slow that, and slow the disease some. That's just speculation. But that's a plus side to the argument no one seems to want to hear.
And what's the big deal about jacking off to internet porn? I've never sat down and jacked off to internet porn either. It's much easier in front the tv.
Schwarzenegger also tells 'Tonight Show' host that he opposes Bush's proposed amendment.
By Joe Mathews, Peter Nicholas and Nancy Vogel, Times Staff Writers
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said on national television Monday night that it would be "fine with me" if state law were changed to permit same-sex marriages.
In an interview with Jay Leno on NBC's "The Tonight Show With Jay Leno," Schwarzenegger also strongly rejected President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. "I think those issues should be left to the state, so I have no use for a constitutional amendment or change in that at all," he said.
The governor reiterated his opposition to the decision by San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, saying city officials should abide by the state law.
But when Leno asked, "Would you have any problem if they changed the law?" the governor replied: "No, I don't have a problem. Let the court decide. Let the people decide."
After noting that voters had approved Proposition 22 in recent years to limit marriage to a man and a woman, Schwarzenegger indicated he was open at least to an initiative to legalize same-sex marriage.
"If the people change their minds and they want to overrule that, that's fine with me."
The author of Proposition 22, Sen. William "Pete" Knight (R-Palmdale) said he was surprised at Schwarzenegger's comments and disappointed by the governor's overall handling of the gay marriage issue.
If Schwarzenegger announced support for gay marriage legislation, it would pass, Knight added.
"If he says he'll sign it," said Knight, "it'll whistle through there."
Former Gov. Gray Davis, who has socialized with Schwarzenegger in recent weeks, made a surprise appearance on Monday's show, and the two exchanged a few quips.
The former movie star said he had been advising Davis about a possible acting career.
"He's helped me a lot with acting, particularly with my pronunciation," Davis said.-
Schwarzenegger's interview with Leno gave the first indication that the governor is not opposed to gay marriage at a moral level, and that if Californians wanted to change the law, he would not be an obstacle.
When asked, Schwarzenegger has spoken in favor of gay rights since his days as a bodybuilder in the 1970s. He has also expressed support for California's existing domestic partnership law. But as governor he had largely sidestepped questions about the fairness of barring same-sex couples from marrying.
His only previous statement, during a recall campaign interview with talk show host Sean Hannity, appeared to be a malapropism: "I think that gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman."
Asked last week if he had voted for Proposition 22 when it was on the ballot in 2000, the governor said: "I'll be honest with you. I can't remember."
In the past two weeks, Schwarzenegger has staked out the position that what is chiefly offensive to him about the marriages in San Francisco is the violation of law.
"He sees this primarily as a matter of the rule of law," his communications director, Rob Stutzman, said in an interview last week.
Asked Monday night about Schwarzenegger's statement on Leno, Stutzman said: "I think the governor's words speak for themselves."
The stance hews closely to the governor's position on most controversial issues. As the self-proclaimed "People's Governor," he has said he wants to follow the wishes of the public as expressed at the ballot box.
But his comments were a notable departure in tone for the governor. Over the past two weeks, Schwarzenegger has suggested that San Francisco's granting of licenses was a threat to "civil order." On Feb. 22, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," he said of the scene in San Francisco, "We see riots and we see protests and we see people clashing. The next thing we know is there are injured or dead people, and we don't want to have that." San Francisco authorities disputed that, saying there have been no riots connected to the issue.
On the same show, he added: "We cannot have, all of a sudden now, mayors go and hand out licenses for various different things. If it is — you know, in San Francisco, it's the license for marriage of same sex. Maybe the next thing is another city that hands out licenses for assault weapons. And someone else hands out licenses for selling drugs."
Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco), who is no relation to Jay Leno, last month introduced a bill to legalize gay marriage in California. Schwarzenegger has not taken a position on the bill.
The assemblyman said he was pleased to hear that the governor opposed a constitutional amendment against gay marriage. But, he said, he saw Schwarzenegger's statements "let the court decide … let the people decide" as contradictory.
"Constitutional issues need to be reviewed and decided by courts and not left to majority opinion polls or cast ballots," said Leno. "Otherwise, few in this country would have any civil rights."
Knight, on the other hand, said he was disappointed in Schwarzenegger's inability to halt the marriages in San Francisco.
"He's not followed up in San Francisco," said Knight. "They're still issuing marriage licenses, they're still breaking the law."
Knight said that if the Legislature passed a bill to legalize gay marriage, he would sue, just as he has sued to try to block a new law sponsored by Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg (D-Los Angeles) that next January will grant more rights and responsibilities to same-sex couples registered as domestic partners.
"Eventually the courts are going to have to take the issue and decide," he said. "Although I don't have much hope in California. The judges so far have not been willing to tackle the issue."
During the "Tonight Show" interview, Jay Leno made an extended speech about what he saw as growing support for gay marriage among the young. "With younger people, it seems to be gathering momentum," Leno said.
"That's good," Schwarzenegger said. "I think it's a good debate. It's a very interesting question, and I think the courts should make those decisions. But I think before that happens, we should obey the law."
Schwarzenegger has been one of the most frequent guests in the history of "The Tonight Show," and has used the venue to make major announcements about his career, including his entry into politics on Aug. 6 of last year.
But the governor did not appear to be attempting to make news on gay marriage. During the same interview, the governor joked he was fighting with his Hollywood agents because they wanted 10% of the state budget. Schwarzenegger seemed more intent on campaigning for two ballot measures to eliminate budget deficits — Propositions 57 and 58 — which appear on today's statewide ballot.
Schwarzenegger initially glared at Jay Leno when he raised the issue of gay marriage, but the ensuing discussion was lighthearted.
After Jay Leno introduced the subject by asking, "This gay marriage thing, what's your position on it, how do you deal with it?"
Schwarzenegger paused pregnantly and asked, "Are you trying to ask me something?"
"No, I'm not trying to ask you something," Leno replied.
"C'mon, admit it," the governor said. "All right, I admit," Leno said. "I'm in love with you."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Associated Press contributed to this story.
By the way, thanks for that Krazzzy xxxdj. I remembered reading that list myself a while back and was actually going to run a search for it before you posted it. And as you can tell, I never give a fuck if I start a flame war. *ahem* "Bring it on".
Funny stuff. amazing how we pick and choose those laws which are pleasing to our sense of bigotry. Much like Herbert Armstrong (Worldwide Church of God) picked and chose which passages of the bible forbade interracial marriage, much like people picked and chose those passages which (in their mind) absolved them from the guilt of slavery and segregation. I always chuckle when explanations are given about Christ doing away with those ancient draconian laws such as not being able to eat shellfish and such. Funny how the " gays are an abomination" one is always retained by the very same people though.
The real issue of gay marriage is not a desire to "change what marriage is," nor is it to gain "free benefits" The benefits that committed gay couples would like, which married couples take for granted, include: making spousal medical decisions; funeral and bereavement leave; permission to make arrangements for burial or cremation; right to inheritance of property; confidential marriage communications; and status as next of kin.
Why people in this country are so callous as to deny dedicated and loving couples these benefits that married straight people enjoy is mystifying. I would like to believe that those who are opposed to gay marriage have never thoughtfully considered their position. If they had, they would realize that the message they are sending is one of hate and intolerance. And then there are those who have carefulkly thought out their positions and don't give a hoot if their message is of hate and intolerance. For they think that hatred and discrimination is what pleases their Lord. For them I have nothing but contempt.
By the way, has Pariah have nothing better to do with his time than to run around to other message boards to see what people are saying about his gang.
Quote: whomod said: You're assuming of course that i'm an atheist.
To quote Grant Morrisson "Don't be such a tight-ass".
What are you exactly? I THINK I once heard you say you were Christian, but that's not true even if you say you are.
Thank you for standing there and telling me what i am and am not.
Yes, I am recognized as a Christian. I'm a lot more accepting of people than some of the more self righteous and judgemental sects though, mainly the pentecostals of which I am more than familiar with.
NEW PALTZ, N.Y. - New Paltz's mayor vowed to go ahead with up to two dozen same-sex weddings this weekend, despite being charged with 19 criminal counts and possibly facing jail time for marrying gay couples.
Meanwhile, a crowd of gay couples was expected to go to the county administration building in Portland, Ore. Wednesday after a county commissioner there said she would begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Also Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Constitution subcommittee is focusing on whether judges are overstepping their bounds and eroding traditional marriage. The panel is using the Massachusetts high court ruling permitting same-sex marriages as an impetus.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said he called Wednesday's hearing to examine the "judicial invalidation of traditional marriage laws." Cornyn supports a constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
Last week, President Bush last week called on Congress to quickly pass an amendment prohibiting gay marriages.
New Paltz Mayor Jason West insisted Wednesday that it was New York's Health Department that was breaking the law by refusing to give marriage licenses to same-sex couples. "Our state constitution requires equal protection for all New Yorkers," he said on NBC's "Today Show."
West, 26, said he was motivated by civil rights and "common decency" to join the vanguard of the growing gay marriage movement, along with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.
West married 25 gay couples on Friday, making this small college village 75 miles north of New York City another flash point in the national debate over gay marriage. More than 3,400 couples have been married in San Francisco; West now has about 1,000 couples on a waiting list.
West was to be in court Wednesday night to answer charges that he married 19 couples knowing they did not have marriage licenses, a violation of the state's domestic relations law. He planned to plead innocent.
"I don't plan to spend time in jail," the Green Party mayor said. "I think that the judge before whom this case will be heard will see that the constitution is clear on this, will see that our laws are clear on this and will see that these marriages are in fact legal."
The movement appears to be gaining steam. In Oregon, Multnomah County Chair Diane Linn directed the county to begin issuing such licenses, after consulting with the county attorney, but without an official vote from the four other county commissioners.
The head of an Oregon gay rights group said a crowd of gay couples would go to the county administration building in Portland on Wednesday for the licenses. A county judge said she was ready to conduct the weddings.
"Many of these couples have been waiting decades, and this is the first time they've been seen as equal under the law," said Roey Thorpe, executive director of Basic Rights Oregon.
In New Paltz, the mayor was charged with a misdemeanor and the punishment could run from a $25 to $500 fine or jail time. Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams said a jail term wasn't being contemplated at this point.
The district attorney, who does not have the legal authority to issue an injunction preventing the ceremonies, held out the possibility that state officials or the town judge could intervene to stop West from carrying out any more weddings.
Williams said the misdemeanor complaint lists 19 charges — instead of 25 for the number of weddings performed — because police at the scene provided eyewitness accounts of only 19 ceremonies. He said he could add counts if West marries more couples.
The state Health Department last week said New York's domestic relations law bars the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples and that New York courts have recognized only marriages between men and women. Critics say that is unconstitutional.
* Picture: New York Paltz Village Mayor Jason West is shown Friday, Feb. 27, 2004, outside the village hall in New Paltz, N.Y., where he married 25 gay couples. According to Ulster County District Attorney Donald Williams, West faces 19 separate counts of solemnizing a marriage with a license, a misdemeanor under the domestic relations law. (AP Photo/Jim McKnight)
Quote: Pariah said: *shrug* Okay then. I find that promiscuity and homosexuality are both equally dangerous though. The same amount of risque lies within both I find. It's just even worse when you put them together.
But, whatever. I see no signs of agreement.
Oh no, not the sad blue face! Have an entirely non-sexual (hug) from me. Like KrazyXXXDJ posted, how is homosexuality dangerous? If you addressed this earlier I didn't see it-sorry. Otherwise I would say we have to agree to disagree.
KrazyXXXDJ, I don't think there is anything wrong with masterbation/porn for the most part. But if somebody is going with a strict interpretation of the Bible it's hard to justify. At least according to quick tour of the Internet where various web pages & study groups tackle the question. One nut even said it was homosexual in nature & would turn you into a (expletive slur) Also liked the Dr. Laura bit. There is another one floating around the comic section here (from Newsarama?) that had her counseling the X-men, very funny.
Poor Whomod, your Christianity has been hijacked! Don't be too upset. You still fall under the traditional definition that we've had forever. These new fangled religions are just stealing the word & redefining it to suit their purposes.
The letter penned to Dr. Laura, while humorous, presents the absurdity of following the Bible in 21st C. America.
What was condoned two millenia ago may not be now, and what was not condone two millenia ago may well be condoned now, based on cultural shifts and the like.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: The letter penned to Dr. Laura, while humorous, presents the absurdity of following the Bible in 21st C. America.
What was condoned two millenia ago may not be now, and what was not condone two millenia ago may well be condoned now, based on cultural shifts and the like.
I understnad where you're coming from, but I think your comment is a bit harsh.
For example, I keep kosher and try hard to observe the Sabbath as closely as I can. The Bible conisders it meritorious to give charit and treat others with respect, even to the extent of encourage us to help other people to get along, and I try and do this. I pray when I can, I observe Jewish holidays, commemorating noteworthy events in the history of my people.
These things give me a sense of being a part of something special, and are a significant part of my Jewish identity. How is this absurd?
By the way, a lot of what the Bible says, including punishments for certain sins, don't apply in modern times because the Jews don't have a Jewish state where a Sanhedrin, a Jewish court, is able to enforce the Jewish law. So many of the laws in the Torah don't in fact apply today.
Also, the oral law of Judaism (the Talmud), which is just as important as the Bible, placed all sorts of restrictions on the death penalty, so even where the Bible says "breaking the Sabbath is punishable by death," only a court can carry out this sentence - no vigilante justice is condoned by Judaism - and it was almost impossible for the courts to execute anybody due to the restrictions. So the laws of the Bible may seem harsh at face value from an outsider's point of view, but that's because most are unaware of the oral law which tempers them, and it's the oral law that tells us exactly how to carry out the commandments of the Bible - which are rather vague.
BTW, I once asked this before - does Christianity or Islam have an oral law like we do? Or is the Bible/Koran the only book they go by?
--On your soap box. You forgot to finish that phrase with “on your soapbox”.
Quote: --and telling me what i am and am not.
Well, You're obviously not taking the trouble to go through what you are or REALLY aren't, so I did the job for you.
To be a Christian, it takes a certain amount of agreeance and belief in the Bible and teachings OF the Bible. Belief and agreeance you aren’t exactly exhibiting. You’re also characterizing it in such a way that suggests you don’t and feel no need to understand it (your taking lightly and insulting comments of the Bible verses). And what’s also required would be to actually practice the religion (go to mass).
Quote: Yes, I am recognized as a Christian.
Recognized by whom?
Quote: I'm a lot more accepting of people than some of the more self righteous and judgemental sects though, mainly the pentecostals of which I am more than familiar with.
So basically, you're just taking what you want from Christianity and leaving the rest behind and then justifying that fact by saying that people interpret God wrong?
You can't do that and keep your credibility Whomod. With religious practices, it's either all or nothing--Not only that, YOUR interpretation and misrepresentation of what the religion (in this case, Christianity) really stands for means nothing. Saying that something's wrong with something that originated from God is one of the biggest fallacies I've ever heard. And it's just plain stupid coming from someone that proclaims himself Christian. You're a typing contradiction Whomod.
Anyway Whomod, if you think that titling yourself as Christian will buy you any more validity then you already hone—ESPECIALLY when you make exceptions with it, then you’re wrong.
Quote: By the way, has Pariah have nothing better to do with his time than to run around to other message boards to see what people are saying about his gang.
This is one of the most juvenile things I've heard you say. But I'll roll along since I don't actually consider myself the sparkling example of maturity.
At least I nor the gang I hang out with obsesses itself with certain posters. "Unhealthy obsession" would be a good way to describe it. It must have taken Hatter many hours to aquire all of Dave's posting dates and origins.
And if I had something better to do with my time, I'd NEVER be posting on the boards.
Quote: Like KrazyXXXDJ posted, how is homosexuality dangerous? If you addressed this earlier I didn't see it-sorry. Otherwise I would say we have to agree to disagree.
Well, before I answer that question. I would like to hear from you first, how it is not. Please, I'd REALLY like to know exactly how it is JUST AS chancy as non-promiscuous straight sex.
WASHINGTON - Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday he supports President Bush's call for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages, though one of his daughters is gay and he has said in the past the issue should be left to the states.
"The president's taken the clear position that he supports a constitutional amendment," Cheney said in an interview with MSNBC. "I support him."
Cheney said during the 2000 campaign, and again last month, that he prefers to see states handle the issue of gay marriage. His openly lesbian daughter, Mary Cheney, is an aide in the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, but the vice president declined to discuss her.
"One of the most unpleasant aspects of this business is the extent of which private lives are intruded upon when these kinds of issues come up," he said. "I really have always considered my private — my daughters' lives private and I think that's the way it ought to remain."
John Aravosis, co-creator of a new Web site that seeks to pressure Mary Cheney into speaking out against a marriage amendment, called the vice president's position hypocritical.
"Now that's rich — the vice president wants to include the details of my private life in the U.S. Constitution yet laments a lack of privacy for his daughter?" Aravosis said. "The vice president can't have it both ways."
Cheney said he will be on Bush's re-election ticket in the fall, as the president himself has said, although there is speculation to the contrary. Cheney, who has had four heart attacks, said his health has been good and he couldn't think of any circumstances that would prompt to decline the role.
"He's asked me to serve again and I'll be happy to do that," Cheney said.
He dismissed talk that he has become a liability to Bush, with Democrats pounding the administration over allegations of profiteering in Iraq by oil services giant Halliburton, which Cheney once headed, and the vice president's frequent but now much-doubted claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
"I think the fact that you become a lightning rod is, it goes with the turn," he said. "I'm not concerned about that."
Cheney's popularity with the public has dropped in recent weeks, according to the National Annenberg Election Survey. In October, 43 percent of the public had a favorable view and 26 percent had an unfavorable view. In the last two weeks of February, people were about evenly split, with 33 percent favorable and 36 percent unfavorable.
The vice president's popularity declined with most groups, with the biggest drop among Republicans. Seventy-four percent of Republicans saw him favorably in October and 58 percent viewed him that way in late February. Six in 10 in late February said Bush should keep Cheney as his running mate, while a quarter said Bush should pick someone else.
The Annenberg survey in late February of 2,700 people has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2 percentage points
In his interview, the vice president also took a shot at the leading Democratic presidential candidate, Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, and his chief rival, Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who have skewered Bush over lagging job growth even as the economy improves.
"If the Democratic policies had been pursued over the last two or three years, the kind of tax increases that both Kerry and Edwards have talked about, we would not have had the kind of job growth that we've had," Cheney said.
Quote: "He (Kerry) spent two decades in Congress; he's built up quite a record. In fact, Sen. Kerry has been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue," [Bush] said.
Here are some quotes by Vice President Dick Cheney from the 2000 vice presidential debate. On gay and lesbian relationships:
Quote: "The fact of the matter is we live in a free society, and freedom means freedom for everybody. We don't get to choose, and shouldn't be able to choose and say, 'You get to live free, but you don't.' "
On gay and lesbian civil unions or marriage:
Quote: "I think the fact of the matter, of course, is that matter is regulated by the states. I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area."
I guess he would now amend his statement to say "unless we need to use it as a wedge issue to help our chances of getting reelected in 2004."
Or in Bush's case, one shouldn't be throwing stones in glass houses.
Quote: Pariah said: Well, before I answer that question. I would like to hear from you first, how it is not. Please, I'd REALLY like to know exactly how it is JUST AS chancy as non-promiscuous straight sex.
? I'm not sure I understand the question there.
Your statement was that homosexuality and promiscuity can be viewed equally as dangerous, if i interpreted it right. I just don't get how an monogamous (homosexual) relationship is just as dangerous as a promiscuous (heterosexual) one.
Non-promiscuous homosexual sex is the same as non-promiscuous heterosexual sex in risk factors, just as anything else that is non-promiscuous - homo or hetero doesn't matter in this case - it's the promiscuity that makes them both equally dangerous - right?
Animalman brings up an excellent point, one that probably causes me most of the confusion concerning the term "Christian".
It was always my belief that God loves you no matter what. Others disagree.
Some people say to be a Christian, you MUST follow the teachings as closely as possible. Others say just by "recognizing" Christ, that makes them Christian.
So what you have is a lot of people basing their faith on their own beliefs. Nothing concrete.
I know a LOT of people who recognize Christ, saying they believe in Christ, and that's about the extent of it. Most people just try to live the best they know how. But not all. Others don't. With others, they'll come down on you on what they feel is wrong and contradictary to the Word. Then it's back to porn, and swearing, and hording possessions, googling boobies, etc. They never go to church. They can't quote scripture. They don't give to charity. They believe they'll go to heaven just by saying they believe in God. Then they're stealing pens from work. A direct violation of the ten commandments. Picking and choosing, weighing sin. But then it's not o.k. for people to be homosexual, and they feel they have the right to tell me so. Like my existence in the eyes of God is less than theirs. That makes no sense to me- seems like that kind of logic is flawed.
DK13, in replying to me, said: "These things give me a sense of being a part of something special, and are a significant part of my Jewish identity. How is this absurd? "
That you keep kosher is a personal choice that affects no one but you.
My point was in the idea that following to the letter, every declaration in the Bible is, nowadays, does not mesh with current acceptabilities.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: DK13, in replying to me, said: "These things give me a sense of being a part of something special, and are a significant part of my Jewish identity. How is this absurd? "
That you keep kosher is a personal choice that affects no one but you.
My point was in the idea that following to the letter, every declaration in the Bible is, nowadays, does not mesh with current acceptabilities.
Jim
Ah, I see. The way your comment was worded, I couldn't tell that's what you meant.
Quote: KrazyXXXDJ said: Animalman brings up an excellent point, one that probably causes me most of the confusion concerning the term "Christian".
It was always my belief that God loves you no matter what. Others disagree.
Some people say to be a Christian, you MUST follow the teachings as closely as possible. Others say just by "recognizing" Christ, that makes them Christian.
So what you have is a lot of people basing their faith on their own beliefs. Nothing concrete.
I know a LOT of people who recognize Christ, saying they believe in Christ, and that's about the extent of it. Most people just try to live the best they know how. But not all. Others don't. With others, they'll come down on you on what they feel is wrong and contradictary to the Word. Then it's back to porn, and swearing, and hording possessions, googling boobies, etc. They never go to church. They can't quote scripture. They don't give to charity. They believe they'll go to heaven just by saying they believe in God. Then they're stealing pens from work. A direct violation of the ten commandments.
Picking and choosing, weighing sin. But then it's not o.k. for people to be homosexual, and they feel they have the right to tell me so. Like my existence in the eyes of God is less than theirs. That makes no sense to me- seems like that kind of logic is flawed.
It is more than a little offensive to have you making all kinds of assumptions that Christians are stealing pens from work and all other kinds of offenses, and assuming that it's just all a rationalization so Christians can hate the Homos.
I've made clear arguments to the contrary since page 2 ( page 2 !! ) and you still choose not to get it. And you never will get it, unless you at some point want to.
If there is one thing that is absolutely indisputable and unchangeable in the Bible, it's the sanctity of marriage. One man and one woman
As I laid out at length in earlier posts, in Revelation especially, Christ is called the Bridegroom, and the collective followers of Jesus (the church) are called The Bride.
Throughout the Bible, the sanctity of marriage is both sacred, and deeply symbolic.
"Gay marriage" urinates contemptuously on that concept.
Homosexuality is condemned throughout the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, as I've quoted here. Chapter and verse.
No one can say I haven't been clear.
Homosexuality is one of the major Biblical crimes. Infidelity and fornication (of which homosexuality is one form, as I've said endlessly) are one of the major symbols of an evil civilization, as depicted in end-time prophecy. Homosexuality's Biblical immorality is NOT an "outdated" concept, it is a standard commanded to be honored till the second coming of Christ.
Sexual immorality, in the forms of fornication, adultery, and homosexuality are all listed as among the most severe indiscretions.
It is obvious to anyone who is open to the truth that eating pork and shellfish, or similar more hygenic customs carry much less severe Biblical weight and penalties, if violated.
Homosexuality is condemned by the Bible.
And based on that, "gay marriage" is as opposite Christianity as night is to day.
As I've said --again, since page 2-- gay civil unions could be permissible, as an alternative standard to "gay marriage".
If gays would be content with that balance of rights between homosexuals and religious freedom.
An alternative that doesn't begin to shut Christianity out of the system, and violate religious freedom by illegalizing Biblical teachings, turning Genesis chapters 18 and 19, and similar verses that teach the clear Biblical standards against homosexuality, and turning those scriptural commands from God into "hate-crimes".
But again, if civil union were the end of it (allowing absolutely equal representation under the law for gays within a secular, non-religious, non-repressive-of-religion framework ) I'd more readily accept it.
But, as every gay activist, attorney and advocate has made clear, this would not be the accepted fair balance of rights between gays and those religiously or personally opposed to homosexuality, it would be a beach-head, from which to push further legislation, to run roughshod over religious freedom, and over the right to publicly read the Bible.
EXAMPLE:
According to Canada's laws (as I saw on the news segment today of the 700 Club) if any radio or TV station reads verses condemning homosexuality on Canadian broadcast airwaves, that would be a "hate-crime" punishable by a fine of up to $250,000.
THAT is where all this is headed in the United States as well. It is a first step, toward erasing the ability to teach what the Bible actually says.
You can believe what you want, but that doesn't change the obvious truth.
In typical liberal fashion, you attempt to shut out the truth, by finding one tiny technicality, one tiny lack of clarity, that the Bible doesn't explicitly address (shellfish, pork, masturbation, porn, antibiotics, whatever) that scholars don't fully agree on, so you can dismiss the other 99% that is clearly stated Biblically and undisputed.
Or that if I personally question a portion of the law on jay-walking, that somehow invalidates my right to say that the law on imprisoning murderers and rapists is correct and just.
In typical liberal fashion, you attack with a narrow argument that glosses over the full picture, to deceitfully misrepresent the full picture, and railroad your agenda with an argument that misrepresents the truth:
The Bible condemns homosexuality and all forms of adultery. From GENESIS to REVELATION, homosexuality is condemned.
And there's no expiration date on that strongest and clearest of commandments.
Which is, once again, your liberal wrongheadedness, that just because there's a question about the law concerning jay-walking, we should let every murderer and rapist out of prison. Ridiculous.
And in further viciousness and distortion, you make stereotypical characterizations of Christians, even as you allege that it is Christians that are the hateful ones.
"Gay Marriage" is just a Trojan Horse for writing Christianity out of legal existence. At least in a form that truly represents the Bible, that is supposed to be its foundation.
I'll have to register. Is there any way you can post the article, please?
Quote: March 3, 2004
STYLE & CULTURE For a generation of Jews, it's kosher to be cool
Call it Hebrew chic -- multiculturalism has sparked a movement bent on celebrating a culture that's newly hip.
By Carol Eisenberg, Newsday
Jason Saft once believed Jewish cool was as incongruous an idea as, well, a Jewish James Bond.
Growing up in Levittown, N.Y., Saft, 26, admits he felt "ashamed and embarrassed about being Jewish." He wanted to be like all the other kids at Division Avenue High School, which is to say, Irish or Italian.
That was before he got in touch with his "kosher fabulosity," as he likes to say, and helped stoke a worldwide pop-cultural movement. A year and a half ago, after brainstorming with friends about cutting-edge Jewish humor for a new theater, Saft printed out their logo, ironed it onto a T-shirt, and went walking around Manhattan with it plastered across his chest.
The message was simple, racy and undeniably proud: "JEWCY," it said.
"I was mobbed," Saft says. "People were coming up to me on the street, Jews and non-Jews, saying 'I have to have that shirt.' "
Suddenly, as Saft discovered, it had become hip to be Hebrew in America. From the website JewLo.com, which proclaims that "Jew and cool are not incompatible, but go together like peanut butter and Kosher-for-Passover chocolate," to the arrival in downtown movie houses of the Hebrew Hammer, the first Jewish action hero in the guise of a Yiddishkeit Shaft, a younger generation is creating new narratives of what it means to be Jewish in America.
And JEWCY has become one of its emblems, capturing the flip attitude of a largely secular group weaned on rap, hip-hop and the new American love affair with multiculturalism.
With no advertising save Web logs and word of mouth, the T-shirt has become the accouterment of choice for a new breed of Jewish hipsters from Manhattan to Los Angeles. They listen to bands like the Hasidic New Wave and Hip Hop Hoodios, delight in the Yiddish-inflected humor of the magazine Heeb: The New Jew Review, and read a new raft of young, transgressive Jewish writers.
"I think it's too soon and too inchoate to call it a movement yet, but I really do believe there is something profound and exciting going on right now with young Jews who are trying to connect with Judaism in thoroughly untraditional and in thoroughly new ways," said Joshua Neuman, 31, publisher and editor of the 2-year-old Heeb.
"These are people who are really comfortable in their identities and so they can be playful about boundaries and make fun of themselves," says Alicia Svigals, a Jewish music pioneer whose work with the Klezmatics starting in the mid-'80s set the stage for the hipsters.
To be sure, there are plenty of young Jewish people who never bought into the caricature of Jews as meek, or had the self-doubt that JEWCY's Saft did, but for whom the revival of all things self-consciously Jewish is still meaningful.
Theirs is a generation, after all, reared largely in the American suburbs without firsthand knowledge of privation or persecution — and for whom hip-hop is often more familiar than Hebrew. They have watched with fascination, and not a little envy, as one ethnic group after another has rediscovered its particularity now that Americans have come to embrace multiculturalism. Many are impatient with their grandparents' preoccupation with Jews as victims or "the chosen people," even as they experience the Holocaust as a Steven Spielberg film.
Many seek "new" connections to Jewish culture in the burgeoning music scene — exploring jazz by John Zorn's Masada and Hasidic New Wave; klezmer by bands like Mikveh, Golem and Pharaoh's Daughter; and even novelty hip-hop by 50 Shekel.
Others pass around books by a new generation of self-consciously Jewish writers.
Some assert newfound ethnic pride by wearing edgy and sometimes explicit slogans such as "Yo Semite" and chortling over Heeb's homage to the big-hipped, big-nosed appeal of "the Jewess."
And a few have dedicated themselves to reclaiming the old slurs with a chutzpah that would surely make their grandparents cringe — turning "hebe," for instance, from ugly epithet into an everyman greeting, spoofing Jewish cabals on InternationalJewishConspiracy.com, and drinking He'brew, "the chosen beer" from the Northern California-based Schmaltz Brewing Co.
"I think this time is going to be seen, in hindsight, as the beginning of a golden age," says Heeb's Neuman. "You could call it post-denominational Judaism. Our staff includes Jews from every denomination … all of whom think of ourselves as trapped, for better and for worse, in the same historical narrative. And we want to have a dynamic, interrogating, nuanced, at times critical and at times irreverent relationship with all things Jewish."
Some acknowledge, though, that that posture might change if resurgent anti-Semitism abroad takes hold in the U.S.
"This is happening at a time when Jews in other parts of the world are facing risks," says Paul Zakrzew'ski, editor of "Lost Tribe: Jewish Fiction From the Edge." "Here in New York, you're surrounded by other Jews and so you have a sense of safety … and you can afford to poke fun at yourself. I probably would feel very differently if I lived in England or Turkey."
Beyond that, some are frankly skeptical that the hipster scene will warrant more than a footnote in Jewish history.
"If there's something that distinguishes this generation from the past, it's that it is much more removed from a substantive Jewish upbringing and substantive Jewish education," says Rabbi Andy Bachman, 40, executive director of New York University's Bronfman Center for Jewish Life.
Bachman says he supports any new opportunities for young Jews to connect with Jewish identity. "But I think people often go way overboard when they speak about how they're going to create their own personal Judaism or how they're going to reshape the tradition. How often does a truly great mind arise? How often is there a Maimonides or a Rashi?"
Many suggest that lurking beneath the flip veneer of the hipster scene is a deep craving for identity that is unlikely to be satisfied with pop culture expressions of Jewishness alone.
Ahandful of relevant bands in the '80s has metamorphosed into hundreds, and the music has become almost mainstream. But the question remains whether it will inspire some to explore questions in their lives from a religious as well as a cultural perspective.
Saft, of JEWCY fame, has returned to synagogue after 13 years, though he is making no long-term commitments.
Quote: Pariah said: Well, before I answer that question. I would like to hear from you first, how it is not. Please, I'd REALLY like to know exactly how it is JUST AS chancy as non-promiscuous straight sex.
? I'm not sure I understand the question there.
Your statement was that homosexuality and promiscuity can be viewed equally as dangerous, if i interpreted it right. I just don't get how an monogamous (homosexual) relationship is just as dangerous as a promiscuous (heterosexual) one.
Non-promiscuous homosexual sex is the same as non-promiscuous heterosexual sex in risk factors, just as anything else that is non-promiscuous - homo or hetero doesn't matter in this case - it's the promiscuity that makes them both equally dangerous - right?
Nonononononono.
The physical differences between the sphincter and the vagina is the biggest factor here. One's WAY more fragile and accident prone than the other. Note that this reasoning is also based on the scenario of having no condoms and the usual uninformed (in the ways and dangers of homosexual intercourse) couples going at it. Another topper is the everpresent fact that anal sex damages no matter how careful you are. Despite what you're definition of damage may be, the fact is that it leaves a lasting unhealthy.....Groove (and worse) so to speak.
Quote: Pariah said: And that devotion requires belief. Belief not based only on faith, but also understanding.
Belief and understanding.....in Christ. Not necessarily the Bible. The two aren't the same thing.
Infact, if I recall correctly, Jesus elaborated on and even revised certain parts of the Bible, including the Ten Commandments, which(according to Mark) he compressed into two simpler and more general ideas:
1.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul
Quote: Pariah said: And that devotion requires belief. Belief not based only on faith, but also understanding.
Belief and understanding.....in Christ. Not necessarily the Bible. The two aren't the same thing.
Infact, if I recall correctly, Jesus elaborated on and even revised certain parts of the Bible, including the Ten Commandments, which(according to Mark) he compressed into two simpler and more general ideas:
1.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul
2.Love your neighbor as yourself
Really? Can you elaborate on where exactly he elaborated? Because I never actually heard that before.
And Animalman, the Bible is Christ's teachings, it's God's teachings, so it would be the equivilant.
Also, those two quotes (which I can't exactly vouch for myself) don't sum up or "acronymize" the Ten Commandments nor do they add on/revise the old testament in any way.
The physical differences between the sphincter and the vagina is the biggest factor here. One's WAY more fragile and accident prone than the other. Note that this reasoning is also based on the scenario of having no condoms and the usual uninformed (in the ways and dangers of homosexual intercourse) couples going at it. Another topper is the everpresent fact that anal sex damages no matter how careful you are. Despite what you're definition of damage may be, the fact is that it leaves a lasting unhealthy.....Groove (and worse) so to speak.
I would suggest checking out a hospital & speaking to some women in the maternity ward before checking out the broken anus wing
Dave, did you even READ this post before you replied to it?
I said:
Quote: Most people just try to live the best they know how. But not all. Others don't.
It's an observation I've made of people who claim to be Christian and aren't, not an assumption about true Christians. I never lumped you in that category, and I never made the assumption that it was to rationalize their feelings on homosexuality. In fact, I also said:
Quote: They never go to church. They can't quote scripture.
...which, I did notice, you have been doing since page 2, and quite well.
You say:
Quote:
And in further viciousness and distortion, you make stereotypical characterizations of Christians, even as you allege that it is Christians that are the hateful ones.
Wrong again. My problem here is with people who claim to practice Christianity and don't/never do/never will, then turn around and point out it's rules onto me as it makes them appear superior to me. And depending on your faith, you should have a problem with this, too. The people I am addressing sit on an agnostic side of the fence - claiming Christianity but not practicing it in any way. Do you see what I'm saying? Saying you are Christian, and doing nothing else, does not make one Christian. In a way, it's similar to using the Lord's name in vain, or lying - don't you agree?
And it is not an untrue observation that there are a TON of more people out there who "claim" to be practicing Christian than there are people that are actually TRUE practicing Christians. These are the people I am talking about that *steal pens from work* fornicate* lie* cheat* never go to church * can't quote scripture* consume massive amounts of alcohol* abuse drugs* whatever. Then admit to others they are Christian so in case there IS a God, they won't catch the full blunt in the afterlife. Sheesh! And this, sadly, is how I see the majority of America. It may or may not be true, but that's how *i* see it from where I'm sitting.
I have four neighbors in my building alone who claim to be Christian, though I have yet to see them get out of bed in a drunken stupor on a Sunday morning to attend church, in the last four years. Is that Christian?
Tattoos and body piercings - isn't your body "a temple" you are not supposed to desecrate? Is that Christian?
Is it Christian to knowingly commit these sins again and again and just "pray them off"? I somehow doubt it.
In my previous post I am merely stating that - if true Christians must live by the Word, then there are a lot of "false" Christians. If that statement were fact, if true Christians MUST live by the Word -then myself, the majority of the people here, and possibly you as well, are included (because if we MUST live by the Word, then God most likely didn't smile on the STFU and BOOBIES graphics in reply to my original post, or the swearing in others, or the constant judging of "liberals" as you call anyone with an opinion that doesn't sit well with your outstanding Christian beliefs). And maybe that doesn't sit well with you, because that lumps us in the SAME category. Picking and choosing our sins to fit our needs. Is that not true?
Weighing sin then, is in turn the case here. While some sins are judged more severe, people tend to pick and choose which sins they will commit and which they won't. Hell, in modern society among teenagers alone, fornication is a rite-of-passage. Seriously, do the people in your neighborhood who have waited for marriage outnumber those who haven't? I seriously doubt it.
Or are you saying it's ok to commit the minor sins, often, as long you avoid the major ones?
On to the other side - if we're NOT weighing sin and it is all judged the same - then I am no more in the wrong than the actor on television that said "God Damn" on the television five minutes ago.
So, in my "liberal wrongheadedness", I will continue to believe that God loves ALL his creations who live the best (good, moral, forgiving, unjudging, FAIR) life they can, equally, despite what a few men wrote about homosexuality-men scorned by an empire. Men trying to take down Rome in writing. It was a different time, and it was unknown. I know just as many true, genuine, GOOD homosexuals as I do true, genuine, GOOD heterosexuals - and until I see an inherent EVIL or reason to be accused AS EVIL, I just won't believe God DOES see them that way. I will continue my belief that the only unforgivable sin is the taking of one's own life.
Quote: Pariah said: Really? Can you elaborate on where exactly he elaborated? Because I never actually heard that before.
He touched on many of the controversial issues surrounding the origin of the Bible and the validity of it, including the story of Adam and Eve, the flood, the prophet Daniel, and Moses' role in writing the Old Testament.
He also talked about what is and is not appropriate for Sabbath activities. Somewhat contradictory(depending on how you interpret it) to what is said in Exodus 31:14, Jesus says in Matthew 12:11-12 that "it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath", using the example of rescuing a sheep that has fallen into a pit. Keep in mind that Leviticus discusses numerous cases of Israelites being severely punished for desecrating the Sabbath, even in doing good deeds(for example, a man is put to death for collecting firewood in the middle of winter).
Quote: And Animalman, the Bible is Christ's teachings, it's God's teachings, so it would be the equivilant.
It's partly Christ's teachings interpreted through man(since, like God, Christ never wrote anything down himself), but it's not the embodiment of one or the other.
Quote: Also, those two quotes (which I can't exactly vouch for myself) don't sum up or "acronymize" the Ten Commandments nor do they add on/revise the old testament in any way.
It's Mark 12:28-31, if that's what you're indirectly asking. Jesus was asked which commandment was the most important, and responded by listing those two.
When you consider that this is holy scripture, to prioritize it is, infact, revisionment. These were supposedly God's words, these commandments. For any man to place one above another in importance would be not only pretentious but blasphemous as well. Jesus was clarifying, he was saying that loving everyone(especially God) is more important than anything else.
Quote: The physical differences between the sphincter and the vagina is the biggest factor here. One's WAY more fragile and accident prone than the other. Note that this reasoning is also based on the scenario of having no condoms and the usual uninformed (in the ways and dangers of homosexual intercourse) couples going at it. Another topper is the everpresent fact that anal sex damages no matter how careful you are. Despite what you're definition of damage may be, the fact is that it leaves a lasting unhealthy.....Groove (and worse) so to speak.
This is one of the more unusual justifications I've heard. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "based on the scenario of having no condoms" or "the usual uniformed couples going at it", sexual ignorance and a lack of condoms is hardly exclusive to gay sex. Heterosexual intercourse also results in damage(the breaking of the hymen), and can leave a lasting "groove". The vagina adjusts to the size of the penis over time, a process that can be long and painful.
Let's not forget that childbirth is naturally one of the most physically damaging experiences imaginable, something that has killed numerous women(and babies), even in today's era of medicine. The muscles tear, hipbones are dislocated....while the end result is certainly positive the means by which it's achieved isn't too pretty.
I feel I should clarify something. I didn't mean to imply that everyone at Rob's is a dumbshit. Yes, the place has its share of dumbshits, but the same could be said of any board that size you're likely to find on the net. I wouldn't post there if there weren't some cool people I happily get along with. There just happens to be some dumbshits too. This is no slight against Rob, or the people at his boards that I do like.
Quote: posted by Midknight Contributor
Member # 96 posted March 02, 2004 05:44 AM
Quote: Originally shat out by whomod: 1. Matter Eater Man.
2. (Typhoid) Dave
3. KrazyXXXDJ
4. Animalman
and
5. Jim Jackson.
There. I've listed the only people there who aern't fucktards.And here's the fucktards.
1)Mr.JLA
2)Dave TWB
3)Pariah
4)The G-Man
Everyone else there falls in between the 2 poles. Rob tries to keep it cool so I respect that. Still, I don't think he's all that removed from the latter list though.You're welcome.
So what criteria do you judge people with?
Yes GayLA [ Mister JLA? ] & Pariah go out of their way to annoy people but G-Man puts together well constructed posts even if you dont agree with what he says!
I for one rarely agree with him but I also rarely agree with you or Jim Jackson,so does that make you two "fucktards"?
Animalman has also had some less than sterling arguments that very few people agree with so does that make him a "fucktard"?No it doesnt,cause everyone is entitled to their opinions,but you are an elitist wanker who actually thinks only your opinion & those that agree with you count!
Now lets take Dave (Typhoid variety),he is one guy who knows that this world takes all kinds to get along.
He enjoys both ridiculous posts & well thought out serious posts.
Dave is equally at home with guys like GayLA or guys like you & Jim Jackson.
Lighten up dude,smell the same coffee Dave has,and stop obsessing over who is & who isnt cool!
Quote: Mad Hatter Contributor
Member # 4 , posted March 02, 2004 10:35 AM
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For the record, people who make less than sterling arguments using Internet shorthand are, in fact, fucktards. People who accuse others of being elitist are often simply those who don't wish to express themselves in whole words and refuse to put any actual logical thought into their stance. And people who come here to carry on grudges from other boards, attacking the people they followed over without contributing anything of actual worth, find themselves without membership pretty damn quickly.
Man, I love this.
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It's why I didn't rush to post a response on your GRASSY KNOLL boards. Because you already spinelessly edited out every contradiction you were called on, I figured as much, that as moderator of your forum, you'll edit and delete posts of your opposition as well.
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And consistent with that, you'll delete any members or opinions from your smug, pretentious GRASSY KNOLL community that don't fit neatly into your condescending, pretentious liberal worldview.
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This is classic liberalism. Scream and posture loudly about the cause of free speech. And then slander, ridicule and shut out any views that contradict your own.
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Once again, liberals think that free speech is a right that only they should have.
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On the subject of Dave (Typhoid Dave ) without getting into it, I hold a different view than Midknight. On topics such as this Gay Marriage topic, Islamic ignorance, the Iraq war topics, and the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, he has a great tendency toward bypassing the issue and resorting to labels and namecalling.
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Pig Iron is a poster who I think is the model of moderation and conciliatory diplomacy. Even when I disagree with him, he does so respectfully, and I don't feel slandered, misrepresented or insulted by what he says.
Although there are apparently some topics where he's had a
major clash with the Nature Boys, which I haven't seen. But the barbs they exchange indicate a heated conflict
I've missed.
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I find myself most frequently agreeing with G-Man. He backs his opinion with documentation and clear argument better than anyone here. His opposition treats him pretty much the way they treat me, and he takes it in stride with remarkable civility.
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Mister JLA, britneyspearsatemyshorts, Llance, Kristogar Velo, DrZ Smith, Pariah and others here I find myself agreeing with almost always.
They post, at turns, playful banter and avoid deep discussion, and in my opinion, by doing so give the rude, insulting, irrational and skewed emotional liberal arguments here the lack of seriousness these liberal arguments deserve.
And at other turns they post articles and interviews that expose the liberal crap arguments for the flawed logic that they are.
But either way, I find myself agreeing with close to 100% of what they post on political issues.
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While I disagree frequently with JQ, he seems open to hearing both sides.
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I've had clashes with Darknight613 and Animalman, and agree with maybe 10% of what they post. And while Animalman doesn't like to be labelled a liberal, and may not be, his political leanings are certainly to the left of my own. But despite earlier clashes, I at least admire their efforts at civility, as things have gone forward between us.
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And Whomod... geez, buddy !
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I don't think there's anyone on these or the DC boards who has expressed so much unrestrained anger at conservatives, Republicans, and Bush in particular. Your 10 stereotypes of Christians at the top of this page being just yet another example.
While at times you post articles with real information from mainstream sources, so much of what you post is pure hate, pure venom, pointlessly inflammatory, without any credible information.
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And then you have the audacity to call anyone else hateful ?!?
No one else on these boards approaches your hatred and antagonism.
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Jim Jackson, far beyond Whomod, all you have to contribute are insults as well. You seem to be a very unhappy person. And you lash out and personalize the debate when addressing me, because it really gets your goat that there are facts that disprove your twisted world view.
And with no facts to back what you're saying, your only alternative is to slander and insult me.
The Mayor of San Francosco has said that this is is the contemporary equivalent of the black civil rights legislation.
I'm with that. Banning gay marriage is another form of aparthied.
It says some people can do somethng, but another class of citizens may not.
Marriage is not just a religious institution. Its a legal institution. It enables inheritence, social security payments, all manner of legal rights. A religious argument is a misleading argument which bypasses the legal impact of such a ban.
The religious arguement also provides a convenient cover to those with truly bigoted beliefs. While I understand that many people actually believe their "God" condems homosexual behavior*, I think the real movers & shakers behind the anti-gay movement are simply using religion as a shield against charges of bigotry (i.e., claiming/pretending to be devout when it serves their purposes).
* These true believers are a lessor problem IMO, because over time and through education they may change their belief on this issue, just as they have on slavery. I don't think they have any ulterior motive, they are just misguided. It's the ones who would harness a poweful force like religion (or nationalism, or patriotism for that matter) that are truly dangerous & scare me. They are people who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals - Yes, Mr. Bush I'm talking about you & your craven ilk.
"These true believers are a lessor problem IMO, because over time and through education they may change their belief on this issue, just as they have on slavery."
Quote: Dave said: The Mayor of San Francosco has said that this is is the contemporary equivalent of the black civil rights legislation.
I'm with that. Banning gay marriage is another form of aparthied.
It says some people can do somethng, but another class of citizens may not.
Marriage is not just a religious institution. Its a legal institution. It enables inheritence, social security payments, all manner of legal rights. A religious argument is a misleading argument which bypasses the legal impact of such a ban.
That is, once again, an ornately crafted mischaracterization.
All the rights you describe would be available through civil union, without imposing restrictions on religious beliefs and freedom.
Again, there is a larger, and deceitfully cloaked agenda, as my example of what is already being enacted to repress religious freedom in Canada makes clear.
If equal legal rights were the true issue, civil union would be satisfactory.
The real goal of gay activists is to shut religion, and specifically Christianity, out of the system, and out of public speech.
The religious arguement also provides a convenient cover to those with truly bigoted beliefs. While I understand that many people actually believe their "God" condems homosexual behavior*, I think the real movers & shakers behind the anti-gay movement are simply using religion as a shield against charges of bigotry (i.e., claiming/pretending to be devout when it serves their purposes).
* These true believers are a lessor problem IMO, because over time and through education they may change their belief on this issue, just as they have on slavery. I don't think they have any ulterior motive, they are just misguided. It's the ones who would harness a poweful force like religion (or nationalism, or patriotism for that matter) that are truly dangerous & scare me. They are people who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals - Yes, Mr. Bush I'm talking about you & your craven ilk.
Cheers!
A new poll shows that a majority of black Americans oppose gay marriage.
The poll results were released by the Pugh Research Center on November 18, 2003, the same day as the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage.
It indicated that 60% of blacks oppose gay weddings.
And further, 51% oppose gay civil unions as well.
Further, many black leaders are furious that the gay rights movement is being compared to the black civil rights movement.
When the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that gays have the Constitutional right to marry, the Massachusetts Supreme Court justices cited landmark repealing of laws that banned inter-racial marriage.
Which, again, made many black leaders furious.
As reported by FOX News, Rev. Talbert Swan II, expressing his distaste for the comparison of gay marriage to the civil rights movement, said :
"Homosexuality is a chosen lifestyle. I could not choose the color of my skin."
Mychael Massie, a conservative black columnist, and member of Project 21, a political alliance of conservative blacks, said in his column for WorldNetDaily:
"It is an outrage to align something as offensive as this with the struggle of a fallen man, a great man, such as Martin Luther King Jr."
"The whole thing runs much deeper and more insidious than 'We just want to get married'.
They want to change the whole social order."
Alvin Williams, President and CEO of Black America's Political Action Committee, said that
"The gay marriage issue looks like an equal rights issue at first glance. But it becomes a special rights issue after closer examination. Because it's about behavior, not ethnicity."
~
So once again, arguments comparing this to civil rights is proven to be manipulative deceitful spin.
The need for liberals to call any dissenters to their view on the issue "ignorant" just shows their own ignorance on display.
It is ignorant for you to feel a need to call others "ignorant". And an attempt to emotionally divert from the true issue.
But regardless, a clear majority of black America disagrees with your posturing comparison.
Quote: Ian McKELLAN (on Real Time w/ Bill Maher): Can I just quote you the third president, because there it is on the Jefferson Memorial, some of the great words ' and I'm sorry I don't know them off by heart, but he says, 'Laws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as manners and opinions change, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.' And that's barbarity.
Quote: Pariah said: And that devotion requires belief. Belief not based only on faith, but also understanding.
Belief and understanding.....in Christ. Not necessarily the Bible. The two aren't the same thing.
Infact, if I recall correctly, Jesus elaborated on and even revised certain parts of the Bible, including the Ten Commandments, which(according to Mark) he compressed into two simpler and more general ideas:
1.Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul
2.Love your neighbor as yourself
Really? Can you elaborate on where exactly he elaborated? Because I never actually heard that before.
And Animalman, the Bible is Christ's teachings, it's God's teachings, so it would be the equivilant.
Also, those two quotes (which I can't exactly vouch for myself) don't sum up or "acronymize" the Ten Commandments nor do they add on/revise the old testament in any way.
The passage Animalman refers to (outside its full context, as is the norm for the pro-gay side of this topic) is from:
Quote: Matthew 22: verses 34-39:
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The Greatest Commandment .
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.
35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
37 Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
But whereas, Animalman implies that Christ declared these as the greatest commandments, to be practiced in exclusion of all the prior commandments, Christ says that they are the foundation of all the commandments to be kept.
Cross-referencing that with what Jesus said earlier:
Quote: Matthew 5: verses 17-20:
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The Fulfillment of the Law .
17 "Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
18 I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
19 Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
20 For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
So clearly Jesus did not intend these two basic principles to be some kind of vague feel-good replacement for the Old Tastament law.
Jesus merely says that the Old Testament law expands from these two basic principles. And that the Old Testament laws are to be maintained.
By faith we are saved.
But obedience of the law is a manifestation of that faith.
As these verses, and the others I quoted on the previous pages collectively make clear.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: The passage Animalman refers to (outside its full context, as is the norm for the pro-gay side of this topic) is from:
Quote: Matthew 22: verses 34-39:
.
The Greatest Commandment .
34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.
35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36 "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?"
37 Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
Your cheapshot aside, thanks for quoting that passage. I didn't want to have to write it all out myself.
Quote: But whereas, Animalman implies that Christ declared these as the greatest commandments, to be practiced in exclusion of all the prior commandments, Christ says that they are the foundation of all the commandments to be kept.
No, I never implied that Christ was saying those two commandments should be practiced in exclusion of the others. I said that he was prioritizing the commandments, declaring that loving your neighbor and your God is the greatest(and most important) thing we, as people, can do. I also said that prioritizing them, was, in a sense, revisionment, but revisionment of the order of the commandments, not of the message of the commandments themselves.
Here's where I touched on that:
"It's Mark 12:28-31, if that's what you're indirectly asking. Jesus was asked which commandment was the most important, and responded by listing those two.
When you consider that this is holy scripture, to prioritize it is, infact, revisionment. These were supposedly God's words, these commandments. For any man to place one above another in importance would be not only pretentious but blasphemous as well. Jesus was clarifying, he was saying that loving everyone(especially God) is more important than anything else."
Additionally, the fact that Jesus says "All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments" would indicate it was a summarization of sorts.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: All the rights you describe would be available through civil union, without imposing restrictions on religious beliefs and freedom.
Actually, Dave, that is an unfortunate misconception.
Here are some of the differences between civil unions and marriage, from a financial standpoint, as detailed in this article:
*Insurance companies often will not sell gay couples life insurance on each other, says Faith Xenos, a certified financial planner and principal of SingerXenos Wealth Management in Coral Gables. That's because insurance companies typically require someone to have an ''insurable interest'' in order to buy the policy on someone else. An insurable interest is usually considered marriage or a business partnership.
*If one partner in a gay relationship loses his or her job, the other partner cannot continue health insurance coverage at their own cost under the federal law known as COBRA. Not so for married couples.
*Unmarried couples don't have the right to take time off from work under the Family and Medical Leave Act, which families use when a spouse or a child becomes ill.
*At many companies and governmental bodies, health insurance or other benefits are offered to domestic partners. But the employee must pay income tax on the value of that benefit. If the couple were married, there would be no tax for the spouse's insurance. Some gay couples instead buy a second policy to avoid the tax cost. Or they make their partner a dependent for tax purposes to get around the IRS.
*If one partner in a gay relationship dies, the other cannot receive Social Security survivor's benefits. Not so for marrieds.
As I said earlier in this thread, the real enemies here are the insurance companies and laws that don't give civil union members the same rights as married couples. Not the gays that are merely seeking equal rights, or the religious affiliates that wish to retain their definition of what marriage is.
I was reasonably drunk when I first posted this so I edited it to clean it up and have it actually make some sense...
There really is no religious arguement. Jesus and/or God would rather you be celibate. He condones sex amongst the married as that's the only way we get children (ie-heterosexual marriage). I guarantee God doesn't want your wife giving you oral sex or you having anal sex with her. Like he doesn't want you to have anal sex with a man you love. Use common sense people. A sin is a sin. The Love God refers to is always the deeper one..love of the heart..not sex. Sex can strengthen the bond of trust and can be allegorical for becomming a union of one- as husband and wife.
On a purely secular note. Gays should be able to tie the knot. If some reverend is willing to say the judeo-christian God sanctions the marriage more power to them..it will be a lie of course. Now if you are speaking of a nameless faceless God of all..why not. That would be the God of all-not pertaining to a particular religion. No monotheistic religion sanction homosexual relation sthat i know of. If you are gay and truly believe the judeo-christian god sanctions your actions and behavior you are wrong..I honestly believe..but of course that is my opinion. I can't speak for God.
God doesn't want us to do anything we enjoy that resembles hedonism.
Homosexuality is sexual behavior..just like being freaky or having multiple partners or whatever. We all have the power to get drunk, be promiscuous, steal, lie..whatever. God doesn't condone any of it. How is the homosexual act or lifestyle any different.
Bottom line is that as long as a homosexual woman or man is practicing their belief system (biological predisposition) with a consenting adult it shouldn't matter and they should be able to get married. They shouldn't force someone to marry them that isn't willing as I'm sure there are thousands willing. It's a feel good world we live in..I live in it and enjoy it as well. And I'm wrong as well...from a judeo-christian viewpoint. That God certainly IMO doesn't sanctify such a union. I think it's more in line with the Clintonism of "what is means"...marriage depends on your definition.
I think as long as we aren't forcing, and imposing ourselves on the free will of others and labeling it as hate and intolerance then what's the problem?
Quote: He also talked about what is and is not appropriate for Sabbath activities. Somewhat contradictory(depending on how you interpret it) to what is said in Exodus 31:14, Jesus says in Matthew 12:11-12 that "it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath", using the example of rescuing a sheep that has fallen into a pit. Keep in mind that Leviticus discusses numerous cases of Israelites being severely punished for desecrating the Sabbath, even in doing good deeds(for example, a man is put to death for collecting firewood in the middle of winter).
This wasn't revision. It was enlightenment. As far as this situation suggests, God had seen that his words were misconstrued, then made a correction. He didn’t re-word the Bible or change its principles.
There was a story in the New Testament somewhere where Christ cracked down on someone for justifying sin by using THEIR interpretation of a commandment. An interpretation that gave him the right to…….It was either murder or steal. The only way this situation differs is that they actually BELIEVED what they were doing was right. This other jerkoff was finding loopholes to serve his own ends. Though, because murder and/or theft are SPECIFICALLY prohibited, there's almost no way they can be generally justified. Anyway, slightly OT.
Quote: It's partly Christ's teachings interpreted through man(since, like God, Christ never wrote anything down himself), but it's not the embodiment of one or the other.
If you can't adopt conceptive argument, then we can't get any further with this line of response. My (and pretty much all of Catholicism's) beliefs are that the Bible is entirely God’s word and that Christ, himself, is God. The apostles wrote it with something beyond divine inspiration.
Quote: It's Mark 12:28-31, if that's what you're indirectly asking. Jesus was asked which commandment was the most important, and responded by listing those two.
When you consider that this is holy scripture, to prioritize it is, infact, revisionment. These were supposedly God's words, these commandments. For any man to place one above another in importance would be not only pretentious but blasphemous as well. Jesus was clarifying, he was saying that loving everyone(especially God) is more important than anything else.
Whoops! I just realized that they do sum them up. My bad. Confused my sentence meanings for a sec.
Animalman, those two quotes don’t actually change anything in the Ten Commandments and they don’t "prioritize" either. If you outline the mutual importance and goals between each of the commandments and the certain sins that are listed under each individual commandment, you’d find that all of them coincide with Christ’s feedback. They’re founding elements to the Ten Commandments.
Another thing Animalman. Because I believe that Christ is God, I wouldn’t find it blasphemous at all if he ever changed the Commandments.
Quote: I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "based on the scenario of having no condoms" or "the usual uniformed couples going at it", sexual ignorance and a lack of condoms is hardly exclusive to gay sex.
I wasn’t making it exclusive to gay sex, I was listing sexual ignorance under both hetero and homosexual acts.
Quote: Heterosexual intercourse also results in damage(the breaking of the hymen), and can leave a lasting "groove". The vagina adjusts to the size of the penis over time, a process that can be long and painful.
Dude. The vagina was designed for stretching and the uterus was as well. The sphincter, however, was not. And does not heal as well as the vulva.
Furthermore, the asshole wasn’t meant to evolve at all. Casual sodomy can get out of hand that way. Also, while the vagina has the hurt put on it a lot. The pain eventually ceases and then the pleasure is a bit more present. With sodomy, you have lasting pain and tenuousness with each sexual session. And like I said before, you DON’T want casual sodomy to mellow out the feelings through having done to your ass what is done to the vagina.
Quote: Let's not forget that childbirth is naturally one of the most physically damaging experiences imaginable, something that has killed numerous women(and babies), even in today's era of medicine. The muscles tear, hipbones are dislocated....while the end result is certainly positive the means by which it's achieved isn't too pretty.
This doesn’t really change anything. It’s devoid the fact that Sodomy is a procedure that has a high risk factor for diseases—And while I, myself do consider pregnancy a disease that the world can’t seem to kick, it’s in no way, validly comparable to Aids or HIV.. That was the whole point of my argument. The greater amount of fragility in the colon than the vagina is the increase in danger of not only physical negative effects but also biological ones.
Also, while we’re on this, there’s a REALLY good reason for going through so much pain Animalman, this isn’t so for sodomy. There’s no pleasure or greater outcome involved for the catcher. It, more often than not, just creates problems.
Somwhere along the lne my message had been lost when you made this response Animalman. But because I got so mixed up, I just decided to roll with it.
No, I never implied that Christ was saying those two commandments should be practiced in exclusion of the others. I said that he was prioritizing the commandments, declaring that loving your neighbor and your God is the greatest(and most important) thing we, as people, can do. I also said that prioritizing them, was, in a sense, revisionment, but revisionment of the order of the commandments, not of the message of the commandments themselves.
One small comment here: I don't buy this at all. I'm not looking for a lasting discussion on this Animalman, but you made things pretty damn clear in their unthoroughness when you used your wording. If your refute was as technical as you make out, I'm confident that you would have explained a bit more in depth in the first place. I mean, you've done it a bunch of times.
NEW YORK - The mayor of the nation's largest city says same-sex couples deserve the same rights in civil unions that straight couples enjoy in marriage, but he will continue to enforce New York state's ban on gay marriage.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's statement, reversing his previous refusal to discuss his position on gay marriage, came the same week that dozens of same-sex couples seeking marriage licenses were turned away by the City Clerk, and that state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer held that gay and lesbian marriages are prohibited by state law.
Bloomberg said in an interview that he goes "back-and-forth" on whether same-sex marriages should be allowed, but believes these couples deserve equality.
"Personally, I've always thought that civil unions should have exactly the same rights as marriage," Bloomberg said during the interview, to be broadcast Sunday on WPIX-TV. "I don't think you should discriminate against anybody."
Quote: Bush warned me that gay people in San Francisco were getting married to each other and that, as a result, my traditional marriage is now threatened. But I just checked with my wife of 25 years and she told me our marriage is still doing just fine. Is it possible my president is misinformed? Misguided? Mistaken?
Art Verity
An unjustified war, 3 million jobs lost, families allowed to go homeless and hungry and uninsured, the environment sold to the highest bidder, corporate raids on pensions unpunished, Social Security cuts threatened, education for the poor slashed to the bone — these are immoral acts. Two men or two women holding hands and promising to take care of each other — that's the most moral thing in the news these days.
Kate Carnell Watt
So Bush wants to ban gay marriage. I thought the purpose of law and government was to protect people's rights and freedoms, not to diminish them.
Frank L. Atkin
The tide is growing and pretty soon, those arguing for the universal acceptance of their biases on religious grounds will soon be an abberation. A curiousity that is hard to beleive was ever condoned. Like "colored only" drinking fountains.
Dude. The vagina was designed for stretching and the uterus was as well. The sphincter, however, was not. And does not heal as well as the vulva.
Furthermore, the asshole wasn’t meant to evolve at all. Casual sodomy can get out of hand that way. Also, while the vagina has the hurt put on it a lot. The pain eventually ceases and then the pleasure is a bit more present. With sodomy, you have lasting pain and tenuousness with each sexual session. And like I said before, you DON’T want casual sodomy to mellow out the feelings through having done to your ass what is done to the vagina.
Quote: Let's not forget that childbirth is naturally one of the most physically damaging experiences imaginable, something that has killed numerous women(and babies), even in today's era of medicine. The muscles tear, hipbones are dislocated....while the end result is certainly positive the means by which it's achieved isn't too pretty.
This doesn’t really change anything. It’s devoid the fact that Sodomy is a procedure that has a high risk factor for diseases—And while I, myself do consider pregnancy a disease that the world can’t seem to kick, it’s in no way, validly comparable to Aids or HIV.. That was the whole point of my argument. The greater amount of fragility in the colon than the vagina is the increase in danger of not only physical negative effects but also biological ones.
Also, while we’re on this, there’s a REALLY good reason for going through so much pain Animalman, this isn’t so for sodomy. There’s no pleasure or greater outcome involved for the catcher. It, more often than not, just creates problems.
Somwhere along the lne my message had been lost when you made this response Animalman. But because I got so mixed up, I just decided to roll with it.
Here's a site that essentially tells you to use lube, condom & common sense & you'll be fine. http://www.sexhealth.org/bettersex/anal.shtml I also got to add, I personally have never heard or read of anyone being hurt physically because of anal sex & following the rules, except for rape cases. If health was really an issue, there are many things that will shorten your lifespan. Being overweight, smoking and lack of exercise just some of them. Essentially a gay bottom is probably in much better health than say Jerry Falwell & all his blubber.
Quote: Dave said: The Mayor of San Francosco has said that this is is the contemporary equivalent of the black civil rights legislation.
I'm with that. Banning gay marriage is another form of aparthied.
It says some people can do somethng, but another class of citizens may not.
Marriage is not just a religious institution. Its a legal institution. It enables inheritence, social security payments, all manner of legal rights. A religious argument is a misleading argument which bypasses the legal impact of such a ban.
Good point & one that is ironically proven on this thread as opponents argue a separate but equal case with Civil Unions. As pointed out these are not equal. Historically, separate but equal has never resulted in equal.
I'm basing this entire argument on the relatively large dangers and usual unsafe sex practiced by people. I know they're are things that help the....Unhelpful process itself, but my point is that they aren't being used often by majorities I'm reading up on in my area. I mean, I'm not sure how much of problem there is where you are, but I see reports of public (unprotected) sodomy a lot--It's actually one of the bigger problems. A bigger but less intense problem being GTA.
Quote: I also got to add, I personally have never heard or read of anyone being hurt physically because of anal sex & following the rules, except for rape cases.
Certainly not what I've heard--Not even from the (promiscuous) gay person I used to meet every day at Cisco. People definitely get hurt from it. I don't think there's any question about that. And even so, people CAN get hurt from it very easily and the fact that it's something that people would essentially and routinely get hurt by it makes that rather irrelevent
Quote: If health was really an issue, there are many things that will shorten your lifespan. Being overweight, smoking and lack of exercise just some of them. Essentially a gay bottom is probably in much better health than say Jerry Falwell & all his blubber.
Yes, these can shorten your life-span, but they're not the issue. The fact that another action that causes health problems is (in SOME cases) bigger in the problem department than sodomy doesn't justify taking our eyes away from the subject. Sodomy is a near and clear danger. It's not subtle like smoking, a person not excercizing, eating too much, and the like. It's a blatant mis-use and dangerous way to use the body--Any way you slice it.
Quote: Pariah said: This wasn't revision. It was enlightenment. As far as this situation suggests, God had seen that his words were misconstrued, then made a correction. He didn’t re-word the Bible or change its principles.
Wait, what? You say it's not revisionment, but then you say God "made a correction". If the situation changes, then so does the interpretation of that situation.
Quote: If you can't adopt conceptive argument, then we can't get any further with this line of response. My (and pretty much all of Catholicism's) beliefs are that the Bible is entirely God’s word and that Christ, himself, is God. The apostles wrote it with something beyond divine inspiration.
Eh, I think you're a little off here, Pariah. Fundamentalist Christians believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God, yes, but it's far from a universally Catholic belief.
I, myself, am not religious, but I've attended Catholic schools my entire life, and studied them just as long. I'm currently studying it as part of my philosophy minor. While I wouldn't call myself an "expert", I've been around Catholics/Christians long enough to have a fairly good idea of their religious ideologies.
Quote: Animalman, those two quotes don’t actually change anything in the Ten Commandments and they don’t "prioritize" either. If you outline the mutual importance and goals between each of the commandments and the certain sins that are listed under each individual commandment
....and how would you "outline the mutual importance and goals between each of the commandments and the certain sins that are listed under each individual commandment"?
Quote: Another thing Animalman. Because I believe that Christ is God, I wouldn’t find it blasphemous at all if he ever changed the Commandments.
You misread, I said "for any man to place one above another in importance would be not only pretentious but blasphemous as well". Jesus, according to Christian belief, is all man, but also all God, so it doesn't apply to him.
Quote: I wasn’t making it exclusive to gay sex, I was listing sexual ignorance under both hetero and homosexual acts.
Ah, ok. That was a little unclear to me from your post.
Quote: Dude. The vagina was designed for stretching and the uterus was as well. The sphincter, however, was not. And does not heal as well as the vulva.
Sure, but damage is still done.
Quote: Furthermore, the asshole wasn’t meant to evolve at all.
This is way off topic, but I'd love to hear how exactly you can prove what is and what isn't meant to evolve. The Bible says that gay sex is wrong, but it doesn't say that it's wrong because anal sex tears the rectal issue. The argument most commonly constructed by theologians(though not directly evidenced by scripture), is that gay sex is wrong because procreation cannot be achieved through it.
Quote: With sodomy, you have lasting pain and tenuousness with each sexual session.
No, not necessarily. Some enjoy it, and don't find it to be an eternally painful experience. I've even met a few girls that love anal sex.
Quote: This doesn’t really change anything. It’s devoid the fact that Sodomy is a procedure that has a high risk factor for diseases—And while I, myself do consider pregnancy a disease that the world can’t seem to kick, it’s in no way, validly comparable to Aids or HIV.. That was the whole point of my argument. The greater amount of fragility in the colon than the vagina is the increase in danger of not only physical negative effects but also biological ones.
Gay sexual promiscuity has a high risk factor for diseases(as does heterosexual promiscuity), but if the two gay individuals are monogamous, and are tested, there is no risk.
Quote: Also, while we’re on this, there’s a REALLY good reason for going through so much pain Animalman, this isn’t so for sodomy. There’s no pleasure or greater outcome involved for the catcher. It, more often than not, just creates problems.
A statement of love? Consummation of a deeply intimate relationship? I'd imagine most gay couples would call that a positive outcome.
Besides, your original statement was that "the physical differences between the sphincter and the vagina is the biggest factor here." You make no mention of the positive outcomes of intercourse, or of the purpose of the activity.
Quote: Somwhere along the lne my message had been lost when you made this response Animalman. But because I got so mixed up, I just decided to roll with it.
Not lost, changed.
Quote: One small comment here: I don't buy this at all. I'm not looking for a lasting discussion on this Animalman, but you made things pretty damn clear in their unthoroughness when you used your wording. If your refute was as technical as you make out, I'm confident that you would have explained a bit more in depth in the first place. I mean, you've done it a bunch of times.
I did explain it. I explained it quite clearly. I use the word "prioritizing" several times in my explanation. If you interpret that as suggesting one should be practiced in exclusion of the others, then I'm afraid the fault is yours, not mine.
Perhaps you read what you wanted to read into what I said, simply because I have the audacity to disagree with you.
I do feel that those other things are important in this discussion. It shows that bad choices or behavior that actually are proven to shorten the life span are not outlawed. This would be comparable to the crack addict saying you shouldn't have that second cheeseburger. I think you need to show some type of study that shows protected anal sex is more dangerous than say being a couple pounds overweight. And if we're going to argue that those issues don't belong in this debate I could point out the same thing with the whole anal sex issue belonging in the gay marriage debate. It doesn't apply to lesbians, and it certainly doesn't to all gay males. Many just stick to oral sex and stuff. So we have some unquantifiable number of those actually doing "it" and some slutty gay you talked too, who felt damaged by it.
And I think it comes down to your not gay, any type of gay male sex probably repulses you and that in turn feeds a bias IMHO
Heh... Anyway, my intention was simply to say that my belief is that any sexual behaviour that deviates from straight hetero procreation for babies, or any sexual practice that involves no possibility of creating a child is probably not biblically sanctioned. Hence-condoms, the pill, withdrawal, etc are certainly frowned upon. But as I said that is from a judeo-christian viewpoint-certainly not a secular one.
And that is not to say that 99% of Christians (atleast in the western world) don't participate in all or some of the above I just mentioned.
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."
I believe you can't take the moral highground when you're still waddling in the mud. I do believe the intent of the Bible's message of proper sexual behaviour is fairly clear though. No shenanigans...
And therefore my ultimate point is that while gays/lesbians should be able to marry and be recognized. I think in no way shape or form should a reverend be forced to marry a couple he/she doesn't want to. Nor should that be considered hate or intolerance. There are pastors or reverands in branches of the church that would sanction such a union and there are justices of the peace.
Again, this is where the definition of marriage comes into play. Is it a religious ceremony/institution or just a union of 2 people?
Quote: Dave said: The Mayor of San Francosco has said that this is is the contemporary equivalent of the black civil rights legislation.
I'm with that. Banning gay marriage is another form of aparthied.
It says some people can do somethng, but another class of citizens may not.
Marriage is not just a religious institution. Its a legal institution. It enables inheritence, social security payments, all manner of legal rights. A religious argument is a misleading argument which bypasses the legal impact of such a ban.
That is, once again, an ornately crafted mischaracterization.
All the rights you describe would be available through civil union, without imposing restrictions on religious beliefs and freedom. Again, there is a larger, and deceitfully cloaked agenda, as my example of what is already being enacted to repress religious freedom in Canada. If equal legal rights were the true issue, civil union would be satisfactory. The real goal of gay activists is to shut religion, and specifically Christianity, out of the the system, and out of public speech.
Funny, I thought you'd raise civil unions.
Setting aside Animalman's comments about the lack of legal equality between marriage and civil union, it also creates a caste or aparthied system.
Straights get the full measure. Gays get the other version.
The stat that many blacks don't support gay marriages means nothing. Since when does equality depend upon a measure of opinion by a particular class of people?
I've read nothing here against gay marriage so far which isn't apologism for discrimination. At least the Klan wore white hoods so we could spot them more easily.
Quote: Dave said: The Mayor of San Francosco has said that this is is the contemporary equivalent of the black civil rights legislation.
I'm with that. Banning gay marriage is another form of aparthied.
It says some people can do somethng, but another class of citizens may not.
Marriage is not just a religious institution. Its a legal institution. It enables inheritence, social security payments, all manner of legal rights. A religious argument is a misleading argument which bypasses the legal impact of such a ban.
That is, once again, an ornately crafted mischaracterization.
All the rights you describe would be available through civil union, without imposing restrictions on religious beliefs and freedom.
Again, there is a larger, and deceitfully cloaked agenda, as my example of what is already being enacted to repress religious freedom in Canada. If equal legal rights were the true issue, civil union would be satisfactory.
The real goal of gay activists is to shut religion, and specifically Christianity, out of the the system, and out of public speech.
Funny, I thought you'd raise civil unions.
Setting aside Animalman's comments about the lack of legal equality between marriage and civil union, it also creates a caste or aparthied system.
Straights get the full measure. Gays get the other version.
The stat that many blacks don't support gay marriages means nothing. Since when does equality depend upon a measure of opinion by a particular class of people?
I've read nothing here against gay marriage so far which isn't apologism for discrimination. At least the Klan wore white hoods so we could spot them more easily.
Your emotionally charged stereotypes of anyone who opposes gay marriage is just so much posturing pretentious drivel, Dave.
I don't believe what Animalman posted above. That is a distortion by advocates of gay marriage, I'm sure.
I fail to see how civil unions as an alternative creates "an apartheid".
Since gays retain all the rights to insurance, health benefits, spousal estates, etc., under proposed civil unions.
As I've said endlessly, if gays really need or deserve these rights, civil unions gives them those rights to benefits, without urinating on religious freedom, and outlawing the ability of Christians and other groups to teach the real moral standard their Bible teaches. Instead of a politically correct gayed-down repression of the truth.
That is my major distaste with gay rights.
And I notice in your arguments, that you ignore and don't give a flying crap about lost religious freedom in Canada that I've described above. Which is a precursor for what is planned for the United States.
True freedom allows Christians to practice their religion in the scriptural form God gave it to them (and I've posted earlier several times about the historical evidence for scripture being accurately preserved for 2000 years, with at least 60,000 handwritten manuscripts in existence from within 100 years of Christ's death and resurrection.)
True freedom doesn't proclaim "freedom" for gays, while taking freedom of religion from the 33% of the U.S. population who attend church weekly, and the larger 80% of the U.S. population who mostly don't attend church but still describe themselves when polled as "Christian".
And Jewish. And Muslim. And Hindu. And Buddhist. Or agnostic, who just don't approve of the gay lifestyle, and don't want their goverment to force it on them.
If civil unions didn't offer this alternative in the first place (equal rights, but within a secular framework, that doesn't outlaw religious teachings that homosexuality is immoral, or change the definition of marriage out from under Christians and others), then why would liberals suggest it at all? It's not like civil unions are the idea of conservatives. Howard Dean's state (New Hampshire) already has civil union as its legal standard.
In any case, I fail to see the need for rude stereotypes of any dissenters of your oh-so-superior-and-enlightened views on the subject of gay rights.
As a wise man said on the DC boards: You have an opinion. I have and opinion. Let's learn to deal with it.
And as I've said elsewhere:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
Quote: Originally posted by Dave:
I read "tradition and policy" as "homophobia".
I read "homophobia" as daring to voice an intelligent opinion that bucks the opinion of the gay/liberal community, and being falsely labelled a "hater" of some kind, to undermine dismissively the logic and intelligence of those views.
1: When he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.
2: And Saul took him that day, and would not let him return to his father's house.
3: Then Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul.
4: And Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his armor, and even his sword and his bow and his girdle.
5: And David went out and was successful wherever Saul sent him; so that Saul set him over the men of war. And he was accepted in the sight of all the people and also in the sight of Saul's servants.
The Samuel verses were already covered, on page 17 of this topic:
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Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: .
Your reading of these verses from 1 Samuel , Matter Eater Man, are, again, false and misrepresentative.
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Saul was then king of Israel. Jonathan his son.
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David is a shepherd, and Jesse is David's father.
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Jonathan had a close friendship with David, DEFINITELY not to be confused with a homosexual relationship, as you imply.
What possible scholarly justification do you have for such a skewed interpretation?
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Jonathan's giving of his tunic and personal items to David, and particularly his weapons, including his sword, indicates submission and loyalty to David's authority, and symbolically (as well as literally) indicates that he recognizes David's authority over King Saul's, and points to David as the future king of Israel.
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Jonathan has made this manifestation of loyalty, despite the fact that it undermines Jonathan's own accession to the throne of Jonathan's father, King Saul.
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Saul is outraged and jealous, because Jonathan has chosen David over Saul as the rightful authority, even at the loss of Jonathan's own accession to the throne. Saul was interested in his own personal ambition, not serving God, and in contrast, David's courage and selflessness earned Jonathan's loyalty, even over his own legagy to be king, and even over Jonathan's loyalty to his own father, King Saul.
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A kiss between men in ancient times, and even in many parts of the world today (on the cheek usually) is often a sign of friendship and not sexual in nature.
When Judas betrayed Jesus to the Romans, he did so with a kiss as the signal, and when the Romans saw the kiss, it identified which was Jesus, so the Romans could swarm in and arrest him. It certainly didn't indicate that Jesus and Judas had a homosexual relationship, any more than David and Jonathan were homosexuals.
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You also --to the misrepresentative advantage of your flawed argument-- omit sections within the same paragraph of 1 Samuel that discuss David's courtship and marriage to one of Saul's daughters (verses 20-27)
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Here are ALL the verses, together in their full context:
http://bible.gospelcom.net/bible?passage=1SAM+18&language=english&version=NIV .
Verses 12-16 make clear the reason for Saul's jealousy is clearly NOT a belief that his son is a homosexual. It is because David is popular and favored and revered, by all of Israel, by God, and by Saul's own son Jonathan.
Quote: Samuel 18, verses 12-16:
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12 Saul was afraid of David, because the LORD was with David but had left Saul.
13 So he sent David away from him and gave him command over a thousand men, and David led the troops in their campaigns.
14 In everything he did he had great success, because the LORD was with him.
15 When Saul saw how successful he was, he was afraid of him.
16 But all Israel and Judah loved David, because he led them in their campaigns.
Once again, your reading of this as homosexual in nature goes against scripture throughout the Bible, that CONSISTENTLY makes clear the Bible's (and God the Father's, and Jesus') condemnation of homosexuality, in both the Old and New Testaments.
Animalman, your questions are annoyingly inane and nitpicky, and the answers to your questions are obvious. Or at least they should be after 37 pages.
Quote: Animalman said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: I don't believe what Animalman posted above. That is a distortion by advocates of gay marriage, I'm sure.
What part of it don't you believe?
These are real laws and policies that give a clear advantage to married couples, not civil union couples.
I don't believe any of it. It's a hyperbolic distortion to say gays have no rights.
If they don't have "spousal" death benefits, for example, they can just as easily write a will. As was explored earlier in the topic.
Quote: Animalman said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Since gays retain all the rights to insurance, health benefits, spousal estates, etc., under proposed civil unions.
"Proposed civil unions"? What proposed civil unions?
Why are you even asking this STUPID STUPID question ?!?
The proposed civil union laws we hear about every night on the news.
Even George W. Bush and John Kerry discuss it.
And while no other state has civil union laws at this time at present, except New Hampshire, it is clearly on the table being seriously proposed and discussed.
I myself only oppose civil union laws for gays because it won't be the end result. It will only be used as a beach-head to launch a further assault on religious/Christian freedom, and further attempt to defile the concept of marriage.
Quote: Animalman said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: As I've said endlessly, if gays really need or deserve these rights, civil unions gives them those rights to benefits
Not as it stands today, they don't.
Thank you for stating the obvious. Given gays' use of any secular rights to launch an assault on religious freedom, they don't deserve them.
I would be tolerant of secular civil union for gays, if a balance was maintained that protected religious freedom. But clearly, gays (aligned with the ACLU, and other secularist liberal groups) have a clearly stated agenda to re-define the concept of marriage out from under Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and every other religious group.
I don't condone gays obtaining greater rights at the expense of taking away religious freedom from millions of others.
Quote: Animalman said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Or agnostic, who just don't approve of the gay lifestyle, and don't want their goverment to force it on them.
I'm Agnostic. What makes you think Agnostics don't approve of the gay lifestyle?
Another STUPID STUPID statement of yours. Congratulations on re-inventing the obvious.
Obviously, not all agnostics approve of gay marriage. Obviously not all agnostics oppose gay marriage either.
That can obviously be said of any political or religious or demographic group. Opinions vary.
But a clear majority of the public in every poll I've ever seen clearly opposes gay marriage. And in light of that, the tyranny of a few highly placed liberals in our courts, who have bypassed legislation to arrogantly impose their will on the majority, should not stand.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Animalman, your questions are annoyingly inane and nitpicky, and the answers to your questions are obvious. Or at least they should be after 37 pages.
Dave, your responses are insulting and avoid actually answering the question, which isn't "obvious". They're not "obvious", because you haven't answered the questions. Instead, you spend pages upon pages blasting gays and liberals, ranting about how everyone is out to get you, trying to force their evil political agenda on unfortunate individuals like yourself.
Instead of actually answering the question, you throw your arms in the air and roll your eyes, as if the mere fact that someone can ask them is offensive to you. Which it shouldn't be, because they're valid questions, and ones you, again, haven't answered. At least, not to my satisfaction. Sorry, but I don't find just "because (blank) says so", to be an acceptable answer. You might think that ends the discussion right there, but to me, it doesn't. To really answer the question, you have to tell me why, and prove to me that your reasoning holds water.
Quote: Animalman said: I don't believe any of it. It's a hyperbolic distortion to say gays have no rights.
Of course they have some rights. Civil unions just don't provide nearly as many benefits as marriage does.
Quote: If they don't have "spousal" death benefits, for example, they can just as easily write a will. As was explored earlier in the topic.
It goes far beyond what's detailed in a will. As stated in the article I posted:
"If one partner in a gay relationship dies, the other cannot receive Social Security survivor's benefits. Not so for marrieds."
Quote: Why are you even asking this STUPID STUPID question ?!?
The proposed civil union laws we hear about every night on the news.
I asked it sarcastically, because I think it's a "STUPID STUPID" statement. The proposed civil unions are hardly any different from the current institution, and that the laws are meaningless unless insurance companies recognize them otherwise(as detailed in the article I posted). For politicans to pretend that's not true just insults the intelligence of all Americans.
Quote: Given gays' use of any secular rights to launch an assault on religious freedom, they don't deserve them.
That's a scary thought, Dave. What if gays used the same logic to say religious individuals didn't deserved their rights?
Quote: Another STUPID STUPID statement of yours. Congratulations on re-inventing the obvious.
Obviously, not all agnostics approve of gay marriage. Obviously not all agnostics oppose gay marriage either.
I never said or implied you were using this generalization to describe all agnostics. I'm wondering why you would think even a majority of agnostics would be opposed to the gay lifestyle.
You continually cite public opinion polls, but are those polls specifically sampling agnostic individuals, or people in general?
The most common argument by far I've seen opposing the gay lifestyle is one based on scripture. Agnostics don't follow scripture. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some that don't approve of it for other reasons, but from my personal experience, I see no reason to believe they are the norm.
If there is a poll involving an exclusively agnostic sample section, I'd be very curious to see it.
the vast majority of my friends are agnostic and they dont believe that gays should marry, thats not scientific but id assume theyre represenitive.
i think if queers wanna butt bang each other thats there own business, but i dont think our goverment should be in the business of sanctioning it, and i do think if you make someones tax dollars such as SS go to pay for benifits to someones butt bang partner you are infringing on their reigious rights, and or personal beliefs....
Whatever happened to Klinton and Beardguy? I rather liked them. I enjoyed their well thought out posts...all I see now is mostly name calling and the same arguements.
i think if queers wanna butt bang each other thats there own business, but i dont think our goverment should be in the business of sanctioning it, and i do think if you make someones tax dollars such as SS go to pay for benifits to someones butt bang partner you are infringing on their reigious rights, and or personal beliefs....
The problem with that line of reasoning is that we pay taxes too but don't get the same "bang" for our buck. When you or the others speak of "our" government, you forget it's not just your government. A great many of gay people are part of it, many making far bigger contributions to this country than you or I.
I was going to draft a response to your post, Animalman. But then I read Britney's post, which already captured my desired response so well.
As usual, Animalman, you've once again obsessed on minutia that diverts from my central point.
You turn it into a discussion of whether a majority of agnostics oppose gay marriage. But my point is not even putting a number on what ratio of agnostics oppose gay marriage. My point is simply that some do, whether that's 10% or 95%. My point is that you don't have to be Christian, or of any particular religion, or even the slightest bit religious to oppose gay marriage. You can just intuitively believe that gay marriage is wrong, and that endorsing/legalizing/legitimizing it is not something the U.S. government should do.
But you turn it into a meaningless red herring issue that I somehow said a majority of agnostics oppose gay marriage, and challenge me to produce documentation to prove it. Prove something I never said in the first place?
A majority of America opposes gay marriage, that I said.
And again, my point is that a tiny minority of at best 2% does not have the right to change the definition of marriage out from under the rest of us.
That is tyranny of a minority, that takes away the rights of the majority.
~
Regarding your allegation of my "insults", I've only, if somewhat firmly from worn-down patience, stated the facts.
No matter how many times I answer, no matter how much detail and clarification, no matter how many links and articles, you come BACK AND BACK AND BACK and ask the same questions. Not even new questions, the same questions.
And while you clearly reject answers that don't conform to your worldview, they have been answered. Exhaustively.
I've answered, with the increased futility that you clearly just don't want to hear it. No matter how validly I make the case, you and others come back with "bigot" and "homophobe", and other labels for those who have legitimate and fully articulated objections to gay marriage.
All these labels slapped on me and other conservatives, despite the evidence for my argument, as demonstrated by what is happening in Canada, and what gay activists and their attorneys in the U.S. publicly say are their objectives.
So think what you want, you clearly are not open to any truth beyond your own pre-conceived notions. And I don't feel obligated to make detailed arguments beyond this point, that clearly fall on deaf ears. If you don't see what's happening as an attack on Christianity and more broad religious freedom, it's only because you choose not to. The writing is on the wall.
And given that you earlier tried to argue Nazi genocide was based on Hitler's alleged Roman Catholic "christianity", I think your biases are clear.
Far fetched indeed.
Quote: Wait, what? You say it's not revisionment, but then you say God "made a correction". If the situation changes, then so does the interpretation of that situation.
This statement is just plain weird Animalman. I can’t tell exactly what you mean by it. But I’ll repeat with a bit more clarity.
The true meaning of God’s words was misconstrued by his children. So, he corrected his children and imbued upon them knowledge of etiquette. The situation is static. If you’re doing good DIRECTLY, you can work on Sunday.
Quote: Eh, I think you're a little off here, Pariah. Fundamentalist Christians believe that the Bible is the infallible word of God, yes, but it's far from a universally Catholic belief.
I, myself, am not religious, but I've attended Catholic schools my entire life, and studied them just as long. I'm currently studying it as part of my philosophy minor. While I wouldn't call myself an "expert", I've been around Catholics/Christians long enough to have a fairly good idea of their religious ideologies.
Animalman, generalized opinions in the (pseudo)Catholic communities and individuals who have different interpretations of God other than what the Bible has interpreted for them means they’re not full Catholics. Like I said before; to be a Christian or Catholic, it takes a certain amount of agreeance and belief in the Bible. i.e. all of it. Your OPINION of the Bible and its contents are irrelevant. Look inside any Catechism book and you’ll find that this belief is taught and circulated throughout the Church—And for any practicing Catholic, it is required.
Side note: I know a lot of Catholic Schools, and never have I heard this belief questioned by general public of the schools/staff of said schools. Which ones have you been around exactly?
Quote: ....and how would you "outline the mutual importance and goals between each of the commandments and the certain sins that are listed under each individual commandment"?
Well, lets see….
All of the Commandments contain the sole purposes to be civil to our fellow man and to please God by following his regulations. If I were to go over the main sins that are a given for each Commandment, I think we’d establish the mutual importance made known by Jesus’ two quotes.
1) I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods Before me.
Rather obvious. Because there are no other gods other than God himself, it would be offensive and evil to worship [I]nothing[/I] with the intensity someone who believed in him would worship him. Sometimes it would be worse and they worship those strange gods in cruel and unusual ways that would speak against the Ten Commandments with more force.
To spread the ideals of these false gods to other men and alienate them away from the real God would be to very possibly deny them salvation and God’s eternal love.
2) Thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy God in vain.
Another obvious offense to God. Using his name as nothing more than a swear is a huge insult. Considering how low in standards we hold the meanings of the terms we shout out in anguish. Not mentioning the fact that His name isn’t meaningless and therefore shouldn’t be used in a meaningless fashion.
Perpetuating this offense among your fellow man and making it a habit not only for you but for someone else impressionable (little kids perhaps) would be just plain wrong. Then there’s the people who are offended by the action due to lack of respect.
3) Remember thou keep holy the Lords day.
God doesn’t want you to forget him. To forget God is to be detached from him. And to be detached from him is being detached from salvation.
Mostly the same as the 2nd. If you have children and you raise them ungodly and spit on his teachings or remain indifferent to them, you’re cheating those kids out of Heaven. The same could go for a friend who listens to only your opinion, which is anti-Catholic or is indifferent to Catholicism.
4) Honor thy father and thy mother.
Because the parents are the ones who are teaching you about God, and they’re the ones responsible for your spiritual growth, you need to listen to them and follow their instructions that are in accordance with God’s.
You’re representing your parents in this department, and if you screw your parents over by misrepresenting their teachings of God or remaining ignorant/indifferent, you’re hurting them and whomever you influence.
[Of course this would be an entirely different story if those parents wouldn’t even follow the Ten Commandments themselves and/or had no belief in God. These don’t mean you stop honoring them ESPECIALLY if you’re following the covenant. There are circumstances here.]
5) Thou shalt not kill.
God took HIS time to make that human being you killed, and it was HIS property to. You had no right to damage it.
Killing someone does more than just harm your fellow man OBVIOUSLY.
6) Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Because God made sex a sacred act only to be practiced between a (male/female) married couples, to destroy that sacredness would be a great offense. And because we would be using our bodies in such a way that he did not WANT them to be used, it would just make it even worse—Especially if sexual stimulation was induced by homosexual abominations. The same goes for masturbation.
We all know what adultery can do to other people emotionally, and we also know that [I]casual[/I] sex is dangerous in any form we try it out in (no matter what the odds). We’d be hurting other emotionally and physically.
7) Thou shalt not steal.
……..God hates it. We’re supposed to make the most out of our own lives, not make the most out of it using someone else’s life.
The object taken might have meant something BIG to the person who originally owned it, and THEY were the ones who….*shrug* Broke their backs to earn it.
8) Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.
God didn’t create speech for it to be deceptive, he made it for our BENEFIT of communication. To use communication [u]blatantly[/u] wrong would be to not only to misinform and (in many cases) hurt people, but also to abuse your privilege.
9) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.
Sexual fantasies are dangerous grounds to be dwelling on, and could very well lead to adultery and, in turn, the violation of sacred vows written by God.
Your neighbor worked damn hard to get that wife, I don’t think he’d like you ogling and (in many instances), she wouldn’t either. Makes her feel like a piece of meat and all that prolly, not to mention that obsession isn’t healthy for you either. Get your own.
10) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.
Again, perpetuating temptation and dwelling on dangerous ground that could very well lead to theft is something God no rikey.
Could kill your neighbors trust and continue to create cynics (exactly like me) all over the world. A characteristic that makes it very easy to lose faith or any chance of having faith.
This fits perfectly with Jesus’ words.
Quote:
You misread, I said "for any man to place one above another in importance would be not only pretentious but blasphemous as well". Jesus, according to Christian belief, is all man, but also all God, so it doesn't apply to him.
Animalman, it seemed to apply for you in the statement made by you right over here….
Quote: Jesus was clarifying, he was saying that loving everyone(especially God) is more important than anything else.
Now, this may not contradict anything you said, but it still raises the question: Why mention blasphemy in changing scripture when Jesus is the only one being implied as having done it, and then afterwards say that Jesus didn’t count in the first place?
Quote: Sure, but damage is still done.
Quote: No, not necessarily. Some enjoy it, and don't find it to be an eternally painful experience. I've even met a few girls that love anal sex.
Approaching this segment from the monogamous to represent lasting danger and potential (very high risk) pain:
That damage eventually stops, because the vagina evolves to a consistent dick size and because of the differing quality of the vagina to the sphincter of natural lubrication. The fetish of anal sex may be loved by a bunch of people, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’d need to exercise and infinitely greater amount of caution to participate in it. This makes vaginal sex not only safer, but also easier (and easier to be safer). So, anyway, while damage stops for the vagina, it just keeps on going with the ass.
Quote: This is way off topic, but I'd love to hear how exactly you can prove what is and what isn't meant to evolve.
Heh! Are you gonna tell me I’m wrong on this one from the scientific angle? The sphincter is meant to relieve the body of waste and that’s all. If you have a theory of why it SHOULD evolve or how it COULD evolve into a body part that was meant for insertion AS WELL AS excreting with as much results as having two separate holes for two different functions…Then I’d love to here it.
Quote: The Bible says that gay sex is wrong, but it doesn't say that it's wrong because anal sex tears the rectal issue. The argument most commonly constructed by theologians(though not directly evidenced by scripture), is that gay sex is wrong because procreation cannot be achieved through it.
This is true, but it’s not the ONLY reason. The abominable act is also complemented by physical abuse towards your neighbor AND yourself.
If you remember the Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill” and all it entails, we’d see that not only the extermination of life is a sin, but also that hurting the body in general is a huge sin. Sodomy is a type of way to hurt the body—Gentle or not, it leaves lasting (short or long depending on sexual habits) effects. Not only is homosexual sex an abomination, but also a type of sado-masochism, which is definitely not allowed. As to how I would justify my statement of why it wasn’t MEANT to evolve in the first place through Catholicism’s angle: Inflicting pain on someone else is a sin, inflicting pain on yourself is a sin. The fact that buggery hurts the body any way you do it and any time you do it is what proves my case.
Quote: Gay sexual promiscuity has a high risk factor for diseases(as does heterosexual promiscuity), but if the two gay individuals are monogamous, and are tested, there is no risk.
Yes there is. My entire goings on about the sturdiness of the vagina compared to the rectum is based on the high risk of semen getting into the bloodstream. I mean, it’s the MAIN thing. Obviously AIDS and HIV resides in higher importance above all, so I focused on them. Anyway, they’re just the tip of the Ice burg.
A monogamous relationship doesn’t sturdy up the colon, nor does it change the scenario of lacking condoms and careful consideration. They may not get AIDS or HIV, but….
Anal sex can result in a variety of illnesses. I will mention only the more serious. A rare but life-threatening complication of anal sex is rupture of the rectum, resulting in a severe bacterial infection. This can occur with anal sex and with the insertion of various objects into the rectum. Care must be taken to avoid serious injury to the area.
Most of the other illnesses due to anal sex involve infections as well. The human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is the virus that causes AIDS. Anal sex with someone who carries HIV poses a high risk for transmission of the virus. Homosexual men in the United States have HIV at a higher rate than heterosexual men, but this is not true outside the Western world. The first people who contracted HIV in the United States probably were homosexual men, and they first transmitted the virus to other homosexual men. Anal sex, mainly because of the trauma that can occur with it, allowed for the efficient transmission of HIV among these men. It was only later that the virus began to spread to women and heterosexual men. Anal sex without a condom between a woman and a man will transmit HIV as efficiently as between two men.
Other viruses can be transmitted through anal sex quite easily. These include hepatitis B and hepatitis C, which cause liver disease. Possibly Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), which causes mono, and cytomegalovirus (CMV) can also be transmitted in this way. Another cause of liver disease is the hepatitis A virus. It is transmitted through contact with the feces of someone with the virus, so anal sex may increase the risk of acquiring that infection.
In addition to these organisms, a variety of infections can be transmitted that predominantly cause infection in the rectum and colon. Some refer to these diseases as "gay-bowel syndrome," but that is a misnomer because any recipient of anal sex (including heterosexual women) can develop such an infection. The syndrome includes diarrhea, fever and lower abdominal pain. Various infections can cause these symptoms, including gonorrhea, chlamydia, lymphogranuloma venereum, shigella (a cause of dysentery) and herpes. An infection such as this would be termed "proctitis," or rectal infection. When I see a patient with signs and symptoms of proctitis, and the patient is a recipient of anal sex, I consider infection to be highly likely.
Let me just reiterate here:
Unprotected homosexual sex is the equivalent to unprotected promiscuous heterosexual sex.
Quote: A statement of love? Consummation of a deeply intimate relationship? I'd imagine most gay couples would call that a positive outcome.
Besides, your original statement was that "the physical differences between the sphincter and the vagina is the biggest factor here." You make no mention of the positive outcomes of intercourse, or of the purpose of the activity.
So what you’re saying is; you’d condone a couple who put their lives at risk by hurting each other like those couples I saw in the movie Crash (waste of my fucking time). Or (as I exemplified before) the people who’d commit suicide together just to get the point across that they love one another.
Quote: I did explain it. I explained it quite clearly. I use the word "prioritizing" several times in my explanation. If you interpret that as suggesting one should be practiced in exclusion of the others, then I'm afraid the fault is yours, not mine.
Prioritizing would mean to exclude everything else if any situation would for call for the certain circumstances. Priority can’t be labeled on something that is stressed to be practiced from all aspects with equal amount of importance for EVERY situation. After all, even the (considered) smallest of sins CAN eventually lead to damnation.
Quote: Perhaps you read what you wanted to read into what I said, simply because I have the audacity to disagree with you.
Ah. Resorting Whomod’s and Jim Jackson’s tactics are we? When one feels the need to get defensive and/or post snarky remarks, it usually means they’re getting desperate.
The physical differences between the sphincter and the vagina is the biggest factor here. One's WAY more fragile and accident prone than the other. Note that this reasoning is also based on the scenario of having no condoms and the usual uninformed (in the ways and dangers of homosexual intercourse) couples going at it. Another topper is the everpresent fact that anal sex damages no matter how careful you are. Despite what you're definition of damage may be, the fact is that it leaves a lasting unhealthy.....Groove (and worse) so to speak.
I would suggest checking out a hospital & speaking to some women in the maternity ward before checking out the broken anus wing
Are you gonna say that it's rare, and therefore, making it justifiable to take the risk?
i think if queers wanna butt bang each other thats there own business, but i dont think our goverment should be in the business of sanctioning it, and i do think if you make someones tax dollars such as SS go to pay for benifits to someones butt bang partner you are infringing on their reigious rights, and or personal beliefs....
The problem with that line of reasoning is that we pay taxes too but don't get the same "bang" for our buck. When you or the others speak of "our" government, you forget it's not just your government. A great many of gay people are part of it, many making far bigger contributions to this country than you or I.
i just figured you had read my previous statements if the majority has voted in laws stating that marriage is between man and woman than we should respect that, and a judge shouldnt take it upon himself to impose the will of the minority upon the majority.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I do feel that those other things are important in this discussion. It shows that bad choices or behavior that actually are proven to shorten the life span are not outlawed. This would be comparable to the crack addict saying you shouldn't have that second cheeseburger. I think you need to show some type of study that shows protected anal sex is more dangerous than say being a couple pounds overweight. And if we're going to argue that those issues don't belong in this debate I could point out the same thing with the whole anal sex issue belonging in the gay marriage debate. It doesn't apply to lesbians, and it certainly doesn't to all gay males. Many just stick to oral sex and stuff. So we have some unquantifiable number of those actually doing "it" and some slutty gay you talked too, who felt damaged by it.
And I think it comes down to your not gay, any type of gay male sex probably repulses you and that in turn feeds a bias IMHO
A few things:
I actually found out a while ago from a good source that sodomy could very well be life shortening.
Tk had posted an article in the women's forum that leads me to believe that lesbians are indeed not immune to diseases caused by one of their more usual sexual techniques of oral pleasure. On a smaller note, you use your fingers too much and you risk getting a cut. It's happend to many a porn star.
The habits of smoking or eating too much doesn't involve more than one person. It doesn't involve transitted disease either (second hand smoke has not been proven and because you based this on individual health, it's invalid as argument).
i just figured you had read my previous statements if the majority has voted in laws stating that marriage is between man and woman than we should respect that, and a judge shouldnt take it upon himself to impose the will of the minority upon the majority.
Our court system isn't run by polls but operates to carrying out the laws. In this case it's an equal rights thing that supersedes quickie made laws supported by fear, ignorance & garbage arguments.
We interrupt this flame war for a cultural exchange.
I was reading Pariah's post about the Ten Commandments, and I finally discovered the difference between the Jewish Ten Commandments and the Christan TC. For a long time, whenever I hear Christians quote the commandments, they use different numbering for the commandments than we do, and I've always been curious how that happened and what they did differently. Now I see how it's different.
Example:
Quote: Pariah said: 1) I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt not have strange gods Before me.
In Judaism, these are two separate commandments.
Quote: 3) Remember thou keep holy the Lords day.
It's not actually called the Sabbath? Interesting.
Quote: 9) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife.
10) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods.
For us, this is one single commandment.
Also, in Judaism, although the Ten Commandments are considered to be among the 613 commandments, they're also considered to be categories that the rest of the commandments fall into.
This concludes the cultural exchange. We now return you to your flame war.
i just figured you had read my previous statements if the majority has voted in laws stating that marriage is between man and woman than we should respect that, and a judge shouldnt take it upon himself to impose the will of the minority upon the majority.
Our court system isn't run by polls but operates to carrying out the laws. In this case it's an equal rights thing that supersedes quickie made laws supported by fear, ignorance & garbage arguments.
It seems to me that it is the pro-gay marriage arguments that are deeply based in fear, ignorance, & garbage arguments.
And further, a contempt for moral standards, and a secularist-rooted utter denial of the truth. Which is corrosive on the standards of the entire mainstream of our culture.
Gays don't care if it's wrong to write away the rights of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and agnostics who oppose gay marriage.
Gays have had the right to pursue their lifestyle without persecution for at least two decades.
Now, far beyond that, they want to create a warped kangaroo court to rubber-stamp the gay lifestyle and force all who oppose homosexuality to say it's okay, a move toward banning public speech of any beliefs to the contrary.
And laughably if it were not so serious a threat, to punish as a hate-crime those who hold fast to a higher, and more sane, Biblical standard.
I didn't want to get into what is fast becoming a flame-war of Farkian standards, but let me throw something in here:
One of my technicians is a lesbian. Verizon offers her the ability to put her partner/life-mate/whatever on her insurance. She and I were talking about Massachusett's possible plan to legalize gay marriages in-state. Her opinion? Doesn't want it to happen. Why? Because she doesn't want to get married and neither does her partner/life-mate/whatever. And she's afraid that, if it did pass, Verizon would force her to either get married or drop her (you get the idea) from her insurance.
I'm straight. I can marry my girlfriend if I want and she's willing. I don't think most homosexuals want gay marriages recognized and legalized at the expense of any religion's rights. I think they just want to have the choice and the benefits of making that choice. Same thing with abortion: most pro-choice people want just that - the CHOICE. I don't think there's nothing wrong with that...
It's not actually called the Sabbath? Interesting.
Actually it is. In fact, that's something they've been using/saying at my church a lot, but it's more in terms of setting a day aside for resting period, not in conjunction with going to church. For example, the one senior pastor takes Mondays as his Sabbath and that's the day he spends with his daughter, who's in preschool.
I'm probably going to regret this, because I swore I wouldn't post ot this board again, but....
Animalman, they're right, you're not making sense at all. Pariah and Wonder Boy (and so has BSAMs the last however many pages) have answered your questions, ad nausiem, but you refuse to listen, or you don't know how to read, because they clearly spell it out so well that an idiot could read/understand it. I may not post on this board anymore, but I do read it and have seen you go on and on for [pages about stuff you don't know. I've seen you take scripture and other Christian things and twist them to suit your own needs.
that's all I have to say, flame me if you want, but don't expect me to get sucked into any flame war, or post here again.
Egads, your like locusts. Animalman was pretty clear & factual about the civil unions not being equal to marriage. I don't know how you can turn it into otherwise.
Quote: britneyspearsatemyshorts said: . actually since its a gay topic, it should be referred to as a flaming war......
. . That...was the WORST pun I have ever seen in my time on the RKMBs. . As punishment, I hereby sentence you to...THE THOUSAND SLAPS OF DOOM!!! . SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP SLAP ... Maybe THAT'll learn yas!
I said something, but I articulated it wrong. I tried to find out how to word it, but then I realized I didn't know how and I didn't feel like figuring out how......Yeah.
I just wanted to say thanks for being informative. I wanted to say a few other things, but that was generally it.
I said something, but I articulated it wrong. I tried to find out how to word it, but then I realized I didn't know how and I didn't feel like figuring out how......Yeah.
Gotcha.
Quote: I just wanted to say thanks for being informative. I wanted to say a few other things, but that was generally it.
My pleasure. It's what I'm here for - to bring enlightenment, humor, and punishment to bad punsters.
(Does anyone think it's interesting that "pun" is part of the word "punish?")
Quote: Pariah said: The true meaning of God’s words was misconstrued by his children. So, he corrected his children and imbued upon them knowledge of etiquette. The situation is static. If you’re doing good DIRECTLY, you can work on Sunday.
Right, exactly. The meaning of the word was misinterpreted, and Jesus clarified. This is the point I've been trying to make.
So why were you saying otherwise before?
Quote: Animalman, generalized opinions in the (pseudo)Catholic communities and individuals who have different interpretations of God other than what the Bible has interpreted for them means they’re not full Catholics.
Then most Catholics in Texas must not be fully Catholic.
Quote: Like I said before; to be a Christian or Catholic, it takes a certain amount of agreeance and belief in the Bible. i.e. all of it. Look inside any Catechism book and you’ll find that this belief is taught and circulated throughout the Church—And for any practicing Catholic, it is required.
Then I've met hundreds of people who think they're Catholic, but according you, aren't.
Quote: Side note: I know a lot of Catholic Schools, and never have I heard this belief questioned by general public of the schools/staff of said schools. Which ones have you been around exactly?
This is the deep south, so there are dozens of Catholic schools in the area. I went to a Jesuit high school. I knew kids from plenty of others.
Most view the Bible as a guide for good living, and that the fundamental requirement for being Christian was to recognize Jesus Christ as God. They also realized that the Bible was not directly from God, but the interpretation of God through man. Without this realization, think about where our society would be now. I know it's an old argument, but it's a good argument.
Quote: Now, this may not contradict anything you said, but it still raises the question: Why mention blasphemy in changing scripture when Jesus is the only one being implied as having done it, and then afterwards say that Jesus didn’t count in the first place?
Because it goes back to what you yourself were doing(what I thought you'd argue) just a few posts ago. You seem to argue that a person can just look at the commandments and clearly determine that the predominant theme is loving each other, then arrive at the position that loving each other is the most important aspect of a good life.
In the time of Jesus, to make such an assumption with holy scripture would be considered blasphemous. Jesus removed that burden from you, by saying what no regular man could have previously.
Quote: That damage eventually stops, because the vagina evolves to a consistent dick size and because of the differing quality of the vagina to the sphincter of natural lubrication. The fetish of anal sex may be loved by a bunch of people, but that doesn’t change the fact that you’d need to exercise and infinitely greater amount of caution to participate in it. This makes vaginal sex not only safer, but also easier (and easier to be safer). So, anyway, while damage stops for the vagina, it just keeps on going with the ass.
Yes, there's a greater risk of pain, but the fact remains, if it's exercised an intelligent manner, it can be fine. The same is true for vaginal sex, though, as stated, the precautions aren't quite as numerous.
Quote: Heh! Are you gonna tell me I’m wrong on this one from the scientific angle? The sphincter is meant to relieve the body of waste and that’s all. If you have a theory of why it SHOULD evolve or how it COULD evolve into a body part that was meant for insertion AS WELL AS excreting with as much results as having two separate holes for two different functions…Then I’d love to here it.
Again, this is waaaaaay off topic, but it could evolve, because evolution is change based on necessity.
Quote: This is true, but it’s not the ONLY reason. The abominable act is also complemented by physical abuse towards your neighbor AND yourself.
Again, if done correctly, the abuse is minimal.
..and also again, there is physical damage done in vaginal sex as well.
We're going in circles here.
Quote: If you remember the Commandment, “Thou shalt not kill” and all it entails, we’d see that not only the extermination of life is a sin, but also that hurting the body in general is a huge sin.
By that logic, impregnation is a sin, as is loss of virginity. We've covered this.
Quote: Sodomy is a type of way to hurt the body—Gentle or not, it leaves lasting (short or long depending on sexual habits) effects.
As gone over before, that's not necessarily true.
Quote: Yes there is. My entire goings on about the sturdiness of the vagina compared to the rectum is based on the high risk of semen getting into the bloodstream. I mean, it’s the MAIN thing. Obviously AIDS and HIV resides in higher importance above all, so I focused on them. Anyway, they’re just the tip of the Ice burg.
Considering what you're about to say, I don't get why you'd even mention HIV....
Quote: A monogamous relationship doesn’t sturdy up the colon, nor does it change the scenario of lacking condoms and careful consideration. They may not get AIDS or HIV, but….
Anal sex can result in a variety of illnesses. I will mention only the more serious. A rare but life-threatening complication of anal sex is rupture of the rectum, resulting in a severe bacterial infection. This can occur with anal sex and with the insertion of various objects into the rectum. Care must be taken to avoid serious injury to the area.
Pelvic inflammatory disease has similar principle. The inflammation is usually due to an STD, but not always. It's another "rare but life-threatening" case.
Quote: Homosexual men in the United States have HIV at a higher rate than heterosexual men, but this is not true outside the Western world.
Actually, according to some physicians, including Dr. King K. Holmes of the Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, this isn't true anymore. The risk is still greater with homosexuals, though.
Quote: Other viruses can be transmitted through anal sex quite easily. These include hepatitis B and hepatitis C, which cause liver disease. Possibly Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), which causes mono, and cytomegalovirus (CMV) can also be transmitted in this way. Another cause of liver disease is the hepatitis A virus. It is transmitted through contact with the feces of someone with the virus, so anal sex may increase the risk of acquiring that infection.
....but if they're tested it doesn't matter.
Quote: So what you’re saying is; you’d condone a couple who put their lives at risk by hurting each other like those couples I saw in the movie Crash (waste of my fucking time). Or (as I exemplified before) the people who’d commit suicide together just to get the point across that they love one another.
No, I wouldn't, and that's a ridiculous comparison.
What I would condone, as I've said all along, are two monogamous people taking the necessary precautions before having sex. Getting tested for STD's, using a condom, etc.
It applies to both homosexuals and heterosexuals.
Quote: Prioritizing would mean to exclude everything else if any situation would for call for the certain circumstances.
....that's quite a reach, Pariah.
No, what prioritizing means is.....prioritizing. Listing in order of importance. Period.
This is what I mean when I say you're reading what you want to read into it.
Quote: Ah. Resorting Whomod’s and Jim Jackson’s tactics are we? When one feels the need to get defensive and/or post snarky remarks, it usually means they’re getting desperate.
If you'd like to consider it snarky, you're more than welcome to. I saw it as a perfectly reasonable possibility, given the arguments you've been making.
Quote: Pig Iron said: Ummmm. Are my posts so confusing and inane that no one responds to them ? Or is there something more devious afoot?
Whatever....
Your words were stand alone Pig Iron, and I, myself, have no disagreements with you. I mean, the fashion of reasoning you used, I feel, was wrong, but had an outcome I agreed with. Due to that outcome, I didn't feel like getting into it.
Animalman though, I see as wrong through and through. And he won't. Stop. Making. SCARECROWS!!!
None the less, because I Iike to torture myself, I'm gonna reply anyway.
After reading some of these responses, I have to agree with Sammitch and others, I think this has gotten way out of hand. I apologize for whatever part I've played in this turning into a quasi-flame war. That really wasn't my intention.
In fact, I had hoped to appease both sides of the argument. While neither religious nor homosexual, I felt I had enough experience with each party to see that the real enemy was, as usual, the government. Politicans, big businesses, the insurance companies, anyone and everyone that encompasses and creates "the system". Not gays or Christians/Catholics/Jews/Muslims.
Funny(and sad) how my internet life reflects my real one. Inspired in part by this very discussion, I've been writing my term paper on the issue. My purpose was to mediate between the two sides. As part of that paper I tried to involve my friends in the debate to get their ideas. Now, my Catholic friends say I've been poisoned by gay America, and all my liberal friends say I've bought into fascism. Clearly, I failed to realize that trying to play mediator doesn't work.
I said what I wanted to say. Hopefully that's enough, because it's all I can do.
Quote: Pariah said: 2) Thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy God in vain. (OH MY GODDDDD!!!)
3) Remember thou keep holy the Lords day. (actually it's still the sabbath folks.)
6) Thou shalt not commit adultery.
Because God made sex a sacred act only to be practiced between a (male/female) married couples, to destroy that sacredness would be a great offense. And because we would be using our bodies in such a way that he did not WANT them to be used, it would just make it even worse—Especially if sexual stimulation was induced by homosexual abominations. The same goes for masturbation. (SO MASTURBATION IS ALSO AN ABOMINATION??? I guess all of mankind will burn with one notable exception on these boards)
9) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s wife. JENNA JAMESON IS MARRIED, ISN'T SHE?
10) Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods. KEEPING UP WITH THE JONESES
Quote: Perhaps you read what you wanted to read into what I said, simply because I have the audacity to disagree with you.
Ah. Resorting Whomod’s and Jim Jackson’s tactics are we? When one feels the need to get defensive and/or post snarky remarks, it usually means they’re getting desperate.
I've never felt that I was competing in this topic so i've never felt "desperate" mainly because I firmly beleive that your brand of intolerance and bigotry demonstrated here will be gone in another 10-15 years or so.
What I have found comforting is that here again we are at a cultural crossroads where we can test our worth sociologically. Sure, after something is accepted as the norm (such as equal rights, sufferage, interracial relations etc.) in society, it is damn easy to praise the people who got us there to more enlightened waters.
I'm sure you'll be hard pressed to find a person today who'll boast proudly that he spat on diners trying to be served at a "whites only" counter (or even found the idea reasonable) unless of course he's just an unrepentant bigot. But at the time, you had literally millions of people who thought inequality was reasonable and had just as good arguments as the lot of you. Too bad there was no internet back in those days. It would have been interesting to see us back then arguing the same shit with the same conviction about the bible, tradition, "liberal" northerners, and 'seperate but equal'. "Why won't she move"[ to the back of the bus??]"
As i said, this will undoubtedly be seen 20 years on as a cultural crossroads. And i'll be here to remind us all that some of us were lacking in understanding exactly what equality for ALL means.
If I were Animalman, I certainly wouldn't apologize for further aggravating the already aggravated and hateful. If anyone is "desperate" it's all these right wing christians I see on TV every day foaming at the mouth and in a panic over the rising crest of this. Of course serving as a shining example of 'Jesus' love' for all to see.
Standing up for whats right even when there is an angry mob, ESPECIALLY if there is an angry mob, IMO is when it counts the most.
THE NATION Seattle to Recognize Gay Spouses From Associated Press
SEATTLE — Seattle's mayor said Sunday the city would begin recognizing the marriages of gay and lesbian employees who tie the knot elsewhere, although it would not conduct its own same-sex weddings.
Mayor Greg Nickels was expected to sign an executive order today giving same-sex spouses of city employees all the benefits of heterosexual spouses, including health insurance.
He also planned to send a proposal to the City Council to protect the rights of same-sex married couples in Seattle.
"The basic message is one of fairness," Nickels said. But he said he cannot follow the lead of mayors in San Francisco and New Paltz, N.Y., by allowing same-sex weddings because counties, not cities, have the authority to issue marriage licenses in Washington.
Quote: Pig Iron said: Ummmm. Are my posts so confusing and inane that no one responds to them ?
I've read them - and I applaud them. Especially the first one on page 35.
And I agree to extent. I believe if we're going to take God for the Bible's worth, then just about anything we do in modern society is out. From T.V., dancing, waging war, working at your job on Sunday instead of churching it and spending the day with family, science, science fiction, comics (with higher beings and Gods -because, even though it is just entertainment, you must entertain the idea). So, once again, you have a core group of people that pick and choose sins - then call others out for doing the same thing. Nitpicking. Interpretations on God's true meaning? It's all about the interpreter.
Tell that to my roommate (Chewy Walrus). He has to take hours upon hours of classes in how to interpret all of that. I've had to write papers on interpretation myself. It's time-consuming, but it'd definitely clear the air.
I try to be cool with everyone, but it doesn't always work. Differences of opinion, I guess.
I can't speak for all the lefty/liberals, but you always seemed like a decent guy to me Captain.
I don't have a problem with people who hold different opinions to mine (heck, I might even learn something). Further, I think it's pretty normal to think someone with a different opinion is foolish or misguided, if not, our own opinions wouldn't feel right to us. But, I'm a firm believer in that sometimes we have to take the old "agree to disagree" route to have a civil society.
However, some seem to think that those who disagree with them are less than human - next stop, intolerance, hate, and persecution. Those types I do have a problem with. Especially when they cloak their hates in religion, nationalism, and patriotism. Three concepts that are very dangerous, in and of themselves, because of the passions/deep feelings they inspire. When these concepts are manipulated by the type of persons I mentioned above (the haters, such as Adolf Hitler), or just by the unscrupulous amoung us (which is where I'd place persons like George W. Bush or Louis Farakhan) then they just go off the scale and become a true threat to the whole human species. Because these types of persons will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. They'll take the world down in flames before they'll concede the field.
The son of the state's leading opponent of gay marriage weds his partner in San Francisco with a symbolic ring.
By Shawn Hubler, Times Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO — The diamond in the ring he held had been passed down by his father. So had his bearing, the stance of a former fighter pilot and Gulf War veteran.
But it was the painful distance between father and son that stood at the fore as David Knight, the gay son of California's leading opponent of same-sex marriage, wed his longtime partner here on Tuesday.
"I'm not here to confront my father; I'm here to confront his politics," the son of Sen. William "Pete" Knight (R-Palmdale) said carefully. He did not want to hurt his 75-year-old parent, he said, but neither could he "just hide from him."
The middle son of the conservative author of Proposition 22, which defined marriage as being solely between a man and a woman, David Knight, now a 43-year-old woodworker, and Joseph Lazzaro, a 39-year-old specialist in interior architecture, kissed and held hands as they were pronounced "spouses for life" under the landmark rotunda where more than 3,600 gay and lesbian couples have married since Feb. 12.
The two men, partners for 10 years, live in Baltimore and had a civil union ceremony two years ago in Vermont. But, they said, they felt compelled to travel to Knight's home state when San Francisco began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples last month.
In a wave of civil disobedience that the elder Knight has denounced as a "sham" and a "sideshow," gays and lesbians have been married in New Mexico, New York and Oregon, in addition to the ceremonies here that have been solemnized in defiance of state law.
Tuesday's ceremony, conducted at City Hall by a deputy marriage commissioner who gasped, "How brave, how marvelous," when he was told afterward who the younger Knight was, lent an intensely personal footnote to a highly public issue. Though many parents struggle when they learn that a child is gay or lesbian, most families work through such issues in private. The powerful rift between politician and son, however, has for several years now been a poignant subtext to California's same-sex marriage debate.
Sen. Knight, who represents a solidly conservative Republican district, became nationally famous as the driving force behind Proposition 22 — or the "Knight initiative," as it was colloquially known — which passed with more than 61% of the vote four years ago. His well-funded Proposition 22 Defense and Education Fund has since gone to court to challenge San Francisco's decision to issue marriage licenses to gays and lesbians.
"I love my son, but we continue to disagree on this issue," the senator said in a prepared statement, adding that he would not comment further on what he deems "a personal family matter."
Though the elder Knight lost a gay brother to AIDS in 1996 — the year his son told him of his sexual orientation — he has said he sees it as his responsibility to prevent acceptance of homosexuality in society's mainstream.
"They want to be visible; they want to be accepted as normal people living a lifestyle that should be accepted as normal. That's the problem. If they weren't pushing so hard to be out and accepted, I don't think anybody would care," the senator told The Times in a 1999 interview.
Last month, in separate comments, he referred to same-sex marriage as "the biggest public policy issue since slavery" and expressed outrage that the issue will probably be decided not at the ballot box but in the courts.
David Knight, whose mother died when he was young, said he had struggled with the decision to join the gay wedding march in San Francisco, and dragged his feet when Lazzaro suggested they fly west last month.
"I have my own business. I don't like to just up and leave everything hanging. We weren't sure if we'd get in, or if it would all be shut down," he said. "And it does stir up some of the old emotions from four years ago."
Once close — the son had joined the Air Force to emulate his father, a record-setting test pilot — the two men scarcely spoke after David Knight came out. At the time, a series of seizures had ended his career as a pilot and, liberated, he had told his father about his sexual orientation. When he brought Lazzaro to dinner one subsequent Thanksgiving, the attempt elicited an icy rejection, he said, calling it "one of the most excruciating and painful events any of us had ever gone through."
The rift worsened in 1999 during the Proposition 22 campaign, when the Knight family's private angst entered the public record. As anti-gay rhetoric intensified, David Knight published an Opinion page essay in The Times criticizing his father's initiative as "a blind, uncaring, uninformed, knee-jerk reaction to a subject about which he knows nothing and wants to know nothing."
"I called him before it ran, to give him a heads-up, and got a couple quick phone calls from him that week," David Knight said, but after the measure passed, communication effectively ended. The son said that six months ago, he called his father "just out of the blue, to see if we couldn't slowly try to mend, but it was futile."
David Knight said the conversation dissuaded him from giving his father, whom he called "kind of a knot-head," a second "heads-up" about his decision to come to San Francisco, though he did tell his two brothers, who he said were supportive and who presumably passed the information along.
"I love my father dearly and I miss him," he said. "But if he's going to continue to attack something that affects me and affects my friends, and do something that I believe is wrong, I can't just not try to make my own statement. I'm out here to confront something I believe in very strongly — and that he believes in very strongly the other way."
During the ceremony at City Hall, the two men, who were introduced by David Knight's late gay uncle, re-exchanged the rings they have worn since their civil union as a sign of their mutual commitment. The one worn by Lazzaro held a diamond that had been passed down to Knight by his father when he was 21.
In a perfect world, the younger Knight said, his father would see that the ring symbolizes his love for Lazzaro as much as, say, the ring his brother gave represents his love for his wife.
"I want my father to think, just think," he said. "I want him to realize that we too are committed to each other. That we too are family."
50 CENT is risking the wrath of gay rights supporters following a controversial interview with PLAYBOY magazine.
The rapper is likely to follow in the footsteps of his mentors Dr Dre and Eminem, who have both come under fire in the past for anti-homosexual comments.
In the interview, 50 Cent is quoted as saying: "I ain't into faggots, I don't like gay people around me, because I'm not comfortable with what their thoughts are. I'm not prejudiced. I just don't go with gay people and kick it - we don't have that much in common. I'd rather hang out with a straight dude."
He added: "But women who like women, that's cool."
According to MTV News, the comments came after 50 admitted that his mother was bisexual.
"It's OK to write that I'm prejudiced," he said. "This is as honest as I could possibly be with you. When people become celebrities they change the way they speak. But my conversation with you is exactly the way I would have a conversation on the street. We refer to gay people as f****ts, as h**os. It could be disrespectful, but that's the facts."
Also in the interview, 50 tells of the first time he ever shot someone, discusses the times he has been shot as well as revealing plans to build a community centre for children.
Published: 11-03-2004-11-21
It really galls me when one minority participates in the marginalization of another.
I saw this on another board - and someone asked me if I was offended - normally, maybe a little - but not by someone at an intelligence level lower than Mike Tyson's.
Like him and Dre and Eminem aren't doin' it!
Also love how he points out the belief that gay women aren't even considered in the same group.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Thursday sought to solidify his standing with evangelical Christians by restating support for a constitutional amendment that would ban gay marriage as part of his championship of conservative causes.
"I will defend the sanctity of marriage against activist courts and local officials who want to redefine marriage. The union of a man and woman is the most enduring human institution," Bush, himself a born-again Christian, told the National Association of Evangelicals Convention in Colorado via satellite from the White House.
"I support a constitutional amendment to protect marriage as the union of a man and a woman," Bush said.
The president has largely steered clear of the thorny political issue since announcing his support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage on Feb. 24.
Bush seized on the issue after legal developments in San Francisco, where thousands of marriage licenses have been issued to gays and lesbians, and in Massachusetts, where the state's highest court ruled gay couples had the right to wed.
The move could help bolster his support among conservative Christians, a critical base for Bush, a Republican, in the November presidential election. With some polls showing him trailing Democratic challenger John Kerry, analysts say Bush will need to energize his base.
Amending the U.S. Constitution is a difficult task. It can take years to win the support of two-thirds of the U.S. House of Representatives, two-thirds of the Senate and ratification by three-quarters of the 50 states.
In addition to gay marriage, Bush touted his decision last year to sign a ban on a type of late-term abortion and said, "We will vigorously defend this law against any attempt to overturn it in the courts."
He said he was working with the U.S. Congress to pass a "comprehensive and effective" ban on human cloning -- another hot button issue for Christian conservatives.
He also called on Congress to send him legislation that would make killing or harming a "child in utero" a federal crime. Critics said the bill undermines abortion rights by treating the fetus or embryo as a person, although bill sponsors said they included language that explicitly excludes abortion.
Gay Republicans' spots include remarks made by vice president, whose daughter is a lesbian.
By Johanna Neuman, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — A new ad paid for by a gay Republican group uses Vice President Dick Cheney to help make its case against a proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages.
The 30-second television commercial shows Cheney, whose daughter Mary is a lesbian, at a debate during the 2000 campaign discussing gay rights. "We live in a free society … and I think that means people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into."
Cheney added: "The matter is regulated by the states. I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate…. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area."
The words "We agree" then appear in the ad, which is sponsored by the Log Cabin Republicans. The commercial begins airing in the Washington area today and is to be shown later in seven states viewed as key battlegrounds in the general election: Ohio, Missouri, Florida, Minnesota, New Mexico, New Hampshire and Wisconsin. The ad includes scenes of 1960s civil rights protests and signs that say "Colored Waiting Room" to argue that gay marriage is a matter of individual liberty.
Many gay Republicans were among those angered last month when President Bush endorsed the idea of a constitutional amendment to ensure that marriage was sanctioned only between a man and a woman. Bush's backing followed San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's decision to allow gay marriages in that city, in defiance of state law.
Cheney said last week that he supported Bush's decision, which also was hailed by an array of conservative groups.
Log Cabin's executive director, Patrick Guerriero, said the group decided to launch its campaign "because the exclusion and discrimination embodied in this amendment violates the principles upon which the Republican Party is founded."
He said that donations to the group had grown since Bush's announcement and that the organization hoped to collect up to $1 million for the ad campaign.
Bush campaign spokesman Terry Holt said, "We respect differences of opinion in the Republican Party, and we feel that during this election the Republicans will unite behind the president on the big issues facing this country — the war on terror and growing the economy."
The College Republican National Committee also came to Bush's defense. "President Bush is exactly right when he says there is a consensus among Americans to protect the institution of marriage," said Eric Hoplin, the group's chairman. "If the Log Cabin Republicans are the loyal Republicans they claim to be, they should spend their millions on electing Republicans, not defeating them."
But then being a Log Cabin Republican is like being a NAACP Dixiecrat.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Your emotionally charged stereotypes of anyone who opposes gay marriage is just so much posturing pretentious drivel, Dave.
Attacking the man, not the argument..... again.
Quote:
I don't believe what Animalman posted above. That is a distortion by advocates of gay marriage, I'm sure.
Back up your belief with facts.
Quote:
I fail to see how civil unions as an alternative creates "an apartheid". Since gays retain all the rights to insurance, health benefits, spousal estates, etc., under proposed civil unions.
As I've said endlessly, if gays really need or deserve these rights, civil unions gives them those rights to benefits, without urinating on religious freedom, and outlawing the ability of Christians and other groups to teach the real moral standard their Bible teaches. Instead of a politically correct gayed-down repression of the truth.
That is my major distaste with gay rights.
And I notice in your arguments, that you ignore and don't give a flying crap about lost religious freedom in Canada that I've described above. Which is a precursor for what is planned for the United States.
I missed Canada. What has happened there?
"Urinating on religious freedom"? How does gay marriage urinate on your ability to practice as a Christian?
Quote:
True freedom allows Christians to practice their religion in the scriptural form God gave it to them (and I've posted earlier several times about the historical evidence for scripture being accurately preserved for 2000 years, with at least 60,000 handwritten manuscripts in existence from within 100 years of Christ's death and resurrection.)
True freedom doesn't proclaim "freedom" for gays, while taking freedom of religion from the 33% of the U.S. population who attend church weekly, and the larger 80% of the U.S. population who mostly don't attend church but still describe themselves when polled as "Christian". And Jewish. And Muslim. And Hindu. And Buddhist. Or agnostic, who just don't approve of the gay lifestyle, and don't want their goverment to force it on them.
If civil unions didn't offer this alternative in the first place (equal rights, but within a secular framework, that doesn't outlaw religious teachings that homosexuality is immoral, or change the definition of marriage out from under Christians and others), then why would liberals suggest it at all? It's not like civil unions are the idea of conservatives. Howard Dean's state (New Hampshire) already has civil union as its legal standard.
In any case, I fail to see the need for rude stereotypes of any dissenters of your oh-so-superior-and-enlightened views on the subject of gay rights.
As a wise man said on the DC boards: You have an opinion. I have and opinion. Let's learn to deal with it.
And as I've said elsewhere:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
Quote: Originally posted by Dave:
I read "tradition and policy" as "homophobia".
I read "homophobia" as daring to voice an intelligent opinion that bucks the opinion of the gay/liberal community, and being falsely labelled a "hater" of some kind, to undermine dismissively the logic and intelligence of those views.
I read the "bigot" label the same way.
--------------------
"This Man, This Wonder Boy..."
Lets analyse your logical process.
Allowing gays to get married doesn't impinge at all upon your rights as a Christian anymore than allowing Jews or Muslims or atheists to get married does.
The Bible may say that homosexuality is a sin. I'm sure it also says that not believing Jesus is the Son of God is also a sin.
So, because it is a sin, gays should not get married.
By this logic, Jews, Muslims and atheists should also not get married, because it impinges upon your relgious freedom.
Your flaw in thinking, with respect, is that you view marriage as a solely religious institution, when it is not.
If any compromise between us is possible on this issue, then it would be if "marriage" was the sole and unique preserve of Christians and only Christians, and everyone else had a civil union under law which gave them equal rights as marriage.
But it doesn't work like that - I am an atheist, and I was married by a civil celebrant (both my wife and I had enough respect for churches and people's religious beliefs to avoid being hypocritical, and not to get married in a church.)
As for my stance on your position... if someone came in here and said that blacks should not have equal rights, he'd be treated with the respect he deserves. I see no difference between your view on gays and a racist's views on blacks. I have no respect for it at all, and see it as offensive as any other form of bigotry.
I know you're married to someone from a minority ethinic group. Open-mindedness on that front doesn't give you any wiggle room on your opposition to equal rights for gays.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: Your emotionally charged stereotypes of anyone who opposes gay marriage is just so much posturing pretentious drivel, Dave.
Attacking the man, not the argument..... again.
You attack me with an off-topic emotional stereotype argument.
And then you attack me for stating that you attack with an emotional stereotype argument ?!?
T-Dave, you are the king of strawman argument attacks, non-sequitor attacks, name-calling, and other emotional lowbrow tactics, that completely divert from the real issue.
Quote: Dave the Wonder boy said:
I don't believe what Animalman posted above. That is a distortion by advocates of gay marriage, I'm sure.
Quote: Dave said:
Back up your belief with facts.
You apparently are immune to the facts, as are other liberals here. I've already posted a response to that in the last few pages. In a non-sequitor, liberals here have made the comparison of the black civil rights movement to the push for gay rights, and specifically, 'gay marriage".
But as I posted documentation of, a majority of black Americans, and many black leaders, have vocally expressed their outrage at the comparison of black civil rights to the "gay marriage" push. Which black Americans themselves call a deceit, which they do not endorse.
And I think black Americans are infinitely qualified to determine whether their own black civil rights movement is comparable to gay rights, and the push for gay marriage. As I quoted, blacks have voiced their outrage at the comparison of gay marriage to black rights.
And it is your denial of these facts that is ill-informed.
Quote: Dave said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
I fail to see how civil unions as an alternative creates "an apartheid".
Since gays retain all the rights to insurance, health benefits, spousal estates, etc., under proposed civil unions.
As I've said endlessly, if gays really need or deserve these rights, civil unions gives them those rights to benefits, without urinating on religious freedom, and outlawing the ability of Christians and other groups to teach the real moral standard their Bible teaches. Instead of a politically correct gayed-down repression of the truth.
That is my major distaste with gay rights.
And I notice in your arguments, that you ignore and don't give a flying crap about lost religious freedom in Canada that I've described above. Which is a precursor for what is planned for the United States.
I missed Canada. What has happened there?
"Urinating on religious freedom"? How does gay marriage urinate on your ability to practice as a Christian?
You asked this question again below, where I answered it:
Quote: [Dave the Wonder Boy said: .
True freedom allows Christians to practice their religion in the scriptural form God gave it to them (and I've posted earlier several times about the historical evidence for scripture being accurately preserved for 2000 years, with at least 60,000 handwritten manuscripts in existence from within 100 years of Christ's death and resurrection.)
.
True freedom doesn't proclaim "freedom" for gays, while taking freedom of religion from the 33% of the U.S. population who attend church weekly, and the larger 80% of the U.S. population who mostly don't attend church but still describe themselves when polled as "Christian".
And Jewish. And Muslim. And Hindu. And Buddhist. Or agnostic, who just don't approve of the gay lifestyle, and don't want their goverment to force it on them.
.
If civil unions didn't offer this alternative in the first place (equal rights, but within a secular framework, that doesn't outlaw religious teachings that homosexuality is immoral, or change the definition of marriage out from under Christians and others), then why would liberals suggest it at all? It's not like civil unions are the idea of conservatives. Howard Dean's state (New Hampshire) already has civil union as its legal standard.
.
In any case, I fail to see the need for rude stereotypes of any dissenters of your oh-so-superior-and-enlightened views on the subject of gay rights.
.
As a wise man said on the DC boards: You have an opinion. I have and opinion. Let's learn to deal with it. .
And as I've said elsewhere:
.
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
Quote: Originally posted by Dave: .
I read "tradition and policy" as "homophobia".
.
I read "homophobia" as daring to voice an intelligent opinion that bucks the opinion of the gay/liberal community, and being falsely labelled a "hater" of some kind, to undermine dismissively the logic and intelligence of those views.
.
I read the "bigot" label the same way.
.
--------------------
"This Man, This Wonder Boy..."
Quote: Dave said: .
Lets analyse your logical process.
Oh yes. Let's.
Quote: Dave said: .
Allowing gays to get married doesn't impinge at all upon your rights as a Christian anymore than allowing Jews or Muslims or atheists to get married does.
.
The Bible may say that homosexuality is a sin. I'm sure it also says that not believing Jesus is the Son of God is also a sin.
.
So, because it is a sin, gays should not get married.
.
By this logic, Jews, Muslims and atheists should also not get married, because it impinges upon your relgious freedom.
.
Your flaw in thinking, with respect, is that you view marriage as a solely religious institution, when it is not.
.
If any compromise between us is possible on this issue, then it would be if "marriage" was the sole and unique preserve of Christians and only Christians, and everyone else had a civil union under law which gave them equal rights as marriage.
.
But it doesn't work like that - I am an atheist, and I was married by a civil celebrant (both my wife and I had enough respect for churches and people's religious beliefs to avoid being hypocritical, and not to get married in a church.)
.
As for my stance on your position... if someone came in here and said that blacks should not have equal rights, he'd be treated with the respect he deserves. I see no difference between your view on gays and a racist's views on blacks. I have no respect for it at all, and see it as offensive as any other form of bigotry.
.
I know you're married to someone from a minority ethinic group. Open-mindedness on that front doesn't give you any wiggle room on your opposition to equal rights for gays.
Again with the argument that: If there is the slightest dispute of the jay-walking law, then the law regarding murder and rape are null and void as well, and all murderers and rapists should be set free argument.
But as explored multiple times in the previous 38 pages, that's a flawed rationalization for circumventing what the Bible clearly says, about marriage (one man/one woman), and homosexuality ( a form of adultery, Biblically forbidden in the absolute harshest and clearest of terms).
And again, the state endorsement of "gay marriage" (an oxymoron) does not just allow secularist gays to marry without affecting Christians. It renders Christians' belief and statement that homosexuality is wrong and condemned by God in the Bible illegal. Which clearly infringes on Christians' ability to practice Christianity in its true form.
There is no mutual preservation of rights. Gays gain the right to marry, and Christians instantly lose their rights in the same instant.
Again, civil union is a secular alternative to changing the definition of marriage, that allows the same rights to gays in a secular framework, without taking a first step toward outlawing the practice of Christianity in its true form and Biblical standards, without turning public reading of Genesis 18 and 19 (Sodom and Gommorah) and similar verses into a "hate crime" as it is now in Canada.
If that Canadian example is not clear establishment that gay rights is done at the expense of religious freedom and the free practice of Christianity, then I don't know what is.
You apparently are immune to the facts, as are other liberals here. I've already posted a response to that in the last few pages. In a non-sequitor, liberals here have made the comparison of the black civil rights movement to the push for gay rights, and specifically, 'gay marriage".
But as I posted documentation of, a majority of black Americans, and many black leaders, have vocally expressed their outrage at the comparison of black civil rights to the "gay marriage" push. Which black Americans themselves call a deceit, which they do not endorse.
And I think black Americans are infinitely qualified to determine whether gay rights are comparable to gay rights, and the push for gay marriage. As I quoted, they have voiced their outrage at the comparison of gay marriage to black rights.
And it is your denial of these facts that is ill-informed.
I think what is needed is a bit of background on minority culture and specifically the culture of "machismo". In both the black and latino community, machismo is so great that even many homosexuals in those communities are in denail about their own sexuality. So much in fact that I've recently become aware of something called "down low". Which is minority homosexuals attempt to both be gay and not have to suffer thru the cultural stigma. In one report I saw on TV about this phenom, the gays asserted that they wearn't "gay" because to them that denoted white homosexuals and what they viewed as "sissy culture", weak. And in minority culture, there is nothing more terrible than their strong macho men being "weak". Religion also plays into all of this bagagge as most latinos have strong Roman Catholic backgrounds and many blacks have strong southern protestant upbringings. So if any rejection of homosexulaity is coming from minority communities, it has a lot to do with the same religious prejudice coming from white conservatives, magnified to the 9th power when mixed with the cultural stigma against being weak and unmasculine.
"In the absence of education most people resort to machismo". I heard that once and it is so true.
and if we're talking minority communities, I think I mentioned the Jewish community in West Hollywood a while back. If any group is qualified to talk about social rejection and prejudice I think it's the jews. They accept the gay community with open arms and support. Not because of something written in their holy books but because they actually know them and live together in the REAL world and stand up to injustice and inequality when they see it with their own eyes. After all, they both suffered just the same in the Nazi bigotry & death camps
Quote: Wednesday said: Cheney Says He Supports Gay-Marriage Ban
Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday he supports President Bush's call for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages, though one of his daughters is gay
This is another example of that persistent liberal double standard.
If a conservative comes out against something that he, or a member of his family, has not personally experienced the conservative is told "you have no experience with this. You can't judge."
But if a conservative comes out against something he has personal experience with (either himself or through a member of his family), he is told "you are a hypocrite."
Essentially, the point seems to be that liberals think that conservatives should not be allowed to express their opinions at any time whatsoever.
Quote: Wednesday said: Cheney Says He Supports Gay-Marriage Ban
Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday he supports President Bush's call for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages, though one of his daughters is gay
This is another example of that persistent liberal double standard.
If a conservative comes out against something that he, or a member of his family, has not personally experienced the conservative is told "you have no experience with this. You can't judge."
But if a conservative comes out against something he has personal experience with (either himself or through a member of his family), he is told "you are a hypocrite."
Essentially, the point seems to be that liberals think that conservatives should not be allowed to express their opinions at any time whatsoever.
This was a bit of a flip flop for our Vice President though. When it was politically in their favor in 2000, he believed this was something to be decided by the states individually. Now he changes that to one that is politically advantageous for this election. I don't think hypocrisy is to outrageous of a conclusion. Either side can be guilty of hypocrisy.
But as I posted documentation of, a majority of black Americans, and many black leaders, have vocally expressed their outrage at the comparison of black civil rights to the "gay marriage" push. Which black Americans themselves call a deceit, which they do not endorse.
And I think black Americans are infinitely qualified to determine whether their own black civil rights movement is comparable to gay rights, and the push for gay marriage. As I quoted, blacks have voiced their outrage at the comparison of gay marriage to black rights.
And it is your denial of these facts that is ill-informed.
I would love to know where you get this information.
1) I find it hard to believe that you or anyone else can say that most blacks are "outraged" by the comparison. I, myself, have read articles that have quoted individual African-Americans on the subject, and I agree that some of them were outraged... very outraged, but I've also seen blacks who have spoken in favor of gay rights, and compared the struggle of gays to the ones we once faced. Also, I've never even seen a poll of a turly REPRESENTATIVE number of black people on the subject. Even a poll of one thousand black Americans is not enough to tell you, definitively, how black Americans feel.
2) Today's "black leaders" are generally pathetic and unworthy of discussion, especially the ones that are in the media and have voiced opinions. A great number of them are attention-seekers and not much more.
3) I also don't believe that most black people (or Americans in general) could tell you the real definition of civil rights. Being black does not make you an authority on civil rights; education does. I would venture that most people would equate civil rights with black suffrage. Their answers are uninformed.
Quote: Wednesday said: Cheney Says He Supports Gay-Marriage Ban
Vice President Dick Cheney said Tuesday he supports President Bush's call for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages, though one of his daughters is gay
This is another example of that persistent liberal double standard.
If a conservative comes out against something that he, or a member of his family, has not personally experienced the conservative is told "you have no experience with this. You can't judge."
But if a conservative comes out against something he has personal experience with (either himself or through a member of his family), he is told "you are a hypocrite."
Essentially, the point seems to be that liberals think that conservatives should not be allowed to express their opinions at any time whatsoever.
You're totally misrepresenting the issue.
I think i posted Cheney's quotes from the 2000 debates TWICE already where he supported states deciding on the issue of gay marriage
Quote: Here are some quotes by Vice President Dick Cheney from the 2000 vice presidential debate. On gay and lesbian relationships:
Quote:
"The fact of the matter is we live in a free society, and freedom means freedom for everybody. We don't get to choose, and shouldn't be able to choose and say, 'You get to live free, but you don't.' "
On gay and lesbian civil unions or marriage:
Quote:
"I think the fact of the matter, of course, is that matter is regulated by the states. I think different states are likely to come to different conclusions, and that's appropriate. I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area."
Now if this had been John Kerrey flip flopping all over the place depending on which way the political winds were blowing, you'd be howling , winking and chortling madly about it.
In fact, [Dick Cheney] has been in Washington long enough to take both sides on just about every issue."
By now supporting a constitutional amendment to restrict the rights of gay Americans, Cheney has sold his own daughter down the river in a way that is almost mind-boggling to a parent.
Quote: We've heard a lot about "biblical marriage" lately, largely as a defensive reaction against same-sex marriage. I read one letter to the editor written by a Lutheran pastor that claimed that "the Bible clearly teaches that marriage is the God-ordained covenantal union of one man to one woman." How very applicable to the contemporary situation, I thought. If the Bible really teaches that (and in such modern language too!), then we all should be paying the Bible a lot more heed.
So I picked up my Bible and looked up all the passages that have anything to do with marriage (I had help: I used a concordance). I examined the scriptural use of all the words I could think of related to marriage: marriage, marriages, marry, marries, married, wedding, weddings, wed, husband, husbands, wife, and wives.
All told I looked up over 800 references. Exempting the references which are narrative (e.g. "Adam named his wife Eve" Gen 3:20) or metaphorical (Christ's marriage to the church, Rev 21:9), I was able to distil those 825 verse references into 12 general principles: 12 Biblical "rules" or guidelines regarding marriage which encompass the gamut of scripture. I hereby present the list, with the applicable references.
12 Biblical Principles of Marriage
Marriage consists of one man and one or more women (Gen 4:19, 4:23, 26:34, 28:9, 29:26-30, 30:26, 31:17, 32:22, 36:2, 36:10, 37:2, Ex. 21:10, Judges 8:30, 1 Sam 1:2, 25:43, 27:3, 30:5, 30:18, 2 Sam 2:2, 3:2-5, 1 Chron 3:1-3, 4:5, 8:8, 14:3, 2 Chron 11:21, 13:21, 24:3).
Nothing prevents a man from taking on concubines in addition to the wife or wives he may already have (Gen 25:6, Judges 8:31, 2 Sam 5:13, 1 Kings 11:3, 1 Chron 3:9, 2 Chron 11:21, Dan 5:2-3).
A man might chose any woman he wants for his wife (Gen 6:2, Deut 21:11), provided only that she is not already another man’s wife (Lev 18:14-16, Deut. 22:30) or his [half-]sister (Lev 18:11, 20:17), nor the mother (Lev 20:14) or the sister (Lev 18:18) of a woman who is already his wife. The concept of a woman giving her consent to being married is foreign to the Biblical mindset.
If a woman cannot be proven to be a virgin at the time of marriage, she shall be stoned (Deut 22:13-21).
A rapist must marry his victim (Ex. 22:16, Deut. 22:28-29) - unless she was already a fiancé, in which case he should be put to death if he raped her in the country, but both of them killed if he raped her in town (Deut. 22:23-27).
If a man dies childless, his brother must marry the widow (Gen 38:6-10, Deut 25:5-10, Mark 12:19, Luke 20:28).
Women marry the man of their father’s choosing (Gen. 24:4, Josh.15:16-17, Judges 1:12-13, 12:9, 21:1, 1 Sam 17:25, 18:19, 1 Kings 2:21, 1 Chron 2:35, Jer 29:6, Dan 11:17).
Women are the property of their father until married and their husband after that (Ex. 20:17, 22:17, Deut. 22:24, Mat 22:25).
The value of a woman might be approximately seven years’ work (Gen 29:14-30).
Inter-faith marriages are prohibited (Gen 24:3, 28:1, 28:6, Num 25:1-9, Ezra 9:12, Neh 10:30, 2 Cor 6:14).
Divorce is forbidden (Deut 22:19, Matt 5:32, 19:9, Mark 10:9-12, Luke 16:18, Rom 7:2, 1 Cor 7:10-11, 7:39).
Better to not get married at all - although marriage is not a sin (Matt 19:10, I Cor 7:1, 7:27-28, 7:32-34, 7:38).
How many of these Biblical principles are followed by Christians today? Not a single one [with the possible exception of number 3 - some Christian women may still have no choice in their marital partner]!
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that "marriage is the God-ordained covenantal union of one man and one woman;" in fact, it says explicitly to the contrary! The Bible lists at least 15 polygamists (not including Herod, who is known from the historical - but not Biblical - record to have had 9 wives), and in not a single place does polygamy carry with it any sense of opprobrium. Unfortunately, the pastor mentioned above would have been far more correct to say that "the Bible teaches that marriage is a covenantal union of one man to as many women as he might want and can afford."
So the next time your favourite politician or preacher claims to use the Bible in support of traditional marriage, ask him or her which of these 12 principles he or she is actually advocating. Probably none. Anyone who claims to use the Bible in support of a strictly monogamous union of one male and one female based on love, mutuality, and commitment will be hard pressed to find 2,000 year-old Bible verses in support of that very modern position. In fact, I daresay they cannot. The Biblical view of marriage is not monogamous: it is not necessarily based on love, nor on any amount of mutuality.
Most Christians would consider these Biblical principles of marriage to be misogynistic and repulsive - and judging by today's standards, they'd be right. Views have changed since Biblical times, as has our concept of marriage. Some would claim that this is the result of the Holy Spirit working in our world; most agree that just about all of the changes are a good thing. But if we concede that our concept of marriage has evolved, is it not potentially arrogant to summarily discount the possibility that marriage should continue evolving, or even that it might be God's will that it do so?
From the looks of the above list, it's a good thing our perspectives have changed from the Biblical model. Thus as we continue to dialog and prayerfully discern God's will in the area of same-sex marriages, we obviously cannot consider 2,000-year-old statements made in other cultures and contexts to be all that is important.
Please do not misinterpret that I am claiming that the Bible is not important - of course it is. It is central to my faith, as it should be for any Christian. But to rely on solely the Bible is to dangerously ignore two millennia of progress in the areas of science, technology, and human rights, a sin which we dare not let ourselves commit if the church is to remain relevant to contemporary society at all.
To rely solely on Scripture for church policy is to ignore the possibility that the Holy Spirit has been active at all in the sixteen centuries since the canon was closed in 405 CE. Indeed, we need to consider that the Holy Spirit may be actively encouraging us today to move beyond a literal reading of the Bible and to refuse to become modern Pharisees.
While of course the Bible is integral to who we are as Christians, we do ourselves, the church, and yes, God a disservice if we ignore even the possibility of a revelation more recent than 2,000 years old. While we cannot and would not want to ignore the Old and New Testaments, we also cannot ignore the Now Testament. Praise God that, consistent with the spirit of almost every Biblical narrative, God even today continuously and patiently calls us ever forward.
Random thought - are the politicians out to get this law passed doing so mostly (or even purely) out of religious conviction? Is this law primarily motivated by religious faith? Because if it is, and the law is passed, I'm just wondering what kind of doors it could open for other religiously motivated laws - not necessarily constitutional amendments, but state laws or even city laws. It's just something to consider.
BTW, speaking of religion, I've asked this question in several threads, and I've never gotten an answer. Do Christianity and Islam have an official oral law that specifies and interprets how the laws of the Bible are to be practiced, or is the Bible all you get? If there is an oral law, does it carry the equal weight as the Bible? I'm only asking because Judiasm has both the oral law and the Tanach (The real Jewish Bible, which is composed of The Torah [Five Books Of Moses], The Book of Prophets, and The Book of Writings [psalms, proverbs, etc.]), and both count the same. So I've always wondered whether or not Christians and Muslims have an oral tradition as well.
Quote: We've heard a lot about "biblical marriage" lately, largely as a defensive reaction against same-sex marriage. I read one letter to the editor written by a Lutheran pastor that claimed that "the Bible clearly teaches that marriage is the God-ordained covenantal union of one man to one woman." How very applicable to the contemporary situation, I thought. If the Bible really teaches that (and in such modern language too!), then we all should be paying the Bible a lot more heed.
So I picked up my Bible and looked up all the passages that have anything to do with marriage (I had help: I used a concordance). I examined the scriptural use of all the words I could think of related to marriage: marriage, marriages, marry, marries, married, wedding, weddings, wed, husband, husbands, wife, and wives.
All told I looked up over 800 references. Exempting the references which are narrative (e.g. "Adam named his wife Eve" Gen 3:20) or metaphorical (Christ's marriage to the church, Rev 21:9), I was able to distil those 825 verse references into 12 general principles: 12 Biblical "rules" or guidelines regarding marriage which encompass the gamut of scripture. I hereby present the list, with the applicable references.
12 Biblical Principles of Marriage
Marriage consists of one man and one or more women (Gen 4:19, 4:23, 26:34, 28:9, 29:26-30, 30:26, 31:17, 32:22, 36:2, 36:10, 37:2, Ex. 21:10, Judges 8:30, 1 Sam 1:2, 25:43, 27:3, 30:5, 30:18, 2 Sam 2:2, 3:2-5, 1 Chron 3:1-3, 4:5, 8:8, 14:3, 2 Chron 11:21, 13:21, 24:3).
Nothing prevents a man from taking on concubines in addition to the wife or wives he may already have (Gen 25:6, Judges 8:31, 2 Sam 5:13, 1 Kings 11:3, 1 Chron 3:9, 2 Chron 11:21, Dan 5:2-3).
A man might chose any woman he wants for his wife (Gen 6:2, Deut 21:11), provided only that she is not already another man’s wife (Lev 18:14-16, Deut. 22:30) or his [half-]sister (Lev 18:11, 20:17), nor the mother (Lev 20:14) or the sister (Lev 18:18) of a woman who is already his wife. The concept of a woman giving her consent to being married is foreign to the Biblical mindset.
If a woman cannot be proven to be a virgin at the time of marriage, she shall be stoned (Deut 22:13-21).
A rapist must marry his victim (Ex. 22:16, Deut. 22:28-29) - unless she was already a fiancé, in which case he should be put to death if he raped her in the country, but both of them killed if he raped her in town (Deut. 22:23-27).
If a man dies childless, his brother must marry the widow (Gen 38:6-10, Deut 25:5-10, Mark 12:19, Luke 20:28).
Women marry the man of their father’s choosing (Gen. 24:4, Josh.15:16-17, Judges 1:12-13, 12:9, 21:1, 1 Sam 17:25, 18:19, 1 Kings 2:21, 1 Chron 2:35, Jer 29:6, Dan 11:17).
Women are the property of their father until married and their husband after that (Ex. 20:17, 22:17, Deut. 22:24, Mat 22:25).
The value of a woman might be approximately seven years’ work (Gen 29:14-30).
Inter-faith marriages are prohibited (Gen 24:3, 28:1, 28:6, Num 25:1-9, Ezra 9:12, Neh 10:30, 2 Cor 6:14).
Divorce is forbidden (Deut 22:19, Matt 5:32, 19:9, Mark 10:9-12, Luke 16:18, Rom 7:2, 1 Cor 7:10-11, 7:39).
Better to not get married at all - although marriage is not a sin (Matt 19:10, I Cor 7:1, 7:27-28, 7:32-34, 7:38).
How many of these Biblical principles are followed by Christians today? Not a single one [with the possible exception of number 3 - some Christian women may still have no choice in their marital partner]!
Nowhere in the Bible does it say that "marriage is the God-ordained covenantal union of one man and one woman;" in fact, it says explicitly to the contrary! The Bible lists at least 15 polygamists (not including Herod, who is known from the historical - but not Biblical - record to have had 9 wives), and in not a single place does polygamy carry with it any sense of opprobrium. Unfortunately, the pastor mentioned above would have been far more correct to say that "the Bible teaches that marriage is a covenantal union of one man to as many women as he might want and can afford."
So the next time your favourite politician or preacher claims to use the Bible in support of traditional marriage, ask him or her which of these 12 principles he or she is actually advocating. Probably none. Anyone who claims to use the Bible in support of a strictly monogamous union of one male and one female based on love, mutuality, and commitment will be hard pressed to find 2,000 year-old Bible verses in support of that very modern position. In fact, I daresay they cannot. The Biblical view of marriage is not monogamous: it is not necessarily based on love, nor on any amount of mutuality.
Most Christians would consider these Biblical principles of marriage to be misogynistic and repulsive - and judging by today's standards, they'd be right. Views have changed since Biblical times, as has our concept of marriage. Some would claim that this is the result of the Holy Spirit working in our world; most agree that just about all of the changes are a good thing. But if we concede that our concept of marriage has evolved, is it not potentially arrogant to summarily discount the possibility that marriage should continue evolving, or even that it might be God's will that it do so?
From the looks of the above list, it's a good thing our perspectives have changed from the Biblical model. Thus as we continue to dialog and prayerfully discern God's will in the area of same-sex marriages, we obviously cannot consider 2,000-year-old statements made in other cultures and contexts to be all that is important.
Please do not misinterpret that I am claiming that the Bible is not important - of course it is. It is central to my faith, as it should be for any Christian. But to rely on solely the Bible is to dangerously ignore two millennia of progress in the areas of science, technology, and human rights, a sin which we dare not let ourselves commit if the church is to remain relevant to contemporary society at all.
To rely solely on Scripture for church policy is to ignore the possibility that the Holy Spirit has been active at all in the sixteen centuries since the canon was closed in 405 CE. Indeed, we need to consider that the Holy Spirit may be actively encouraging us today to move beyond a literal reading of the Bible and to refuse to become modern Pharisees.
While of course the Bible is integral to who we are as Christians, we do ourselves, the church, and yes, God a disservice if we ignore even the possibility of a revelation more recent than 2,000 years old. While we cannot and would not want to ignore the Old and New Testaments, we also cannot ignore the Now Testament. Praise God that, consistent with the spirit of almost every Biblical narrative, God even today continuously and patiently calls us ever forward.
However, I can speak for the Torah verses used to back up these claims. They are taken out of context.
For example:
Quote: Divorce is forbidden (Deut 22:19
This is not what it says. If you read, starting from verse 13, you will find that this is for a case of a man who has slept with his new wife and found that he hates her, for whatever reason. So he tells lies about her, in order to get out of his Ketuba, the marriage contract. In other words, he wants a divorce, without having to pay alimony. He wants to be a free man. He says that she was not a virgin when he married her. Now, this only matters b/c the woman has never been married, and sex is forbidden outside of marriage. That, and the father had to pay a hefty dowry guaranteeing her virginity. Anyway, if there is proof that she was a virgin, then it is presented, the husband is punished, and he pays a hefty fine to the woman's father. Also, he can never demand a divorce from her. That's doesn't mean divorce is forbidden. There are laws for divorce. That's why the man signs the Ketuba. It guarantees that he will financially suport his wife should they divorce, until she is remarried.
Seriously, don't take Bible quotes at face value. Always look them up and read them in context.
Quote: PenWing said: Seriously, don't take Bible quotes at face value. Always look them up and read them in context.
To add to what PenWing says, there are numerous commentaries on the Torah written by some of Judaism's greatest scholars that interpret and explain what the Torah is trying to tell us, and we also have the oral law.
To add to my question about whether or not Christianity or Islam have oral laws, do they also have Biblical commentaries that explain and interpret what's going on in the Bible?
Is it a flip-flop on Cheney's part, or simply a reflection of changes in the law?
Four years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court had not yet struck down the Texas law against sodomy (which some might term "gay sex") on federal constitutional grounds of "equal protection."
By ruling in that manner, the Supreme Court may have created a Constitutional precedent that prevents letting each state regulate homosexual conduct...including marriage. If the states cannot regulate gay marriage, then it is impossible to allow each state to decide for itself.
If so, it is hardly a "flip" on the Vice-President's part to recognize that the law has changed and amend his policies and/or viewpoint accordingly.
Quote: Wednesday said: I find it hard to believe that ...most blacks are "outraged" ...I've never even seen a poll of a turly REPRESENTATIVE number of black people on the subject. Even a poll of one thousand black Americans is not enough to tell you, definitively, how black Americans feel.
A national Gallup Poll last month found that more than half of African Americans favored a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
A Los Angeles Times exit poll showed higher percentages of African Americans than whites or Asian Americans voted for Proposition 22, the 2000 initiative that defined marriage in California as between a man and a woman.
And a Field Poll of California voters last month, taken after San Francisco began offering same-sex marriage certificates, suggested that African Americans resist gay marriage and endorse a constitutional amendment against it by wider margins than other ethnic groups.
Among African Americans, there is "a great deal of ambivalence about the issue of gay marriage, if not in fact hostility toward it," said Los Angeles author and political commentator Earl Ofari Hutchinson.
"It really comes down to a sense of family," he added, "that, in fact, this could be a threat to the black family."
Thank you for offering documentation before I had a chance to, G-Man.
Although Wednesday's post to this page...
Quote: Wednesday said:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
But as I posted documentation of, a majority of black Americans, and many black leaders, have vocally expressed their outrage at the comparison of black civil rights to the "gay marriage" push. Which black Americans themselves call a deceit, which they do not endorse.
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And I think black Americans are infinitely qualified to determine whether their own black civil rights movement is comparable to gay rights, and the push for gay marriage. As I quoted, blacks have voiced their outrage at the comparison of gay marriage to black rights.
And it is your denial of these facts that is ill-informed.
I would love to know where you get this information.
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1) I find it hard to believe that you or anyone else can say that most blacks are "outraged" by the comparison. I, myself, have read articles that have quoted individual African-Americans on the subject, and I agree that some of them were outraged... very outraged, but I've also seen blacks who have spoken in favor of gay rights, and compared the struggle of gays to the ones we once faced. Also, I've never even seen a poll of a turly REPRESENTATIVE number of black people on the subject. Even a poll of one thousand black Americans is not enough to tell you, definitively, how black Americans feel.
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2) Today's "black leaders" are generally pathetic and unworthy of discussion, especially the ones that are in the media and have voiced opinions. A great number of them are attention-seekers and not much more.
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3) I also don't believe that most black people (or Americans in general) could tell you the real definition of civil rights. Being black does not make you an authority on civil rights; education does. I would venture that most people would equate civil rights with black suffrage. Their answers are uninformed.
...was already answered on page 36 of the topic:
Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said:
Quote: Wingnut-EL said: .
The religious arguement also provides a convenient cover to those with truly bigoted beliefs. While I understand that many people actually believe their "God" condems homosexual behavior*, I think the real movers & shakers behind the anti-gay movement are simply using religion as a shield against charges of bigotry (i.e., claiming/pretending to be devout when it serves their purposes).
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* These true believers are a lessor problem IMO, because over time and through education they may change their belief on this issue, just as they have on slavery. I don't think they have any ulterior motive, they are just misguided. It's the ones who would harness a poweful force like religion (or nationalism, or patriotism for that matter) that are truly dangerous & scare me. They are people who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals - Yes, Mr. Bush I'm talking about you & your craven ilk.
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Cheers!
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A new poll shows that a majority of black Americans oppose gay marriage.
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The poll results were released by the Pugh Research Center on November 18, 2003, the same day as the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage.
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It indicated that 60% of blacks oppose gay weddings.
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And further, 51% oppose gay civil unions as well.
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Further, many black leaders are furious that the gay rights movement is being compared to the black civil rights movement.
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When the Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that gays have the Constitutional right to marry, the Massachusetts Supreme Court justices cited landmark repealing of laws that banned inter-racial marriage.
Which, again, made many black leaders furious.
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As reported by FOX News, Rev. Talbert Swan II, expressing his distaste for the comparison of gay marriage to the civil rights movement, said :
"Homosexuality is a chosen lifestyle. I could not choose the color of my skin." .
Mychael Massie, a conservative black columnist, and member of Project 21, a political alliance of conservative blacks, said in his column for WorldNetDaily:
"It is an outrage to align something as offensive as this with the struggle of a fallen man, a great man, such as Martin Luther King Jr."
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"The whole thing runs much deeper and more insidious than 'We just want to get married'.
They want to change the whole social order."
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Alvin Williams, President and CEO of Black America's Political Action Committee, said that
"The gay marriage issue looks like an equal rights issue at first glance. But it becomes a special rights issue after closer examination. Because it's about behavior, not ethnicity." .
~
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So once again, arguments comparing this to civil rights is proven to be manipulative deceitful spin.
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The need for liberals to call any dissenters to their view on the issue "ignorant" just shows their own ignorance on display.
It is ignorant for you to feel a need to call others "ignorant". And an attempt to emotionally divert from the true issue.
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But regardless, a clear majority of black America disagrees with your posturing comparison.
As I've pointed out at several points in the topic, if those on the liberal side of this discussion would simply read the topic, or even just the most recent 4 or 5 pages, they would see many of their questions already answered.
If people are upset about any comparisons between black & gay civil rights, they Shouldn't direct their ire at the gays but at the people who are attacking gays with the same flawed arguments that were used on African Americans over the years. Make them get some new material!!!
Coretta Scott King Links Gay Rights and African-American Civil Rights
Religious Right: Don't Compare Blacks and Gays
The religious right is terrified that Americans might notice the obvious similarities between the African-American civil rights battle and the fight for equal rights by gay and lesbian Americans. Spokespeople for fundamentalist extremist groups often denounce anyone who might equate the two struggles, as the following recent press release from the Concerned Women for America (CWA) illustrates:
"To compare rich, privileged homosexual lobby groups allied with transsexuals and sadomasochists to brave civil rights crusaders — who risked their lives to advance freedom — insults every black American who overcame real injustice and poverty,” said CWA President Sandy Rios... "It’s time for the homosexual lobby to stop co-opting the black civil rights struggle. The [National Gay and Lesbian] Task Force’s agenda of promoting perversion — including public homosexual sex, sadomasochism and bisexuality — would offend the vast majority of African-Americans who understand the difference between God-designed racial distinctions and changeable, immoral behavior.” - CWA press release, 9/9/02
Coretta Scott King: Homophobia Same as Racism
Of course, there's a reason the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force links the issues of African-American civil rights and gay civil rights: Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King's widow, told them to. In a remarkable address before the Task Force's annual meeting, Mrs. King gave a forceful statement on the importance of gay rights to the overall civil rights struggle (read Mrs. King's entire speech here.)
And this was not the first time Mrs. King made it clear that groups like the Concerned Women for America have no idea what they're talking about when they try to speak on behalf of African-Americans by criticizing the struggle for gay equality. Excerpts of Mrs. King's numerous public statements in favor of gay civil rights are posted below. Please feel free to cite any of the following quotations the next time a far-right extremist dares to speak on behalf of Martin Luther King and America's African-American community:
Make Room At The Table for Lesbian and Gay People
Coretta Scott King, speaking four days before the 30th anniversary of her husband's assassination, said Tuesday the civil rights leader's memory demanded a strong stand for gay and lesbian rights. "I still hear people say that I should not be talking about the rights of lesbian and gay people and I should stick to the issue of racial justice," she said. "But I hasten to remind them that Martin Luther King Jr. said, 'Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.'" "I appeal to everyone who believes in Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream to make room at the table of brother- and sisterhood for lesbian and gay people," she said. - Reuters, March 31, 1998.
Homophobia is Like Racism and Anti-Semitism
Speaking before nearly 600 people at the Palmer House Hilton Hotel, Coretta Scott King, the wife of the late Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Tuesday called on the civil rights community to join in the struggle against homophobia and anti-gay bias. "Homophobia is like racism and anti-Semitism and other forms of bigotry in that it seeks to dehumanize a large group of people, to deny their humanity, their dignity and personhood," King stated. "This sets the stage for further repression and violence that spread all too easily to victimize the next minority group." - Chicago Defender, April 1, 1998, front page.
MLK's Struggle Parallels The Gay Rights Movement
Quoting a passage from her late husband's writing, Coretta Scott King reaffirmed her stance on gay and lesbian rights Tuesday at a luncheon celebrating the 25 anniversary of the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund, a national gay rights organization. "We are all tied together in a single garment of destiny . . . I can never be what I ought to be until you are allowed to be what you ought to be," she said, quoting her husband. "I've always felt that homophobic attitudes and policies were unjust and unworthy of a free society and must be opposed by all Americans who believe in democracy," King told 600 people at the Palmer House Hilton, days before the 30th anniversary of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination on April 4, 1968. She said the civil rights movement "thrives on unity and inclusion, not division and exclusion." Her husband's struggle parallels that of the gay rights movement, she said. - Chicago Sun Times, April 1, 1998, p.18.
Mrs. King is Outspoken Supporter of Gay and Lesbian People
"For many years now, I have been an outspoken supporter of civil and human rights for gay and lesbian people," King said at the 25th Anniversary Luncheon for the Lambda Legal Defense and Education Fund.... "Gays and lesbians stood up for civil rights in Montgomery, Selma, in Albany, Ga. and St. Augustine, Fla., and many other campaigns of the Civil Rights Movement," she said. "Many of these courageous men and women were fighting for my freedom at a time when they could find few voices for their own, and I salute their contributions." - Chicago Tribune, April 1, 1998, sec.2, p.4.
Sexual Orientation is a Fundamental Human Rights
We have a lot more work to do in our common struggle against bigotry and discrimination. I say “common struggle” because I believe very strongly that all forms of bigotry and discrimination are equally wrong and should be opposed by right-thinking Americans everywhere. Freedom from discrimination based on sexual orientation is surely a fundamental human right in any great democracy, as much as freedom from racial, religious, gender, or ethnic discrimination. - Coretta Scott King, remarks, Opening Plenary Session, 13th annual Creating Change conference of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Atlanta, Georgia, November 9, 2000.
We Need a National Campaign Against Homophobia
"We have to launch a national campaign against homophobia in the black community," said Coretta Scott King, widow of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., the slain civil rights leader. - Reuters, June 8, 2001.
Justice is Indivisible
For too long, our nation has tolerated the insidious form of discrimination against this group of Americans, who have worked as hard as any other group, paid their taxes like everyone else, and yet have been denied equal protection under the law.... I believe that freedom and justice cannot be parceled out in pieces to suit political convenience. My husband, Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” On another occasion he said, “I have worked too long and hard against segregated public accommodations to end up segregating my moral concern. Justice is indivisible.” Like Martin, I don’t believe you can stand for freedom for one group of people and deny it to others. So I see this bill as a step forward for freedom and human rights in our country and a logical extension of the Bill of Rights and the civil rights reforms of the 1950’s and ‘60’s. The great promise of American democracy is that no group of people will be forced to suffer discrimination and injustice. - Coretta Scott King, remarks, press conference on the introduction of ENDA, Washington, DC, June 23, 1994.
The president's support of a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage is stepping up their fundraising efforts to fight the proposal.
By Johanna Neuman, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — David Catania used to display a photograph on a side table in his office, in which President Bush, standing next to First Lady Laura Bush, spread his arms wide to embrace Catania on one side and his partner, Brian, on the other.
But last month when Bush endorsed a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, Catania felt betrayed. "To enshrine us as second-class citizens is a deal breaker," he said. "My partner and I have been to Crawford. The president was so gracious to Brian and me. I don't believe in my heart for a minute this is something he wants to do."
Now, the photo lies face down in a bottom drawer, a symbol of the disconnect between a 36-year-old Republican councilman in the nation's capital and a conservative president juggling the demands of disparate constituencies, from conservative Christians who oppose gay marriage to moderates offended by intolerance.
For Catania and other gay Republicans, the issue of same-sex marriage — thrust center stage by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the mayor of San Francisco — has provoked an identity crisis. Conservative on fiscal and foreign policy, they are not natural Democrats. But they say they are wounded, feeling rejected by their own GOP family.
"I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach," said Mark Mead of the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay organization. He said the arguments against gay marriage reminded him of the efforts to block interracial marriage more than 30 years ago, when he was growing up in Mississippi. "Those words of intolerance ring as hollow and untrue today as they did then," Mead said.
The raw emotion kicked up by the issue is affecting the presidential campaign in ways that no one anticipated. Ever since Bush endorsed a ban on same-sex unions, money has been pouring in to gay rights groups in record amounts.
The Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, which has recruited gay political candidates and raised money for them since 1991, reports a 200% increase in contributions to gay and lesbian candidates. The Log Cabin Republicans, which is fighting the ban, reports it is getting hundreds of thousands of dollars a week in donations.
"There is a huge energy created that I've never seen before," said Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign, which promotes gay rights. "Will it translate into ground troops? It's a little too early to tell. But there is a kind of focused sense within the gay community on the election."Social conservatives also are energized by the issue. And experts on campaign finance say the Bush campaign is not in danger of feeling the pinch from disaffected gay donors because the campaign has already raised more than $143 million of its target of $170 million.
Still, proponents of same-sex unions are warning both parties that money from gay donors may dry up for candidates who side against them on the issue. It may go instead to fund efforts to defeat constitutional amendments at the national and state levels. Already, the Log Cabin Republicans have launched a television ad campaign against the proposed federal amendment, which is running in swing states and could color voter attitudes toward Bush.
"Fighting these constitutional amendments at the state and federal level is going to take financial clout," Dave DeCicco of the Victory Fund said. "Gay voters are targeting their contributions."
If this is war, Catania is an unexpected warrior. A rare Republican in the District of Columbia's Democrat-laden political establishment, he has made his reputation over the last seven years by bringing private sector values to city government, winning bipartisan approval of new approaches to drug rehabilitation and to attracting businesses to the city.
A tiger of a fundraiser, Catania has collected so much money for Bush's reelection — as much as $75,000 by his own estimate — that the campaign recently honored him and a dozen others with a private luncheon at the stately Hay-Adams Hotel in Washington and a private strategy briefing at Bush-Cheney headquarters in Virginia. He says he could have raised much more, drawing from his contacts as a lawyer in Washington's political and legal circles.
When the White House backed a constitutional amendment to protect heterosexual marriage, Catania was so angry that he flirted with the idea of becoming an independent. He hosted a fundraiser for a Democrat — Cheryl Rivers, a supporter of civil unions who is running for lieutenant governor in Vermont.
And he toyed with the idea of creating a website that would invite gays and like-minded allies to register their names and the amount of their contributions to the Bush-Cheney campaign and then seek a refund.
Now, he said, his anger has hardened into a plan of action. "I intend to remain in the party, but I will fight anyone who attempts to write discrimination into our Constitution," he said in an interview. He plans to go to the Republican Convention in New York as a member of the District of Columbia's delegation and of the party platform committee, not only to advocate gay rights but to trumpet GOP solutions to urban problems.
"I have carried my party's banner, I have fought for lower taxes, I have applied our principles to urban problems," he said. "There is not another gay Republican who has given more, with more to say."
A native of Kansas City, Mo., Catania was always a bit of a maverick. An only child, he was raised by his mother, who introduced him to GOP politics — and politicians. In high school, he was elected the state's "youth governor" — this while John Ashcroft, now U.S. attorney general, was the governor.
In college, Catania interned for a Republican, Sen. John C. Danforth of Missouri, and for a Democrat, then-professor Madeleine Albright, who became President Clinton's secretary of State. He remembers standing on the convention floor in New Orleans in 1988, listening to Ronald Reagan give his farewell address, thinking he was surrounded by family, the extended political family of Republicans.
He delayed starting law school to be with his mother while she was dying of ovarian cancer. He told his mother before she died that he was gay.
He also confided in a veteran political hand in Missouri politics. They were sitting in the operative's kitchen, late at night, sharing a drink, when he told her a friend of his had tried to commit suicide.
"Which of the two 'G's' was it?" she asked, "Grades or girls?"
"A third 'G,' " he replied. "He is gay."
Then Catania told his political mentor that he too was gay.
"Well," she said, "that takes care of the fourth 'G.' "
When he asked what that was, she replied, "You'll never be governor of Missouri."
When he returned to Washington to finish his schooling, he knew that she was right: A gay Republican had a limited future in Missouri, which the Victory Fund lists as one of 27 states without any openly gay office-holders. Catania clerked for two administrative law judges at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and then became an energy attorney for Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, one of Washington's top firms.
Then, in 1997, at the age of 29, a white Republican in a city of black Democrats, he decided to run for an at-large seat on the District of Columbia council.
Washington's political registration is 88% Democratic. The incumbent, Arrington Dixon, the former husband of the former mayor, was black, Democratic and a favorite with the gay community.
In the end, it wasn't even close — Catania won, 43% to 37%. "We caught them sleeping," he said. Catania won the gay vote and Dixon the black vote, but black turnout was low. Catania has twice won reelection easily.
"He is extremely smart, with a strong work ethic," said Alice Rivlin, the Brookings Institution economist who served on the board that directed the District of Columbia's finances in the late 1990s. "I've worked with him on taxes and economic development. Gay is not part of the persona he projects — this would be a departure."
Publicly challenging the Republican Party and the president he worked hard to elect is unquestionably new turf for Catania.
He cast his first vote for president in 1988, for the president's father, George H.W. Bush.
"Some gays will never forgive me for being Republican," he said. "Some social conservatives will never forgive me for being gay. And the only person you have to please is the one in the mirror."
During the baseball strike of 1994, Catania, a Kansas City Royals fan, was angry at the players. One of the judges he clerked for teased him, calling him "the only kid in America who sided with the owners."
Surveys taken around the nation and in California indicate that large percentages of African Americans disapprove of gay marriage and support a constitutional amendment banning such unions.
A national Gallup Poll last month found that more than half of African Americans favored a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
A Los Angeles Times exit poll showed higher percentages of African Americans than whites or Asian Americans voted for Proposition 22, the 2000 initiative that defined marriage in California as between a man and a woman.
And a Field Poll of California voters last month, taken after San Francisco began offering same-sex marriage certificates, suggested that African Americans resist gay marriage and endorse a constitutional amendment against it by wider margins than other ethnic groups.
The only poll source sorted was the unapologetically conservative L.A. Times. Talk about writing an article with a slant.
Quote: From Dave the Wonder Boy:
It indicated that 60% of blacks oppose gay weddings. . And further, 51% oppose gay civil unions as well.
So only approximately 9% of those polled who opposed to gay weddings would even allow for civil unions, eh? Nice!
Also...
Quote: From Wednesday:
2) Today's "black leaders" are generally pathetic and unworthy of discussion, especially the ones that are in the media and have voiced opinions. A great number of them are attention-seekers and not much more.
3) I also don't believe that most black people (or Americans in general) could tell you the real definition of civil rights. Being black does not make you an authority on civil rights; education does. I would venture that most people would equate civil rights with black suffrage. Their answers are uninformed.
Dave, I have this idea worked out. I don't know how familar you are with America Law, but is what I am proposing make any sense? Just read on:
Church and State are seperate things. So, let's say I am going to marry...Ben Affleck...at my old Catholic church back home (hey, I can dream, can't I). Now, I get married in my church, the church says I'm married, yadda yadda yadda, all our children are born in wedlock, I can take Communion, I can have sex, yadda yadda yadda...
But that's a Church marriage. Now let's say that Ben and I want to be recognized as a legal couple. We want the legal benefits of being a couple. Which means stuff like taxes, hospital visitations, yadda yadda yadda (I think Wednesday listed the benefits for me early on in this topic). So now we get a legal union. I change my last name to Affleck and we pay more taxes.
Now, homosexuals would be included in the civil unions. The civil union doesn't define a couple by their ability to raise a family (which is the tradition reason for getting married). Each church is a private organization, so they can say no to homosexuals marrying in their churches.
In short...Church marriages are ordained by God...Civil Unions are ordained by judges.
This article isn't an exciting read, but it is an interesting interpretaion.
Quote: Selma to San Francisco? Same-sex marriage is not a civil rights issue.
BY SHELBY STEELE Saturday, March 20, 2004 12:01 a.m. EST
It is always both a little flattering and more than a little annoying to blacks when other groups glibly invoke the civil rights movement and all its iconic imagery to justify their agendas for social change. I will never forget, nor forgive, the feminist rallying cry of the early '70s: "Woman as nigger." Here upper-middle-class white women--out of what must have been an impenetrable conviction in their own innocence--made an entire race into a metaphor for wretchedness in order to steal its thunder.
And now gay marriage is everywhere being defined as a civil rights issue. In San Francisco, gay couples on the steps of city hall cast themselves as victims of bigotry who must now be given the "right" to legally marry in the name of "equality" and "social justice." In the media, these couples have been likened to the early civil rights heroes whose bravery against police dogs and water hoses pushed America into becoming a better country. "I don't want to be on the wrong side of history," a San Francisco radio host said about gay marriage. "Maybe we're looking at thousands of Rosa Parks over at city hall."
So, dressing gay marriage in a suit of civil rights has become the standard way of selling it to the broader public. Here is an extremely awkward issue having to do with the compatibility of homosexuality and the institution of marriage. But once this issue is buttoned into a suit of civil rights, neither homosexuality nor marriage need be discussed. Suddenly only equity and fairness matter. And this turns gay marriage into an ersatz civil rights struggle so that dissenters are seen as Neanderthals standing in the schoolhouse door, fighting off equality itself. Yet all this civil rights camouflage is, finally, a bait-and-switch: When you agree to support fairness, you end up supporting gay marriage.
But gay marriage is simply not a civil rights issue. It is not a struggle for freedom. It is a struggle of already free people for complete social acceptance and the sense of normalcy that follows thereof--a struggle for the eradication of the homosexual stigma. Marriage is a goal because, once open to gays, it would establish the fundamental innocuousness of homosexuality itself. Marriage can say like nothing else that sexual orientation is an utterly neutral human characteristic, like eye-color. Thus, it can go far in diffusing the homosexual stigma.
***
In the gay marriage movement, marriage is more a means than an end, a weapon against stigma. That the movement talks very little about the actual institution of marriage suggests that it is driven more by this longing to normalize homosexuality itself than by something compelling in marriage. The happiness that one saw in the faces of the newly married in San Francisco seemed to come primarily from the achievement (if only illusory) of ordinariness. After all, many of them had lived together into old age. Love does not require marriage but, for gays, ordinariness does. And happiness for these couples was in the imprimatur of ordinariness. But marriage is only one means to innocuousness. The civil rights framework is another. To say that gay marriage is a civil rights issue is to imply that homosexuality is the same sort of human difference as race. And even geneticists now accept that race is so superficial a human difference as to be nothing more than a "social construct." In other words, racial difference has been made officially innocuous in our culture, and its power to stigmatize has been greatly reduced. Evidence of this is seen in the steady, yet unremarked, rise in interracial marriage rates for all of our races. So if gay marriage, like race, is about civil rights, then homosexuality is a human difference every bit as innocuous. Thus, America should treat homosexuality like it treats race and give gays the "right" to marry as it once gave blacks the right to vote.
So gays benefit from the comparison to both race and civil rights, and this has provoked hostility and even outrage in black America. Black leaders as liberal as Jesse Jackson have distanced themselves from the gay marriage issue, and among black churches an actual movement against gay marriage is unfolding. There is a religious dimension to this, but more broadly there is a simple resentment at having blackness implicitly compared to homosexuality.
The civil rights movement argued that it was precisely the utter innocuousness of racial difference that made segregation an injustice. Racism was evil because it projected a profound difference where there was none--white supremacy, black inferiority--for the sole purpose of exploiting blacks. But there is a profound difference between homosexuality and heterosexuality. In the former, sexual and romantic desire is focused on the same sex, in the latter on the opposite sex. Natural procreation is possible only for heterosexuals, a fact of nature that obligates their sexuality to no less a responsibility than the perpetuation of the species. Unlike racial difference, these two sexual orientations are profoundly--not innocuously--different. Racism projects a false difference in order to exploit. Homophobia is a reactive prejudice against a true and firm difference that already exists.
Institutions that arise to accommodate these two sexual orientations can never be exactly the same. Across time and cultures, marriage has been a heterosexual institution grounded in the procreative function and the responsibilities of parenthood--this more than in either love or adult fulfillment. Marriage is simply the arrangement by which humans perpetuate the species, whether or not they find fulfillment in it.
***
The true problem with gay marriage is that it consigns gays to a life of mimicry and pathos. It shoehorns them into an institution that does not reflect the best possibilities of their own sexual orientation. Gay love is freed from the procreative burden. It has no natural function beyond adult fulfillment in love. If this is a disadvantage when children are desired, it is likely an advantage when they are not--which is more often the case. In any case, gays can never be more than pretenders to an institution so utterly grounded in procreation. And dressing gay marriage in a suit of civil rights only consigns gays to yet another kind of mimicry. Stigma, not segregation, is the problem gays face. But insisting on a civil rights framework only leads gays into protest. But will protest affect stigma? Is "gay lovers as niggers" convincing? Protest is trying to hit the baseball with the glove. The problem with so much mimicry is that it keeps gays from evolving institutions and rituals that reflect the true nature of homosexuality. Assuming, as I do, that gays should have the option of civil unions that afford them the legal prerogatives of marriage, isn't it more important after that to allow quiet self-acceptance to lead the way to authentic institutions?
The stigmatization of homosexuals is wrong and makes no contribution to the moral health of our society. I was never worried for my children because they grew up knowing a gay couple that lived across the street, or because several family friends were gay. They learned early what we all know: that homosexuality is as permanent a feature of the human condition as heterosexuality. Nothing is gained in denying this. But neither should we deny that the two are inherently different. The gay marriage movement denies this difference in order to borrow "normalcy" from marriage. Thus, it is a movement born more of self-denial than self-acceptance, as if on some level it agrees with those who see gays as abnormal.
Mr. Steele, a fellow of the Hoover Institution, is author of "A Dream Deferred: The Second Betrayal of Black Freedom in America" (HarperCollins, 1998).
The problem is in the historic relationship of civil and church marriage -- civil marriage law, like much of American and other Western jurisprudence -- is evolved in part from canonical law. Civil marriage stills carries a stigma of permanence and solidarity from its roots in canonical marriage. The problem of civil unions and such are the question of taking civil marriage from its closely related status and see what that does to the perception of both heterosexual and homosexual marriage alike.
Ita a sticky thicket I personally don't like to comment much upon. I personally sympathize with the legitimate feelngs many gays have on the subject, but am still very keen on the rpeservation of our social institutions.
CHICAGO - Blake Wilkinson was puzzled when he saw the young 20-something mixed among a group of graying anti-gay marriage protesters.
"It struck me — it just seemed she was out of place," says Wilkinson, a 22-year-old junior at DePaul University, who was standing on the opposite side of a downtown Chicago street to demand marriage licenses for same-sex couples from the county clerk.
As a young, gay man, Wilkinson is well aware that the majority of Americans are against giving same-sex couples the right to marry. "But generally, they're, well ..." he says pausing, "older."
Polls show there's some truth to Wilkinson's impression.
While the majority of Americans oppose legalizing same-sex marriage, people younger than 30 have consistently been more supportive of it than their elders.
For instance, a poll taken last month for the National Annenberg Election Survey at the University of Pennsylvania showed that just over half of people ages 18 to 29 would oppose a law in their states that would allow lesbians and gay men to marry a same-sex partner. That compares with 61 percent of 30- to 44-year-olds; two-thirds of 45- to 64-year-olds; and 81 percent of those 65 and older.
The poll also found that fewer than half of those younger than 30 supported a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
Experts say the difference in attitudes can largely be tracked to young people's exposure to homosexuality in everyday life.
They grew up with gay activists protesting to get AIDS (news - web sites) patients access to the latest drugs — and as government officials debated the issue of "don't ask, don't tell" in the military. Celebrities such as Melissa Etheridge and Ellen DeGeneres came out, and many TV shows have incorporated gay characters and themes.
"Young people have a different idea of what is normal," says Frank Furstenberg, a University of Pennsylvania sociologist and senior research scholar at the Council on Contemporary Families.
It's a notion that concerns conservatives, some of whom are working to counter what they see as society's drift toward "normalizing" homosexuality. Meanwhile, the trend fascinates Furstenberg and other academics. They wonder what the world will be like for lesbian and gay couples a couple decades from now.
"These young people will one day become policy-makers, CEOs, religious leaders, parents and teachers," says Caitlin Ryan, a clinical social worker at San Francisco State University who studies gay, lesbian and bisexual youth and their families.
For now, the younger generation is clearly split.
Matt Haltzman, a high school freshman in Barrington, R.I., says he doesn't think gay activists "need to be creating laws or creating a big ordeal." He says he firmly believes what he's learned in his Jewish religion classes: "Marriage is between a man and a woman."
But other young people say that knowing someone who is gay or lesbian has caused them to rethink their views. "We should be promoting love, while it lasts — and preventing hate," says Tara Laskowski, a 26-year-old graduate student at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.
Others wish politicians would turn their focus elsewhere.
"First, I want to feel that when I graduate next year, I will be able to find a decent, good-paying job," says Gabe LeDonne, a junior at Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. He's been discussing such issues in a nonpartisan, campaign 2004 focus group and says same-sex marriage was among the easiest matters to agree upon.
"The group didn't see much difference between this and the discrimination of blacks through the 1960s in the name of 'separate but equal,'" the 22-year-old says.
Those against same-sex marriage, however, think such young people are making a mistake.
"They are buying into it at higher rates than older generations, many of whom are married and understand from experience why it's important to have a mother and a father," says 25-year-old Scott Davis (news - external web site), youth director for Exodus International, a Florida-based group that promotes "freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ."
Michele Ammons, spokeswoman for the Christian Coalition, finds hope in the fact that some younger generations, particularly teens, are showing an interest in more conservative religious values. She points to the fact that many are flocking to see the Mel Gibson movie "The Passion of the Christ."
"I think this is a very smart generation that is going back to traditional values because so many of them haven't had that," she says.
Yet Anne Ledford, a student at Centre College in Danville, Ky., says it was her "very conservative" church upbringing that prompted her to accept the idea of marriage for same-sex couples.
"It's ironic now because my family does not, in any way, condone gays or gay marriage," the 22-year-old senior says. "Yet it was my parents and their church that taught me to love people different than me."
"Ita a sticky thicket I personally don't like to comment much upon. I personally sympathize with the legitimate feelngs many gays have on the subject, but am still very keen on the rpeservation of our social institutions."
It used to be a social institution that white men could own black men and women, that women were disenfranchised, that children could work in sweatshops, that there were Debtors' Prisons....
See my point? Times change. We hope we can grow and become enlightened as a society...
But a slim majority of Americans still oppose adoptions by same-sex couples and favor a constitutional ban on homosexual marriage.
By Elizabeth Mehren, Times Staff Writer
Gays and lesbians have experienced a dramatic rise in acceptance over the last two decades, according to a Los Angeles Times poll.
Almost seven in 10 Americans know someone who is gay or lesbian and say they would not be troubled if their elementary school-age child had a homosexual teacher. Six in 10 say they are sympathetic to the gay community, displaying an increasing inclination to view same-sex issues through a prism of societal accommodation rather than moral condemnation.
On questions ranging from job discrimination to role models to whether homosexuality is morally wrong, responses indicate that as gays and lesbians have become more open, heterosexuals in return have become more open toward them. A key exception is same-sex marriage — supported by only one in four.
The change has come within one generation. In two Times Polls in the mid-1980s and other data from the same era, the level of sympathy toward gays and lesbians was half what it is today.
"The stigma of being gay is disappearing," said Gary Gates, a demographer at the Urban Institute in Washington. "This is a huge change. Gay people in general are feeling more comfortable in society — and society is feeling more comfortable with gay people."
The fact that 69% of those polled by The Times said they know a gay or lesbian — up from 46% in 1985 — is particularly significant, Gates said. "Being gay is no longer an abstraction. It's my friend, my neighbor, my brother, my office-mate."
The Times poll showed that women tended to be slightly more sympathetic toward gays and lesbians than men, and the survey affirmed a polarization that puts liberals and conservatives at opposite ends of a broad spectrum.
The poll also found a profound gulf in attitudes between older and younger Americans. Compared with those over 65, respondents between 18 and 29 were so much more favorably disposed toward gays and lesbians that, Gates said, over time, "many of these issues are simply not going to be issues any longer."
But resistance remains in some areas.
A slight majority opposed adoption by same-sex couples.
And 72% opposed same-sex marriage — an issue that has driven the subject of homosexual rights to the forefront as Massachusetts, because of a state Supreme Judicial Court ruling, prepares to allow gays and lesbians to marry next month.
The issue also prompted President Bush to support a constitutional amendment restricting marriage to a union between a man and a woman. The poll found 51% supported such an amendment. An overwhelming 69% of conservatives voiced support and 70% of liberals were in opposition.
Yet the nationwide survey showed that regardless of their own feelings on the subject, 59% of respondents believe legal recognition of marriage for same-sex couples is inevitable.
Among those in the 18-to-29 age group, 71% said legal recognition of same-sex marriage is inevitable. These young Americans were more than four times as likely to support same-sex marriage as those over 65, the poll found.
"When we were young[er], the world was changing and we didn't have a problem with that. We thought it was fine. If someone was gay, that was fine too," said poll respondent Christine Claesgens, 25.
Claesgens, a waitress in Portland, Ore., predicted that when she is 65, same-sex marriage "might still be an interesting topic. But I don't think it will be a problem."
The Times Poll, supervised by polling director Susan Pinkus, surveyed 1,616 adults nationwide March 27-30. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The poll produced a variety of strong responses that reflect expanding acceptance of gays and lesbians:
• 61% say a homosexual would make a good role model for a child.
• 72% favor laws to protect homosexuals from job discrimination and 74% favor laws to protect gays and lesbians from housing discrimination.
• 62% say gays and lesbians should get the same civil rights protections as women and minorities.
• 70% say the military should not discharge gays or lesbians.
• 62% say their community accepts gays and lesbians.
• 65% say they can accept gays and lesbians living together.
But John P. DeCecco, editor of a quarterly publication in San Francisco called the Journal of Homosexuality, characterized the growing tolerance as "an uneasy acceptance."
Heterosexuals remain "very sensitive as to whether their friends and colleagues are gay," said DeCecco, a 79-year-old professor emeritus at San Francisco State University who for decades taught classes on sexuality.
But "there is less rejection on that basis than there has been in the past," he said. "They would not make that the only basis for rejection."
The tenuous nature of the new tolerance is reflected by the angst over same-sex marriage, DeCecco said. In The Times poll, 24% of respondents said gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry. Another 38% said gays and lesbians should be allowed to form civil unions but not marry, and 34% said same-sex couples should not be allowed to marry or form civil unions.
Among those who approved of same-sex marriage, the age gap was pronounced — as was the extreme discrepancy in views between self-described liberals and conservatives.
Within the 18-to-29 age group, 44% supported same-sex marriage — against 10% of those 65 and older. Among liberals, slightly more than half endorsed marriage for gays and lesbians. For conservatives, the figure was 7%.
Poll respondent James F. McNamara, 73, said he was resigned to the idea that "some kind of union will happen" for gays and lesbians.
"But I hope it's not called marriage," said McNamara, a retired computer programmer in Connecticut. "I just think marriage per se should be between a man and a woman, and it is basically for creating a family — for sexual intercourse — and for raising a family."
Far from acceptance, the notion among many Americans that the legalization of same-sex unions is unavoidable shows that "most people just feel there is nothing they can do about it," said Jan LaRue, chief counsel in Washington for Concerned Women for America, an advocacy organization that seeks to bring a Christian perspective to public policy.
"People recognize that we are facing judicial activists, such as in Massachusetts, and renegade mayors and public officials, such as we have seen in San Francisco, Oregon and New York," LaRue said. "And despite whatever it means to be sympathetic to the gay community, the vast majority do not want their children to live in that lifestyle."
In The Times poll, 60% said they would be upset if their child were gay or lesbian — down from 73% in a national poll in June 2000. In a 1983 poll, the figure was 90%.
About a third in this latest survey said homosexuality is something people are born with, while 14% said it was something that develops because of the way people are raised, and 35% called it a lifestyle preference. Twenty years ago, 16% said gays were born that way.
The Times poll also showed that slightly more than half the respondents believe homosexual orientation can be changed in just a few cases, or never. Just over a third said homosexual orientation could be changed some or most of the time. Forty-nine percent of conservatives, however, and 43% of non-Catholic Christians said homosexual orientation could be changed in most or some cases.
Nearly three in five of those surveyed said same-sex relationships are "against God's will."
In the Chicago suburb of Aurora, poll participant Mel Rauch, 38, called being gay or lesbian "a life choice, instead of a lifestyle. I feel it is not something you are born with and I think it is improper behavior."
Rauch, an engineer, said he has warned his three children that if they "turned homosexual," he would disinherit them — "because if my child was to choose that lifestyle, basically my bloodline would end with that child and not continue on. Why give him an inheritance that he is just going to have to give to the state someday?"
Asked about the causes of homosexuality, poll respondent Kathleen Halbrook said: "I don't understand it, really. I don't know if it's something they picked up because they wanted to do it, or what."
Halbrook, 80, lives near Memphis, Tenn., and has a family that includes 22 great-grandchildren.
She said she did not know what she would say to a child "with that problem," homosexuality.
"There are enough complications in life without that," she said. "But if someone is like that, what could you do about it?"
The Times poll found 52% oppose adoption by same-sex couples. In a national survey from 1992, 63% said gays and lesbians should not be allowed to adopt children. But support for adoption by same-sex couples rose to 40% in the current poll, up from 23% in the earlier poll.
In the 18-to-29 age group, 54% said they favored adoption by same-sex couples, while 70% of those over 65 opposed it. Sixty-five percent of liberals and 56% of Catholics said they favored same-sex adoptions. But 73% of conservatives and 63% of non-Catholic Christians opposed such adoptions.
Nearly two-thirds of poll respondents said watching gay and lesbian characters on television has not changed their feelings toward homosexuals. Slightly more than half said gay and lesbian issues received too much attention in the media, and more than seven in 10 said they had closely followed the recent debates about same-sex marriage.
Older people were much more likely to say they would not watch television programs with homosexual characters.
Frances Kata, 74, said she was annoyed by the news onslaught, as well as the appearance of homosexual characters on TV shows like "Will & Grace." Kata, a poll respondent who lives near Philadelphia, said the attention generated by gays and lesbians was disproportionate to their numbers.
"And they are practically committing anarchy with what they are doing. It is just not peaceful, these people going and blatantly getting married, all this nonsense," said Kata, who sold real estate before retiring.
The poll showed that people are five times as likely to say that knowing a gay or lesbian person has made a positive change in their attitude as compared to those who say it has a negative effect.
Knowing a gay or lesbian person also made respondents less likely to be upset about having a homosexual child. They also were less worried about letting their children spend time in households where a gay or lesbian resided, and less concerned about permitting their children to read books featuring gay or lesbian characters.
Familiarity also has broken down political barriers. Almost six in 10 respondents in The Times poll said they would be willing to vote for a gay or lesbian candidate.
"It all boils down to a single premise: that it is far harder to hate and discriminate against someone you know than someone you don't know," said Cheryl Jacques, president of the nation's largest gay and lesbian advocacy organization, the Human Rights Campaign in Washington. "And more and more people, as this poll shows, know gay people in their family, in their community and in their workplace."
"This has helped people to understand that the majority of gay and lesbian people, many raising children — like my family — are pretty darned normal," said Jacques, who lives with her female partner and their two young sons.
"Our household runs on Cheerios and bedtimes and choosing schools and reading books at home together," she said.
Jacques said she could easily envision a world where her two boys, Timmy and Tommy, would not have to explain a household with two mothers.
"Absolutely, and I don't think it will take that long," she said. "I think the resistance to [gay] marriage is going to turn around very quickly. By and large, the vast majority of Americans do not think twice about an interracial couple or a mixed-religious couple — things that to our parents' generation were taboo. There will be a whole generation that will not think twice about the moms next door."
Poll respondent Rodney Lawrence, 23, an insurance worker in central Illinois, said he had several gay friends. He said he viewed stigmatizing homosexuals as "just like being prejudiced. People that are prejudiced, they look at someone of another race as a lower value — and that is how some people see gays and lesbians."
Besides, Lawrence said, "When it comes down to love, it's just about what a person feels in their heart. And no one else really has a say in what you feel in your heart."
David Reimer, the Canadian man raised as a girl for most of the first 14 years of his life in a highly touted medical experiment that seemed to resolve the debate over the cultural and biological determinants of gender, has died at 38. He committed suicide May 4 in his hometown of Winnipeg, Canada.
At 8 months of age, Reimer became the unwitting subject of "sex reassignment," a treatment method embraced by his parents after his penis was all but obliterated during a botched circumcision. The American doctor whose advice they sought recommended that their son be castrated, given hormone treatments and raised as a girl. The physician, Dr. John Money, supervised the case for several years and eventually wrote a paper declaring the success of the gender conversion.
Known as the "John/Joan" case, it was widely publicized and gave credence to arguments presented in the 1970s by feminists and others that humans are sexually neutral at birth and that sex roles are largely the product of social conditioning.
But, in fact, the gender conversion was far from successful. Money's experiment was a disaster for Reimer that created psychological scars he ultimately could not overcome.
Reimer's story was told in the 2000 book "As Nature Made Him," by journalist John Colapinto. Reimer said he cooperated with Colapinto in the hope that other children could be spared the miseries he experienced.
Reimer was born on Aug. 22, 1965, 12 minutes before his identical twin brother. His working-class parents named him Bruce and his brother Brian. Both babies were healthy and developed normally until they were seven months old, when they were discovered to have a condition called phimosis, a defect in the foreskin of the penis that makes urination difficult.
The Reimers were told that the problem was easily remedied with circumcision. During the procedure at the hospital, a doctor who did not usually perform such operations was assigned to the Reimer babies. She chose to use an electric cautery machine with a sharp cutting needle to sever the foreskin.
But something went terribly awry. Exactly where the error lay — in the machine, or in the user — was never determined. What quickly became clear was that baby Bruce had been irreparably maimed.
(The doctors decided not to try the operation on his brother Brian, whose phimosis later disappeared without treatment.)
The Reimers were distraught. Told that phallic reconstruction was a crude option that would never result in a fully functioning organ, they were without hope until one Sunday evening after the twins' first birthday when they happened to tune in to an interview with Money on a television talk show. He was describing his successes at Johns Hopkins University in changing the sex of babies born with incomplete or ambiguous genitalia.
He said that through surgeries and hormone treatments he could turn a child into whichever sex seemed most appropriate, and that such reassignments were resulting in happy, healthy children.
Money, a Harvard-educated native of New Zealand, had already established a reputation as one of the world's leading sex researchers, known for his brilliance and his arrogance. He was credited with coining the term "gender identity" to describe a person's innate sense of maleness or femaleness.
The Reimers went to see Money, who with unwavering confidence told them that raising Bruce as a girl was the best course, and that they should never say a word to the child about ever having been a boy.
About six weeks before his second birthday, Bruce became Brenda on an operating table at Johns Hopkins. After bringing the toddler home, the Reimers began dressing her like a girl and giving her dolls.
She was, on the surface, an appealing little girl, with round cheeks, curly locks and large, brown eyes. But Brenda rebelled at her imposed identity from the start. She tried to rip off the first dress that her mother sewed for her. When she saw her father shaving, she wanted a razor, too. She favored toy guns and trucks over sewing machines and Barbies. When she fought with her brother, it was clear that she was the stronger of the two. "I recognized Brenda as my sister," Brian was quoted as saying in the Colapinto book. "But she never, ever acted the part."
Money continued to perform annual checkups on Brenda, and despite the signs that Brenda was rejecting her feminized self, Money insisted that continuing on the path to womanhood was the proper course for her.
In 1972, when Brenda was 7, Money touted his success with her gender conversion in a speech to the American Assn. for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., and in the book, "Man & Woman, Boy & Girl," released the same day. The scientists in attendance recognized the significance of the case as readily as Money had years earlier. Because Brenda had an identical male twin, they offered the perfect test of the theory that gender is learned, not inborn.
Money already was the darling of radical feminists such as Kate Millett, who in her bestselling "Sexual Politics" two years earlier had cited Money's writings from the 1950s as proof that "psychosexual personality is therefore postnatal and learned."
Now his "success" was written up in Time magazine, which, in reporting on his speech, wrote that Money's research provided "strong support for a major contention of women's liberationists: that conventional patterns of masculine and feminine behavior can be altered." In other words, nurture had trumped nature.
The Reimer case quickly was written into textbooks on pediatrics, psychiatry and sexuality as evidence that anatomy was not destiny, that sexual identity was far more malleable than anyone had thought possible. Money's claims provided powerful support for those seeking medical or social remedies for gender-based ills.
What went unreported until decades later, however, was that Money's experiment actually proved the opposite — the immutability of one's inborn sense of gender.
Money stopped commenting publicly on the case in 1980 and never acknowledged that the experiment was anything but a glowing success. Dr. Milton Diamond, a sexologist at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, had long been suspicious of Money's claims. He was finally able to locate Reimer through a Canadian psychiatrist who had seen Reimer as a patient.
In an article published in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine in 1997, Diamond and the psychiatrist, Dr. H. Keith Sigmundson, showed how Brenda had steadily rejected her reassignment from male to female. In early adolescence, she refused to continue receiving the estrogen treatments that had helped her grow breasts. She stopped seeing Money. Finally, at 14, she refused to continue living as a girl.
When she confronted her father, he broke down in tears and told her what had happened shortly after her birth. Instead of being angry, Brenda was relieved. "For the first time everything made sense," the article by Diamond and Sigmundson quoted her as saying, "and I understood who and what I was."
She decided to reclaim the identity she was born with by taking male hormone shots and undergoing a double mastectomy and operations to build a penis with skin grafts. She changed her name to David, identifying with the Biblical David who fought Goliath. "It reminded me," David told Colapinto, "of courage."
David developed into a muscular, handsome young man. But the grueling surgeries spun him into periods of depression and twice caused him to attempt suicide. He spent months living alone in a cabin in the woods. At 22, he prayed to God for the first time in his life, begging for the chance to be a husband and father.
When he was 25, he married a woman and adopted her three children. Diamond reported that while the phallic reconstruction was only partially successful, David could have sexual intercourse and experience orgasm. He worked in a slaughterhouse and said he was happily adjusted to life as a man.
In interviews for Colapinto's book, however, he acknowledged a deep well of wrenching anger that would never go away.
"You can never escape the past," he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 2000. "I had parts of my body cut away and thrown in a wastepaper basket. I've had my mind ripped away."
His life began to unravel with the suicide of his brother two years ago. Brian Reimer had been treated for schizophrenia and took his life by overdosing on drugs. David visited his brother's grave every day. He lost his job, separated from his wife and was deeply in debt after a failed investment.
He is survived by his wife, Jane; his parents, and his children.
Despite the hardships he experienced, he said he did not blame his parents for their decision to raise him as a girl. As he told Colapinto, "Mom and Dad wanted this to work so I'd be happy. That's every parent's dream for their child. But I couldn't be happy for my parents. I had to be happy for me. You can't be something that you're not. You have to be you."
Pariah not sure what your reading into the article but I thought it essentially presented a case where a man was switched to female at a very young age. Even with all the right parts & raised as a female, he rejected the fake gender. It suggests to me that sexual gender is less choice but something deeper. Not quite the same thing as sexual orientation but I see many similarities. Nobody I know, woke up and decided they were going to be gay or straight. Sexual orientation seems to be just there.
I was going to wait until someone else got it before I replied.
Actually though, I was wondering what Pariah read into it that he thought it somehow contradicted my stance on the gay debate.
This guys life clearly shows that your sexual identity is something that you're born with. Something ingrained in you so well that you KNOW what you are regardless of outside circumstances and knowlege kept from you. So all this debate about "choosing" to be gay comes off sounding rather bogus.
I know I didn't sit around one day and happen to decide I liked girls. It was just always so. I don't know anyone else who sits there and makes that life choice either, straight or gay. It just is. If this was the case, I want to hear about the day everyone here CHOSE to be what they are. The only way IMO you can choose sexuality is if you happen to be bisexual and you make a choice about a life partner or something.
The reason straight people find homosexuality abhorrent when they think about being with another guy/girl most likely reflects exactly how gay people feel when thinking about being with someone of the opposite gender. I know I find being with another guy abhorrent. Why? Because i'm not gay! It's not rocket science.You just have to stop projecting your own feelings as being "normal" and demanding that this is how everyone else should also feel and comform to and start trying to empathize a little.
The final sentence in that article is wisdom to live by IMO. "You can't be something that you're not. You have to be you."
Quote: NORM MACDONALD: One time I was doing this thing in San Francisco, and they were all gay people in the audience, they told me, and so I figured I would--
DENNIS: In San Francisco? No!
NORM: So I figured I'd do stuff about gay people so that they could relate to it.
DENNIS: Yeah, to warm up.
NORM: Right
DENNIS: They love that.
NORM: And so I was talking about, 'cause I went to this gay pride parade, and I saw in it there were these...uh... old men and old ladies like with these signs that said "We are proud of our gay son." Y'know, And so I was saying, that's an odd thing to be proud of, y'know, because it's not an achievement, y'know? It's not like something you work all your life to be gay, or anything like that. And I just wondered... I just..I had a hard time believing that these fifty, sixty year old men are actually bragging, y'know, at work, like they're, "Hey, uh, Bill, y'know, my kid, oh my god, we're proud of him. Johnny he, uh, graduated from Harvard, y'know, the first in his class, you know what I mean? And now he's articling over at a law firm, and, uh, oh yeah, he loves cock! Y'know, this kid, he can't get enough cock! In his mouth his ass this kid's ...always... I got a...I got a picture of the boy here sucking another man's cock. I wanna show it to you." He can't be proud of that!
DENNIS: To watch the maturation of you as an artist, to realize it took you nine and a half minutes to get around to the sucking cock stuff. It's beautiful to see you comfortable in your own skin, Normy. Alright.
I was going to wait until someone else got it before I replied.
Some of us more enlightened ones got it a long time ago...You don't/can't choose orientation.
Perhaps you can "therapize" your orientation so that you can be comfortable with the opposite sex...but there's no indication that that's a real, substantive, structural change.
Quote: This guys life clearly shows that your sexual identity is something that you're born with. Something ingrained in you so well that you KNOW what you are regardless of outside circumstances and knowlege kept from you. So all this debate about "choosing" to be gay comes off sounding rather bogus.
You're a moron.
The entire article denotes how the kid discovered her true gender, not her sexuality. It went over how she was attracted to girls because she was truly a man. It went over why she played with masculine toys because she was truly a man. It never went over her sexuality never being confused and decided because the entire ideal of attraction is relative from both ends (which is what you're attempting to say with this article).
Oh, and if you're trying to use the fact that she had too many conflicting types of hormones to feel man things, then you're overlooking QUITE A BIT of the male physiology here. The gonads aren't the only things that dictate gender you know...
Quote: Animalman said: The testes are the only thing that produce male hormones, though.
The chance is extraordinarily strong (to the point of it not being just chance) that the testosterone present within the body created without the help of the testes was the cause for his rejection of predicted social evolution. Because the entirety of the male body is DESIGNED to work with testosterone, Reimer’s body probably saw fit to recognize its presence more so than the dominating estrogen. Thus his male habits and turning away from “femalia”.
I know I’m not a scientist, but it wouldn’t be the first time something as anomalous and as similar as this occurred with a person’s hormones. I mean, there have been cases of women body builders having to take constant hormone shots due to regular doses coming up short because their bodies weren’t reacting with it as much as anticipated. I sawed it on the XY-Factor.
And Anti Gay Parade was supposed to happen today in my city. It was mostly young pseudo-neo-nazi people. Opposers to the parade (mostly Punks) got in its way and the nazis pissed their pants and went home.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Pariah not sure what your reading into the article but I thought it essentially presented a case where a man was switched to female at a very young age. Even with all the right parts & raised as a female, he rejected the fake gender. It suggests to me that sexual gender is less choice but something deeper. Not quite the same thing as sexual orientation but I see many similarities. Nobody I know, woke up and decided they were going to be gay or straight. Sexual orientation seems to be just there.
We actually studied that case in my sociology class, going over barbara Risman's book "Gender Vertigo: Families in Transition". There was one particular section that I think provides a lot of insight into what exactly makes gender, and how sex and gender are often a lot different than one might think. I wish I could find it online.
One of my best friends in High School ended up switching genders. He use to dress in the normal drab super smart geek ware, sometimes even with the pocket protector! And his bedroom was wallpapered with Playboy centerfolds. Got married right after HS. Even made it in Who's Who. Looking back, he was really overcompensating! And the price she pays for being a woman is steep. Decreased sexual drive, first dates are always the last one & all her old friends (including me) missing the guy we partied with.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (Reuters) - Same-sex couples will legally exchange vows on Monday when Massachusetts becomes the first U.S. state to allow gay marriage, an election-year milestone likely to fuel legal and political battles nationwide.
Hundreds of gay and lesbian couples are expected to seek marriage licenses as of Monday from city and town clerks in Massachusetts, followed by the customary ringing of church bells and the cutting of wedding cakes -- many topped with the figures of two brides or two grooms.
"May 17 is a historic day: It's the day that marks a new chapter of equality for gay and lesbian families," said gay rights activist Marty Rouse. "For the first time in U.S. history, we can receive the critical legal rights and protections that come only through marriage."
Thousands of same-sex couples were married at San Francisco City Hall earlier this year but the marriages were not recognized by the state of California. A mayor in New York state is being prosecuted after performing gay marriages in February.
As of late afternoon on Sunday, about six gay couples had lined up outside City Hall in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where staff will begin accepting applications at midnight. The first weddings are expected later on Monday morning.
The issue has catapulted Massachusetts into the national spotlight, especially in an election year when its junior senator, Democrat John Kerry , is expected to face Republican President Bush in the race for the White House.
Both candidates oppose gay marriage, with Bush backing a constitutional ban and Kerry favoring limited legal recognition for same-sex couples.
Conservatives have blasted Massachusetts' top court, which ruled last year that a state ban on gay marriage was unconstitutional and allowed same-sex couples to wed legally.
FINAL HURDLE CLEARED
The final hurdle was cleared on Friday when the U.S. Supreme Court failed to block a last-minute legal challenge filed by conservative opponents of same-sex weddings.
A federal appeals court has agreed to hear the case next month, but by that time clerks will probably have granted hundreds of marriage licenses to homosexual couples.
Some may be given to out-of-state gay couples who come to Massachusetts in defiance of Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, who has told them to stay home amid fears his state could become "the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage."
Citing a 1913 state law that prevents Massachusetts from marrying any couple if the marriage would be "void" in their home states, Romney's administration has warned clerks they can issue licenses to out-of-state couples only if they plan on settling in Massachusetts.
Several clerks, noting the statute has not been strictly applied to heterosexual couples, plan on issuing licenses to all gay couples who request them. Gay rights advocates plan to challenge the law, and at least two district attorneys will not prosecute clerks who break the statute, The Boston Sunday Globe reported.
It is expected some couples will take their marriage licenses back to states where they may not be not recognized, setting up legal test cases that courts around America will have to resolve.
"The creation of a right to same-sex marriage in the end will not strengthen the institution of marriage within our society but only weaken it as marriage becomes only one lifestyle choice among many others," said Boston's Roman Catholic archbishop, Sean O'Malley.
Tourism officials in Provincetown, the gay mecca on Cape Cod, say they expect at least $1 million in extra business from a wave of gay unions. Owners of a gay wedding registry, Rainbow Wedding Network, say thousands of couples from New England have signed up for gifts.
BOSTON (Reuters) - Dozens of gays exchanged wedding vows on Monday when Massachusetts became the first U.S. state to allow same-sex marriage, a move hailed by some as a civil rights milestone and denounced by others as a fatal blow to a centuries-old tradition.
President Bush renewed his call for a constitutional amendment banning the unions as Massachusetts joined Belgium, the Netherlands and two Canadian provinces in legalizing gay marriage.
Tanya McCloskey and Marcia Kadish, partners for 18 years, were among the first gay couples in the state to tie the knot in a simple ceremony in the famously liberal enclave of Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"What a way to celebrate the wonderful freedoms in this country. To celebrate in love -- it's fabulous," McCloskey, 52, told reporters. "I'm so proud to be an American."
Cambridge officials conducted at least 22 gay weddings on Monday and Boston officials presided over more than a dozen. Hundreds more are expected across the state in the coming days -- everything from simple beachfront ceremonies to solemn church services -- in what could be a boon to the local economy.
Tearful well-wishers packed the pews at a Boston church to watch the wedding of Robert Compton and David Wilson, one of seven couples whose 2001 lawsuit led to last year's court order permitting same-sex marriage.
The first gay marriages came on the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision ending segregation in public schools, and many see the gay marriage issue as the major civil rights issue of the modern age.
MARRIAGE LICENSES OR 'DEATH CERTIFICATES'?
In a written statement, Bush said marriage should not be "redefined by a few activist judges" -- prompting a gay rights group to liken his stance to the attacks on the justices who upheld African-Americans' civil rights a half-century ago.
"These are different issues and a different generation, but the same old smear tactic," said Kevin Cathcart, executive director of Lambda Legal.
Gay marriage opponents generally kept a low profile as hundreds prepared to wed, but a handful of anti-gay protesters turned out with signs like "God Hates Fags" and some conservative activists cried foul.
"The documents being issued across Massachusetts may say 'marriage license' at the top but they are really death certificates for the institution of marriage as it has served society for thousands of years," said James Dobson, head of Christian group Focus on the Family.
Thousands of same-sex couples were married in San Francisco earlier this year, but the marriages were not recognized by the state of California. A mayor in New York state is being prosecuted after performing gay marriages in February.
Some Massachusetts clerks issued licenses to out-of-state gay couples who came here in defiance of Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, who told them to stay home amid fears his state could become "the Las Vegas of same-sex marriage."
Romney based his warning on a 1913 state law that prevents Massachusetts from marrying any couple if the marriage would be "void" back home -- a statute originally enacted to curb interracial marriage.
John Sullivan and Chris McCary of Anniston, Alabama, were among the first out-of-state couples to wed in Provincetown, a gay seaside resort whose officials ignored Romney's warnings.
Sullivan and McCary said they would try to have their union legalized back home -- a move likely to wind up in court because Alabama does not recognize same-sex unions.
"Our license might not be worth anything in Alabama, but it will some day," said McCary, 43.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said in a legal opinion that same-sex marriages were not legal in the state, while his counterpart in Rhode Island said legal Massachusetts gay marriages would be recognized in his state. (Additional reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss, Mark Wilkinson and Kevin McNicholas)
if bush ignored this he would potentially lose the vote of many religious conservatives. i actually know several people who are basing their November vote on this issue, rather than the war or the economy.
Quote: i actually know several people who are basing their November vote on this issue, rather than the war or the economy
As do I....but are voting against him because of it.
Who are the religious conservatives going to vote for instead of him? He represents the religious conservative mindset. He's their prime candidate He knows where he stands with them. What I think he needed to do was not lose the vote of those on the fence(the middle section of the political spectrum). Ambiguity is a politician's best weapon.
Quote: Animalman said: Ambiguity is a politician's best weapon.
that's true. my argument, simply, is that it's too late for him to be ambiguous.
i believe that, in the eyes of many religious conservatives, he would be worse than kerry if he suddenly dropped the issue. for them, it would equate to pulling out of iraq.
in considering the nation of voters as a whole, though, i agree that it's hurting him more than helping him.
Quote: Wednesday said: i believe that, in the eyes of many religious conservatives, he would be worse than kerry if he suddenly dropped the issue. for them, it would equate to pulling out of iraq.
I'd be non-plussed more like. I'm not about to not vote for him over putting his plans for stopping gay marriage on hold.
Yeah, I doubt that many of those already planning on voting for Bush would have decided not to if he had just kept quiet.
If he had changed his mind and said he wanted the allowance of gay marriage to be universal, then he might have taken a serious hit.
I just don't see the middle-right religious conservative side having a multitude of options. In 2000 it was Nader taking votes from Gore that won Bush the election, so, if anything, it's Kerry that needs to fight to keep votes for his party.
For me, the gay marriage issue plays no role in how I will cast my vote in November. There are FAR bigger issues at stake. Besides, marriage sucks anyway.
Quote: Animalman said: Yeah, I doubt that many of those already planning on voting for Bush would have decided not to if he had just kept quiet.
If he had changed his mind and said he wanted the allowance of gay marriage to be universal, then he might have taken a serious hit.
I just don't see the middle-right religious conservative side having a multitude of options. In 2000 it was Nader taking votes from Gore that won Bush the election, so, if anything, it's Kerry that needs to fight to keep votes for his party.
i suppose that's true. after all, there's a huge overlap between the politically conservative and the religiously conservative. plus, most of the religious conservatives i know lean way to the right.
JAKARTA, Indonesia - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) donned a hard hat and tucked a hammer in his belt Friday to perform a version of the Village People's hit "YMCA" at the conclusion of Asia's largest security meeting — which tradition says ends with a night of skit and song.
Powell danced alongside five other U.S. officials dressed in fancy dress and blasted out a version of the 1970s disco classic to the delight of foreign ministers from across the Asia-Pacific and Europe........
It's funny how some people never catch on to what the lyrics are about.
The debate on the same-sex marriage bill has begun in the Canadian House of Commons (Parliament). There is definitely NOT a consensus on this either in Canada or in Parliament. Just to note my own stance in the debate, I want the traditional definition of marriage to be protected from endless change while also extending the same kinds of benefits that common-law couples get to same-sex couples. It's an incredibly controversial topic to discuss with either side, though.
A couple of excerpts from Opposition leader Stephen Harper's address on Bill C-38:
In our discussion with Canadians we find there are three groups in public opinion.
At the one end there is a significant body of opinion, led today by the Prime Minister, which believes that the equality rights of gays and lesbians trump all other considerations, trumping any rights to religious faith, any religious expression or any multicultural diversity, and that any restriction on the right to same sex marriage is unjustifiable discrimination and a denial of human rights.
At the other end, there is an equally significant body that thinks that marriage is such a fundamental social institution, not only recognized by law but sanctified by faith throughout the world and throughout history, that any compromise in terms of recognizing homosexual relationships is unacceptable.
However, we believe that the vast majority of Canadians believe in some aspects of both and they are somewhere in the middle. They believe that marriage is a fundamental distinct institution, but that same sex couples can have equivalent rights and benefits and should be recognized and protected.
We believe that our proposals speak to the majority of Canadians who stand in this middle ground and frankly, who seek such a middle ground. Our proposal is that the law should continue to recognize the traditional definition of marriage as the union of one man and one woman to the exclusion of all others, but at the same time we would propose that other forms of union, however structured, by appropriate provincial legislation, whether called registered partnerships, domestic partnerships, civil unions or whatever, should be entitled to the same legal rights, privileges and obligations as marriage.
Many of these types of unions are already subject to provincial jurisdiction under their responsibility for civil law. However, there are issues affecting rights and benefits within the federal domain, and our party would ensure that for all federal purposes those Canadians living in other forms of union would be recognized as having equal rights and benefits under federal law as well.
What we put forward, in my judgment, is the real Canadian way. The Canadian way is not the blindly, ideological interpretation of the charter put forward by the Prime Minister. It is not a case where one side utterly vanquishes the other in a difficult debate on social issues. It is a constructive way, and as debate in other jurisdictions has shown, and I draw this to the attention of the House, this debate will not reach a conclusion or social peace until equal rights, multicultural diversity and religious freedom are balanced.
We also oppose the government's bill because it is a clear threat to religious freedom. We are proposing amendments that will prevent any religious discrimination within the sphere of federal authority.
This bill, by failing to find a reasonable compromise, a reasonable middle ground on the central question of marriage, is fundamentally flawed.
...
The government has also claimed and is still claiming that marriage between persons of the same sex is a fundamental right. That is another erroneous opinion and a totally specious argument the government wants to spread. Government spokespersons bring disgrace on themselves, however, when they wrongly try to invoke the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to cover up their threadbare arguments.
I want to address an even more fundamental question. That is the question of the issue of human rights as it pertains to same sex marriage and the use and the abuse of the term ?human rights? in this debate which has been almost without precedent.
Fundamental human rights are not a magician's hat from which new rabbits can constantly be pulled out. The basic human rights we hold dear: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, and equality before the law, the kind of rights that are routinely violated by the Prime Minister's good friends in states such as Libya and China, are well understood and recognized around the world. These rights do not depend on Liberal bromides or media spinners for their defence.
The Prime Minister cannot through grand rhetoric turn his political decision to change the definition of marriage into a basic human right because it is not. It is simply a political judgment. It is a valid political option if one wants to argue for it; it is a mistaken one in my view, but it is only a political judgment. Same sex marriage is not a human right. This is not my personal opinion. It is not the opinion of some legal adviser. This reality has already been recognized by such international bodies as the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.
Mr. Speaker, I refer you to New Zealand's Quilter case. In 1997 the New Zealand court of appeal was asked to rule on the validity of the common law definition of marriage in light of the New Zealand bill of rights which, unlike our charter, explicitly prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. New Zealand's court ruled that the opposite sex requirement of marriage was not discriminatory. So the plaintiffs in this case made a complaint to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights that the New Zealand court violated the international covenant for the protection of rights to which New Zealand, like Canada, is a signator. But the UNCHR rejected this complaint in 2002, in effect upholding that same sex marriage is not a basic universal human right.
If same sex marriage were a fundamental human right, we have to think about the implications. If same sex marriage were a fundamental right, then countries as diverse as the United Kingdom, France, Denmark and Sweden are human rights violators. These countries, largely under left wing governments, have upheld the traditional definition of marriage while bringing in equal rights and benefits regimes for same sex couples, precisely the policy that I and the majority of the Conservative caucus propose.
Even those few countries that have brought in same sex marriage at the national level, currently only the Netherlands and Belgium, did not do so because their own courts or international bodies had defined this as a matter of human rights. They did so simply as the honest public policy choice of their legislatures. In fact, both the Netherlands and Belgium legislated some differences in same sex marriage as opposed to opposite sex marriage in many areas but particularly in areas like adoption.
In other words, no national or international court, or human rights tribunal at the national or international level, has ever ruled that same sex marriage is a human right.
This is getting messy, isn't it? I think it'll have a rough ride trying to pass after all. A couple of months ago, it seemed like a done deal, but now it's looking less and less likely. I hope it passes. It'd be weird if I decided to get married and could change that status several times just by driving across the country. People just need to get thier heads out of thier asses and let it go. If the bill passes, without any of the funky amendments the conservatives are trying to attatch, people will care for about a week ar two and then forget about it...as it really won't affect thier daily lives. Folks like me though will be grateful every day for the fact that we live in Canada.
The realities that something like this opens up are awe inspiring when you step back and appreciate it. I actually started crying the other day when I realized that someday, Dan and I could sit down and plan our wedding...It's not something I'd ever considered before, or even thought to consider. On a human level (despite all of the politics and propaganda - on both sides of the issue) it's a really overwhelming feeling when you look at just what getting married can mean (picture a Halmark montage of life's little moments and you'll get what's going through my head right now). It's beautiful.
I think a little discomfort from religious conservatives is worth the sheer quality of life that I'd recieve in return...but of course, I'm a little biased on the issue.
I have to admit: at least Canada is doing it right, a national debate by its elected legislators, as opposed to a piecemeal imposition by judicial fiat, based on sometimes shakey legal reasoning.
I remember receiving that mini-comic from an old friend that I told I was gay. He sent that & a couple of tapes of fire & brimstone for me. Plus a note that scared me. I ended up telling him I wasn't gay & thanked him for being a friend. Don't know what happened to him after that, kinda afraid to find out.
Gay Christians - What Does the Bible Say? Openly gay men appointed to high office in the church - is this something Christians should be shocked by, or a cultural openness we should all embrace? There was a time when the very idea would have been treated with alarm and denial, but today the numbers of people who claim to love Christ while living in homosexuality are growing. What is the truth? What does God have to say about gays and gay Christians?
Can a person love God and disobey His Word? And is homosexuality an act of disobedience? What does the Bible really say? The Bible consistently tells us that homosexual activity is a sin (Genesis 19:1-13; Leviticus 18:22; Romans 1:26-27; 1Corinthians 6:9). Romans 1:26-27 teaches specifically that those who fall into homosexuality do so as a result of denying and disobeying God. When a person continues in sin and disbelief, God "gives them over" to even more wicked and depraved sin in order to show them the futility and hopelessness of life apart from God.
Gay Christians - How Great a Sin? Homosexuality is just one of many possible sins we can be mastered by. 1 Corinthians 6:9 proclaims that homosexual "offenders" will not inherit the kingdom of God. Homosexuality is not a "greater" sin than any other. All sin is offensive to God. Homosexuality is just one of the many things listed in 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 that will keep a person from the kingdom of God. God's forgiveness is just as available to the homosexual as it is to an adulterer, idol worshipper, murderer, thief, etc. God also promises the strength for victory over sin, including homosexuality, to all those who will believe in Jesus Christ for their salvation (1 Corinthians 6:11; 2 Corinthians 5:17). The key is to believe His Word, believe He has a perfect will and purpose for your life, to acknowledge wrong thoughts, attitudes and behavior, to ask Him for strength to resist temptation and then to act on that faith.
Gay is a word that used to mean joyfully happy - and for those "gays" who turn to Christ and repent of this lifestyle, gay can mean joyfully happy again! Genesis 1:26&27 tell us that God created mankind (that means all people) in His own image. Revelation 4:11 tells us that God's motivation for creating all the things He created was because… He wanted to! All mankind was created by and for the pleasure of God. He loves us that much! These words testify to the fact that every single individual matters to God.
With that in mind, when the Bible takes a strong stand against a particular behavior, attitude or action, we need to pay special attention! God is our loving Creator and Heavenly Father. His purposes are never to divide us or cause us to turn away from Him, but are always to show us the way to wholeness and health. Many say that the Bible is a guidebook for life, an owner's manual if you will. Why would an owner's manual tell you not to use a certain grade of motor oil unless that motor oil would damage the engine? It's the same with God's Word, but with infinitely greater, vastly eternal consequences.
Gay Christians - What's Wrong with Welcoming All Lifestyles Today's trend to accept all lifestyles and behavior as OK is not OK with God. We all want to feel like we are normal and worthy of love - so consider who or what is really telling us that anything we want to do is OK, and then consider the consequences: broken homes, abused, confused children, shattered lives. Is that what a loving Father would want for His children? God loves us and He knows what will hurt us. He is a protective Father who does not want His babies to be hurt! Listen to His Word. If you are caught in this sin or any other, consider carefully what He is saying to your heart.
Gay Christians - What Do You Think? Are you a gay Christian? Are you a believer who is trapped in homosexuality? Do you think it's OK? Think again, please, for your own sake and for the sake of those who love you. Consider the Word of God. He did not make us male and female for no reason. Look at the way life is created, whether it is an electric current, a kitten or a baby boy or girl. It takes both components, the male and female, connected, to make life.
Don't you want to know why you're here? Don't you want to know what your purpose in life is? Then please don't be blinded by the lies of a clever enemy whose only goal is your destruction. Come to the Savior who gave His life to set you free from all sin.
"Are you a believer who is trapped in homosexuality"?
"Gay is a word that used to mean joyfully happy - and for those "gays" who turn to Christ and repent of this lifestyle, gay can mean joyfully happy again!"
"Revelation 4:11 tells us that God's motivation for creating all the things He created was because… He wanted to! All mankind was created by and for the pleasure of God."
Telling people that they're "trapped" in their own lifestyle isn't exactly the best way to get them to see your point of view.
Yes, it's true, it does require two components to create life.. However, there are so many heterosexual couples who are incapable of procreation for medical reasons. Should they believe that they are cursed? Should they believe that their lives have no purpose, because they can't actually conceive a child?
By the by, being "trapped" doesn't necessarily mean they're stuck for good. They can change. Plus, a "lifestyle" isn't the same as a sexual predisposition.
Hey Wednesday. How bout' you use your mod powers to conjoin this thread with this one.
Quote: "Revelation 4:11 tells us that God's motivation for creating all the things He created was because… He wanted to! All mankind was created by and for the pleasure of God."
Hey, Jeff, i don't know if you stick arround to have an open Diologue or just make flip comments and leave, but if you're open to discuss things, what exactly is your issue with the above statement.... What makes it so "shocking"
"While infertility is not an epidemic, it is a very common health problem in both men and women. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) approximately 4.5 million couples experience infertility each year. This equates to approximately 1 in six couples in the United States."
Quote: Pariah said: By the by, being "trapped" doesn't necessarily mean they're stuck for good. They can change. Plus, a "lifestyle" isn't the same as a sexual predisposition.
Whether or not they're "stuck for good" doesn't matter. What matters is that words like "trapped" are used at all in the first place. Religious groups approach gays like they're diseased and that they need to be cured(actually, in truth, certain religious groups treat all people who don't believe exactly what they believe that way, but that's for another day). That's just not a way you're going to get people receptive to your message.
Quote: "Revelation 4:11 tells us that God's motivation for creating all the things He created was because… He wanted to! All mankind was created by and for the pleasure of God."
Hey, Jeff, i don't know if you stick arround to have an open Diologue or just make flip comments and leave, but if you're open to discuss things, what exactly is your issue with the above statement.... What makes it so "shocking"
I JUST THOUGHT THE SHEER IGNORANCE OF THE FIRST 2 COMMENTS REQUIRED NO FURTHER COMMENTARY ON MY PART.
As for the last one, I found it amusing that man was created to "pleasure" God. I'm sure it's not the intended meaning mind you, just the way it was phrased made me bust a gut.
So it was either using the shocking graemlin or the LOL one. And the LOL one had already been used previously.
Quote: Animalman said: "While infertility is not an epidemic, it is a very common health problem in both men and women. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) approximately 4.5 million couples experience infertility each year. This equates to approximately 1 in six couples in the United States."
I wouldn't define that as "so many" when trying to correlate distinction with homosexual couples' inability to have children. Especially since that number isn't a world-wide assesment. Furthermore, a single-digit percentage of America's infertile cases borderlines on nussaince(sp) moreso than a standing concern. If it was around say 25% percent averages for every country on the globe, that would make your argument more appropriately notable.
Quote: Animalman said: Religious groups approach gays like they're diseased and that they need to be cured(actually, in truth, certain religious groups treat all people who don't believe exactly what they believe that way, but that's for another day). That's just not a way you're going to get people receptive to your message.
Fine. But that doesn't automatically make them wrong.
This is off topic, so I'm not really expecting an answer (unless we start a new thread) but
Quote: Batwoman said:
Revelation 4:11 tells us that God's motivation for creating all the things He created was because… He wanted to! All mankind was created by and for the pleasure of God. He loves us that much! These words testify to the fact that every single individual matters to God.
This doesn't really work. I mean, it doesn't defy logic or anything, but this argument has no strength. Just because someone or something creates another someone or something does not mean the creation is loved. Even more, just because someone or something creates a whole lot of things, doesn't mean each individual thing holds importance in the creator's eye.
Quote: Pariah said:
Quote: Animalman said: "While infertility is not an epidemic, it is a very common health problem in both men and women. According to the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) approximately 4.5 million couples experience infertility each year. This equates to approximately 1 in six couples in the United States."
I wouldn't define that as "so many" when trying to correlate distinction with homosexual couples' inability to have children. Especially since that number isn't a world-wide assesment. Furthermore, a single-digit percentage of America's infertile cases borderlines on nussaince(sp) moreso than a standing concern. If it was around say 25% percent averages for every country on the globe, that would make your argument more appropriately notable.
Actually, I'd argue that your argument isn't notable. At all. The question of whether or not infertile heterosexual couples are wrong or cursed isn't any more or less valid based on the number of couples.
The question is still valid whether it is 1,000,000 or 1,000,000,000, and you still haven't given an answer. All you've done is argue over the two most inconsequential words in his original question.
Quick question: There was a big fuss in the Anglican church last year because they wanted to promote a Gay Bishop. He had been celibate for a long time because the bible said it was wrong. A big fuss was made and his promotion blocked. Where do you lot stand on this situation? Personally, I am sure all the clergy has sinned at somepoint and since this man had refrained from sinning and repented I don't see why he couldn't be promoted. Isn't one of the big points that we all sin and if we repent and try to live a just life then God forgives us?
If he hasn't done anything in a long time and he really has repented, why are they still pitching him (npi) as a 'Gay Bishop'? If you kick the habit, are you still a smoker? If you get through detox and never shoot up again, are you still a drug user?
Quote: Animalman said: Yes, it's true, it does require two components to create life.. However, there are so many heterosexual couples who are incapable of procreation for medical reasons. Should they believe that they are cursed? Should they believe that their lives have no purpose, because they can't actually conceive a child?
Sort of like the blind man Jesus healed. They asked Jesus who had sinned that the man had been born blind, and Jesus replied that neither the man nor his parents had sinned, but it had happened so God could be glorified. Everything happens for a reason. Being physically unable to procreate doesn't at all mean someone is cursed or their life has no meaning. I'm glad my parents didn't see things that way.
Quote: Captain Sammitch said: If he hasn't done anything in a long time and he really has repented, why are they still pitching him (npi) as a 'Gay Bishop'? If you kick the habit, are you still a smoker? If you get through detox and never shoot up again, are you still a drug user?
Well, if you quit smoking, you are no longer a smoker, whereas if you stop sleeping with men you are still gay, you are just not having sex. Gay is about being attracted to men.
But yeah, doesn't park it up the choccy starfish, so why hold it against him!?
Oh it's back. Once again with the fascist patrol telling us that if we were to change we'd be acceptable. Thanks for the article Batwoman...but I have no intention of living a lonely bitter life like your own. I'm perfectly happy where I am. No tell me how any of the last two pages have anything to do with the introduction of gay marriage and how this might affect any of you in any real way. Yeah didn't think so. This bizarre need to have secular institutions conform to your definitions of God (two completely seperate bodies of thought...or at least they should be) is disgusting and arrogant.
I'm not going to get into it all again...there are pages upon pages of clear arguments in here. What I am going to ask is that if you people insist on posting to this topic, you provide realistic non religiously biased discourse. Your religious opinions have little to do with my reality, and hopefully the reality of the government. Law and religious convictions should never be entwined (outside of the legal right to practice any religion you should desire).
Quote: Wednesday said: Actually, I'd argue that your argument isn't notable. At all. The question of whether or not infertile heterosexual couples are wrong or cursed isn't any more or less valid based on the number of couples.
The belief that homosexuals are cursed isn't a view that I keep. Although, I could reason with it since I feel that God wants us to make sacrifices and suffer for the sake of Him within our lifetimes. Being homosexual would just be another obstacle to overcome in my eyes. However, it's not my belief. I was just merely running along with its conversational development.
Quote: The question is still valid whether it is 1,000,000 or 1,000,000,000, and you still haven't given an answer. All you've done is argue over the two most inconsequential words in his original question.
They're not inconsequential. Animalman made it clear that it was volume that dictated his concern with "so many". So I built on that.
I don't find this area of argument any more pliant than you do, I just feel Animalman's logic was rather flawed in this case.
Quote: Steve T said: Well, if you quit smoking, you are no longer a smoker, whereas if you stop sleeping with men you are still gay, you are just not having sex.
Gay is about being attracted to men.
This is assuming individuals are born homosexual. An assumption you can't back up. So it's not that simple is it. You could say the same thing about Sammitch's argument, but I feel that standard would be broken since there are cases of homosexuals saying that they stopped being gay. Don't get me wrong, There's still a lot more to be understood, but I just find your argument unsupported.
Quote: Pariah said: Although, I could reason with it since I feel that God wants us to make sacrifices and suffer for the sake of Him within our lifetimes.
Then suffer already. Don't however expect the world to agree with you. I'm sure God has just as many issues with gay people as he does with little perverts obsessed with asian transexuals.
The fact that you all sit here and debate something that has little or no impact on your daily life...Fuck, I hate this thread. Everything in here is opinions on something that you all know nothing about, nor could you ever begin to comprehend.
If you are all so sure that God is going to smite me for my 'sins' than leave it up to Him. Do not sit here and declare yourselves moral authorities. I will never walk into a catholic church and call them down for the violent hypocricy they propogate...why should you all care this much over what I and my boyfriend might do?
I really hate this thread. I can't wait for the day when people look back and realize just how vile this sort of discussion really was.
Quote: As for the last one, I found it amusing that man was created to "pleasure" God. I'm sure it's not the intended meaning mind you, just the way it was phrased made me bust a gut.
So it was either using the shocking graemlin or the LOL one. And the LOL one had already been used previously.
Gotcha...... just my opinion, but I think you shoulda gone with teh lol guy because it looked more like you were offended than laughing at word usage.
Quote: Pariah said: Although, I could reason with it since I feel that God wants us to make sacrifices and suffer for the sake of Him within our lifetimes.
Then suffer already. Don't however expect the world to agree with you. I'm sure God has just as many issues with gay people as he does with little perverts obsessed with asian transexuals.
The fact that you all sit here and debate something that has little or no impact on your daily life...Fuck, I hate this thread. Everything in here is opinions on something that you all know nothing about, nor could you ever begin to comprehend.
If you are all so sure that God is going to smite me for my 'sins' than leave it up to Him. Do not sit here and declare yourselves moral authorities. I will never walk into a catholic church and call them down for the violent hypocricy they propogate...why should you all care this much over what I and my boyfriend might do?
I really hate this thread. I can't wait for the day when people look back and realize just how vile this sort of discussion really was.
Then why are you still here? Seriously, you say how much you hate this thread, yet you still come back and post to it, over and over again.
Because the nature of the discussion disturbs me. I would ask, why are you still here? Why does this topic interst you at all, other than to state your own condemnation?
Quote: klinton said: The fact that you all sit here and debate something that has little or no impact on your daily life...Fuck, I hate this thread. Everything in here is opinions on something that you all know nothing about, nor could you ever begin to comprehend.
Well, not all, right?
But I've stopped debating in this thread. If the str8s for whom this issue will never impact their actual lives want to argue about it, let 'em.
Quote: Steve T said: Well, if you quit smoking, you are no longer a smoker, whereas if you stop sleeping with men you are still gay, you are just not having sex. Gay is about being attracted to men.
This is assuming individuals are born homosexual. An assumption you can't back up. So it's not that simple is it. You could say the same thing about Sammitch's argument, but I feel that standard would be broken since there are cases of homosexuals saying that they stopped being gay. Don't get me wrong, There's still a lot more to be understood, but I just find your argument unsupported.
I still say, if you disagree that homosexuality is a born-with, hard-wired aspect of an individual, you must give some kind of evidence, IMHO, to support another position. Especially if you accept that heterosexuality IS a born-with, hard-wired trait.
As much as I possibly can without impeding on others' lives.
And opposing gay marriage isn't impeding on others? Expecting them to uphold religious principles they don't share because your ideal society has no room for them isn't inflicting your suffering on others.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: I still say, if you disagree that homosexuality is a born-with, hard-wired aspect of an individual, you must give some kind of evidence, IMHO, to support another position. Especially if you accept that heterosexuality IS a born-with, hard-wired trait.
I don't think sexuality is a hard-wired trait. All forms of sexuality (and that includes fetishes) are developed. I simply think that anyone who deviates away from heterosexuality is a bit insane in the membrane.
Quote: klinton said: You are attempting to deny happiness and security from others. How is that not inflicting suffering?
That's a rather broad statement. A person can take happiness from murder. But really it's wrong. Homosexuality, while not necessarily as bad as murder, is something I still see in the category of wrong.
Quote: klinton said: You are attempting to deny happiness and security from others. How is that not inflicting suffering?
That's a rather broad statement. A person can take happiness from murder. But really it's wrong. Homosexuality, while not necessarily as bad as murder, is something I still see in the category of wrong.
But from a purely secular point of view, your religious convictions aside (as they should not enter a matter of law), can you equate murder with homosexuality? Is allowing me to get married going to affect you in any real way, as allowing me to murder you would? You are talking about a victimless crime...
We are talking about law, not your church. I will concede that it is acceptable for you to hold your religious beliefs. But it is not acceptable to apply them to legal matters.
You're right and that's what I've been trying to do. My problem isn't so much with marriage (although I do have civil concerns as I noted in Animalman's gay marriage thread) as it is what allowance of gay marriage encourages. I don't find sodomy to be harmless or okay--And I'm saying this from a secular as well as spiritual POV. If it was casually associated with society, I feel it could turn into a major problem.
Quote: Steve T said: Quick question:
There was a big fuss in the Anglican church last year because they wanted to promote a Gay Bishop.
He had been celibate for a long time because the bible said it was wrong. A big fuss was made and his promotion blocked.
Where do you lot stand on this situation?
I'll just quote what I said in Franta's thread:
Quote: Pariah said: I, myself, don't really see much problem with a gay priest. The Church doesn't turn them away. Like straight people, they are told not to have premarital sex--However, because the act of sodomy is an abomination, they must also acknowledge that the sex they feel predisposed to, which they are abstaing from, is not moral in any sense of the word. Due to this, I can understand the views of why gay priests shouldn't be priests. A priest is bound by his chosen religion and overall place in life to preach the immorality of homosexuality. A gay priest who is simply abstaining from sex would be likely give this message backwards since he's gay and gay sex is not allowed in the Catholic religion. As a Catholic, you must adhere to the religion's requirements. It's a type of conflict of interest if you will. Admissioning someone who thinks homosexual sex is nothing amoral as a priest would be an oxymoron since that would mean he doesn't actually follow Catholic doctrine. A priest can validate sex (not premarital of course), but one cannot validate sodomy. If it's a gay priest that finds/admits his urges unnatural and all around not right though, I don't see the problem.
Quote: Pariah said: I don't find sodomy to be harmless or okay--And I'm saying this from a secular as well as spiritual POV. If it was casually associated with society, I feel it could turn into a major problem.
Refresh my memory. How is being gay (and please refrain from using the term sodomy...I don't look at myself as the sum of a physical act. Being gay implies interest in members of the same sex on every level of attraction...If we were just interested in sex, marriage wuld not be an issue) harmful?
The real harm has come from repressing homosexuality. Because of the historical taboos we now have a whole network of disgusting activities that have become synonomous with homosexuality (bathouses and rampant casual sexual activity the formost in my mind). These resulting sub-cultures have led to the spread of things like AIDS in epidemic proportions. This is not to mention the high suicide rates and sever depression that are characteristic of gay men and women.
Allowing us to live as equals and live openly will help to dismantle and remove these things from society. This is bad?
Quote: Pariah said: I don't think sexuality is a hard-wired trait. All forms of sexuality (and that includes fetishes) are developed. I simply think that anyone who deviates away from heterosexuality is a bit insane in the membrane.
Developed....how? As one of my professors used to say, you need to unpack the word "developed."
A bit insane? Insane's a legal term, not one that any psychologist or psychiatrist concerns himself with in terms of understanding human behavior.
Quote: Pariah said: I don't find sodomy to be harmless or okay--And I'm saying this from a secular as well as spiritual POV. If it was casually associated with society, I feel it could turn into a major problem.
But don't we have to remove the spiritual from the equation, since the United States is not a Christian theocracy? So given that, how is sodomy not ok? Between two consenting adults, what's the problem? To use your terminolgoy, where's the harm?
Quote: klinton said: Refresh my memory. How is being gay (and please refrain from using the term sodomy...I don't look at myself as the sum of a physical act. Being gay implies interest in members of the same sex on every level of attraction...If we were just interested in sex, marriage wuld not be an issue) harmful?
It wouldn't be harmful as long as homosexuals refrained from sex. There are other ways to express love. Which was my point, which you seem to understand. Homosexual civil unions without the homosexuality I wouldn't have a problem with. But that's not the case, there's no abstainance in the past and there's none now. Not speaking legally, homosexual marriage, on its own, encourages sodomy and the view that there's nothing wrong with it--And there is. Especially with great volume.
Quote: Allowing us to live as equals and live openly will help to dismantle and remove these things from society. This is bad?
We do live as equals. By law you are afforded the same rights as everyone else--With the exception of certain marriage benefits because they are more promptu for straight couples, plus the marriage design wasn't meant to accomodate homosexual requisites. The actions of bigots don't represent the law as governed by the United States of America or the Canadian government.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: But don't we have to remove the spiritual from the equation, since the United States is not a Christian theocracy? So given that, how is sodomy not ok? Between two consenting adults, what's the problem? To use your terminolgoy, where's the harm?
Even if I wasn't speaking with spirituality in mind, my statement would remain the same from a secular viewpoint.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Developed....how? As one of my professors used to say, you need to unpack the word "developed."
Life occurences. Exposure to certain influencing elements. How pathologies usually develop
Quote: A bit insane?
I was just being cute. It's a quote from Cypress Hill, it wasn't a phrase implying severity.
What makes you think "the high suicide rates and sever depression that are characteristic of gay men and women. " Wont still be there if gay marriage is legalized?
People kill themselves for all sorts of reasons, gay and straight alike.
Just because gay marriage would be legalized doesn't mean that "the high suicide rates and sever depression that are characteristic of gay men and women. " will change.
Quote: The World Health Organization estimates that in the year 2000 approximately one million people will die from suicide. A global mortality rate of 16 per 100,000. One death every 40 seconds.
The WHO further reports that:
In the last 45 years suicide rates have increased by 60% worldwide. Suicide is now among the three leading causes of death among those aged 15-44 (both sexes). Suicide attempts are up to 20 times more frequent than completed suicides.
Although suicide rates have traditionally been highest among elderly males, rates among young people have been increasing to such an extent that they are now the group at highest risk in a third of all countries.
Mental disorders (particularly depression and substance abuse) are associated with more than 90% of all cases of suicide. However, suicide results from many complex socio-cultural factors and is more likely to occur during periods of socioeconomic, family and individual crisis (e.g. loss of a loved one, employment, honour).
Quote: § Over 30,000 people in the United States kill themselves every year.
§ Currently, suicide is the 11th leading cause of death in the U.S.
§ A person dies by suicide about every eighteen minutes in the U.S. An attempt is estimated to be made once every minute.
§ Ninety percent of all people who die by suicide have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder at the time of their death.
§ There are more than four male suicides for every female suicide, but twice as many females as males attempt suicide.
§ Every day, approximately 80 Americans take their own life, and 1,500 more attempt to do so.
YOUTH
§ Suicide is the fifth leading cause of death among all those 5–14 years old.
§ Suicide is the third leading cause of death among all those 15–24 years old.
§ The suicide rate for white males aged 15–24 has tripled since 1950, while for white females it has more than doubled.
§ Between 1980–1996, the suicide rate for African-American males aged 15–19 has also doubled.
§ Risk factors for suicide among the young include suicidal thoughts, psychiatric disorders (such as depression, impulsive aggressive behavior, bipolar disorder, certain anxiety disorders), drug and/or alcohol abuse and previous suicide attempts, with the risk increased if there is situational stress and access to firearms.
OLDER PEOPLE
§ The suicide rates for men rise with age, most significantly after age 65.
§ White men over 50 who make up less than a quarter of the population are responsible for almost 40 percent of all suicides.
§ The suicide rates for women peak between the ages of 45–64 years old, and do so again after age 75.
§ Most elderly patients who complete suicide see their physicians within a few months of their death and more than a third within the week of their suicide.
§ Eight to 20 percent of older Americans and up to 37 percent in primary care settings experience symptoms of depression.
§ Risk factors for suicide among the elderly include the presence of a mental illness — especially depression and alcohol abuse; the presence of a physical illness; social isolation — especially being widowed in males; and the availability of firearms in the home.
DEPRESSION
§ Over 60 percent of all people who die by suicide suffer from major depression. If one includes alcoholics who are depressed, this figure rises to over 75 percent.
§ Depression affects nearly 10 percent of Americans ages 18 and over in a given year, or more than 19 million people.
§ More Americans suffer from depression than coronary heart disease (7 million), cancer (6 million) and AIDS (200,000) combined.
§ About 15 percent of the population will suffer from clinical depression at some time during their lifetime. Thirty percent of all clinically depressed patients attempt suicide; half of them ultimately succeed.
§ Depression is among the most treatable of psychiatric illnesses. Some estimates suggest that between 80 percent and 90 percent of people with depression respond positively to treatment, and almost all patients gain some relief from their symptoms. But first, depression has to be recognized.
ALCOHOL AND SUICIDE
§ Ninety-six percent of alcoholics who die by suicide continue their substance abuse up to the end of their lives.
§ Alcoholism is a factor in about 30 percent of all completed suicides.
§ Approximately 7 percent of those with alcohol dependence will die by suicide.
§ Click here to read an article about alcoholism and suicide risk.
It wouldn't be harmful as long as homosxuals refrained from sex. There are other ways to express love. Which was my point, which you seem to understand. Homosexual civil unions without the homosexuality I wouldn't have a problem with. But that's not the case, there's no abstainance in the past and there's none now. Not speaking legally, homosexual marriage, on its own, encourages sodomy and the view that there's nothing wrong with it--And there is. Especially with great volume.
Huh? You're hung up on where I put my cock? That's it? The sum of your argument? Holy shit.
Quote: We do live as equals. By law you are afforded the same rights as everyone else--With the exception of certain marriage benefits because they are more promptu for straight couples, plus the marriage design wasn't meant to accomodate homosexual requisites. The actions of bigots don't represent the law as governed by the United States of America or the Canadian government.
Once again, marriage is a buisness transaction. People get married every day for status, for financial security and any number of non-child rearing reasons (including politics and public approval). If you are willing to deny gay marriage becasue it cannot biologicaly produce children...there are plenty of other targets that deserve your equal attention as well. If you're not willing to address them, then you have no buisness discussing this.
And I think you need to look up the word bigot. Your definition is way the fuck off.
Quote: Bipolar Disorder and Suicide Prevention Almost 2 million Americans currently suffer from bipolar disorder. An estimated 3–20 percent of persons diagnosed with bipolar disorder die by suicide.
Approximately 20 percent of all patients with bipolar disorder have their first episode during adolescence but diagnosis is often delayed for years. Delayed recognition that low moods (depression) and highs (mania) are symptoms of a treatable mental disorder can foster related problems, such as substance abuse and suicidal behaviors.
Early recognition and treatment of bipolar disorder may prevent years of needless suffering and death by suicide. Eighty percent to 90 percent of people who have bipolar disorder can be treated effectively with medication and psychotherapy.
The mood stabilizers lithium carbonate, carbamazepine and valproate, are the most commonly prescribed medications to treat bipolar disorder. Lithium carbonate has shown more effectiveness in preventing suicidal behaviors associated with bipolar disorder.
The death rate for untreated bipolar patients is higher than that of most types of heart disease and many types of cancer.
Studies of bipolar patients indicate that 25–50 percent of persons with this illness make at least one suicide attempt.
Studies indicate that most bipolar patients who die by suicide communicate their suicidal state to others, most often through direct and specific statements of suicidal intent.
People suffering from bipolar disorder may die by suicide earlier in the course of this chronic illness than patients with other mental disorders. Recent hospital discharge is a very high-risk time.
Hopelessness, a family history of suicide and previous attempts indicate bipolar patients at highest risk of suicide.
Maintaining treatment for bipolar illness is critical. The suicide rate in the first year off lithium treatment is 20 times that during treatment.
Early and accurate diagnosis of bipolar disorder and aggressive professional treatment are essential in preventing suicide.
Source: National Center for Health Statistics, 2001
Depression and Suicide Prevention
An estimated 19 million Americans suffer from depression.
Clinical depression is not a temporary case of the “blues.” People with depression may experience recurrent episodes of depression that can last anywhere from a few hours to a few months.
Depression is present if at least five or more of the following symptoms are present during a two-week period; at least one of the symptoms must be either depressed mood or loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities.
Depressed mood Loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities Change in appetite or weight Change in sleeping patterns Speaking and/or moving with unusual speed or slowness Loss of interest or pleasure in usual activities Decrease in sexual drive Fatigue or loss of energy Feelings of worthlessness, self-reproach or guilt Diminished ability to think or concentrate, slowed thinking or indecisiveness Thoughts of death, suicide, or wishes to be dead Additional factors that point to an increased risk for suicide in depressed individuals are:
Anxiety, agitation, or enraged behavior Isolation Drug and/or alcohol use or abuse History of physical or emotional illness Feelings of hopelessness or desperation Facts About Depression
Women suffer from depression twice as much as men. This two-to-one ratio exists regardless of racial and ethnic background or economic status. Depression in people 65 and older increases the risk of stroke and other medical complications. The economic cost of depressive illnesses is $30 million to $44 billion a year.
More Americans (19 million) suffer from depression than coronary heart disease (7 million), cancer (6 million), and AIDS (200,000).
Even though effective treatments are available, only one in three depressed people gets help. Depression And Suicide
Although most depressed people are not suicidal, two-thirds of those who die by suicide suffer from a depressive illness.
About 15 percent of the population will suffer from depression at some time during their life. Thirty percent of all depressed inpatients attempt suicide.
Medical Illness and Depression
Researchers believe that after an initial attack of severe depression 70 percent of people are vulnerable to another episode.
The following illnesses are commonly associated with later-life depression: cancer, Parkinson’s disease, heart disease, stroke and Alzheimer’s disease.
Research shows that depression and heart disease often accompany each other and that each can lead to the other. While roughly one in six people have an episode of major depression, the number goes to one in two for people with heart disease.
About 25 percent of cancer patients suffer from clinical depression.
Depression in people 65 and older increases the risk of stroke and other medical complications.
Nearly eight out of ten patients with depressive illness will improve through treatment with medicine and psychotherapy. Prevent suicide through early recognition and treatment of depression and other psychiatric illnesses.
Creativity, Depression and Suicide Prevention For several centuries, stories of famous painters, writers and musicians who were depressed and took their lives made people wonder. Only in the last 25 years has scientific evidence demonstrated that creative people are more vulnerable to depression and suicide, regardless of whether or not they become famous. More research is needed to determine which:
Patients suffering from depressive or manic depressive disorders are most vulnerable to suicide Treatments will control the disorder without interfering with the artists’ ability to create. Throughout history artists, writers and musicians have seemed to suffer disproportionately from mood disorders. Only recently has research concluded that a high percentage of artists — both past and contemporary — have, in fact, suffered from affective illness, particularly manic-depressive disorder.
Treatment of major depressive illness in artists has presented unique problems; partly because of a concern that creativity and the disorder are so intertwined that treatment might destroy the artists’ unique talent.
By supporting study of current approaches to treatment, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention hopes to encourage the development of new options for today’s creators, options unfortunately unavailable for yesterday’s greats.
Cases in Particular Arts
The Literary Arts Recent studies have shown that poets and writers are four times more likely than others to suffer from affective disorders, particularly manic depression. Dickinson, Eliot, and Poe are among the many poets who suffered from an affective illness. Writers such as Balzac, Conrad, Dickens, Emerson, Faulkner, Fitzgerald, Ibsen, Melville, and Tolstoy also suffered from the illness. In many cases, the writer's depression led to suicide: John Berryman, Sylvia Plath, Anne Sexton, Ernest Hemingway and Virginia Woolf. The Visual Arts Painters, sculptors, and other visual artists have also been afflicted by depressive disorders. Gaugin, Jackson Pollock, Michelangelo, and Georgia O'Keeffe suffered from depression. Van Gogh, Arshile Gorky and Mark Rothko committed suicide. Contemporary designers are plagued by alcohol and drug abuse, which are associated with depression. The Musical Arts The death of Nirvana’s Kurt Cobain brought the issue of suicide into the spotlight. But the problem was not new to the music world. Classical composers such as Rachmaninoff, Schumann and Tchaikovsky suffered from affective disorders. Irving Berlin, Charles Mingus, Charlie Parker and Cole Porter also suffered from depressive illnesses. The Theatrical Arts For many performing artists, the link between depression and suicide has been complicated by the effects of drug and alcohol abuse. For actresses like Marilyn Monroe and Judy Garland, it remains unclear whether the cause of death was accidental overdose or suicide. Also, the tendency toward depression and suicide often shows up in the children of these performers, suggesting a familial link. [/quoe]
Quote: Batwoman said: What makes you think "the high suicide rates and sever depression that are characteristic of gay men and women. " Wont still be there if gay marriage is legalized?
It's not a fix all solution. But it's a giant leap in the right direction. If a kid can grow up knowing that he or she is a normal member of society and that thier sexuality isn't going to impede them...how can that not afect thier outlook? You don't have to like it, I'm not asking that of you. I don't much care for people like yourself, but I don't deny you the right to live your life as you see fit. I'm asking that you afford others the same dignity.
As I said, that wont make a difference. If I person is depressed enough to kill themselves, regardless of their sexual choice then legalizing gay marriage wont change things. If tey don't talk to anyone and keep their feelings bottled up, then gay, straight, sick, healthy, whatever, they will kill themselves.
To say legalizing gay marriage will change this is just an excuse.
Quote: Batwoman said: As I said, that wont make a difference. If I person is depressed enough to kill themselves, regardless of their sexual choice then legalizing gay marriage wont change things. If tey don't talk to anyone and keep their feelings bottled up, then gay, straight, sick, healthy, whatever, they will kill themselves.
To say legalizing gay marriage will change this is just an excuse.
They won't get that depressed if society would grow up. If they didn't have to live in fear, if they didn't have to grow up feeling different...there would be nothing to bottle up and get depressed over. Legalizing marriage is a positive step in society to reducing the misplaced shame they are subjected to.
Like I said, you don't have to like it. But you have no buisness supressing it. You really think your something don't you (with your 'italicized for emphasis' choice)? The world would be a much better place if freedom of religion included the freedom from other's.
I know how you feel on the issue. But that doesn't make you right...and it certainly doesn't imply that I need to conform.
Quote: klinton said: Once again, marriage is a buisness transaction. People get married every day for status, for financial security and any number of non-child rearing reasons (including politics and public approval).
And for reasons that have nothing to do with sanctifying their love before any God.
Quote: klinton said: Huh? You're hung up on where I put my cock? That's it? The sum of your argument? Holy shit.
Yes I am. Careless sex, as shown in the past, can be harmful to society. Not to mention the people who partake of it.
Quote: Once again, marriage is a buisness transaction. People get married every day for status, for financial security and any number of non-child rearing reasons (including politics and public approval). If you are willing to deny gay marriage becasue it cannot biologicaly produce children...there are plenty of other targets that deserve your equal attention as well. If you're not willing to address them, then you have no buisness discussing this.
And I think you need to look up the word bigot. Your definition is way the fuck off.
None of this really disputes anything I've said. It's just an indignant proclamation.
Quote: Pariah said: Yes I am. Careless sex, as shown in the past, can be harmful to society. Not to mention the people who partake of it.
What if it's careful and well-considered and between two people who love each other for years and will continue to love each other (and only each other) for years?
The real harm has come from repressing homosexuality. Because of the historical taboos we now have a whole network of disgusting activities that have become synonomous with homosexuality (bathouses and rampant casual sexual activity the formost in my mind). These resulting sub-cultures have led to the spread of things like AIDS in epidemic proportions. This is not to mention the high suicide rates and sever depression that are characteristic of gay men and women.
Allowing us to live as equals and live openly will help to dismantle and remove these things from society. This is bad?
Quote: klinton said: They won't get that depressed if society would grow up. If they didn't have to live in fear, if they didn't have to grow up feeling different...there would be nothing to bottle up and get depressed over. Legalizing marriage is a positive step in society to reducing the misplaced shame they are subjected to.
Marriage was legalized in Canada......Has the country grown up now? Have people stopped persecuting you at every corner and restaurant or whatever?
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Then if it's a constant, as an explanatory variable it's meaningless.
No, it's very relevent. Cuz' that consistency in influence could come from anywhere. This guy could be inspired by Lincoln while that guy could be inspired by Neitzsche.
Quote: C'mon, you must have some basic, rudimentary list of "influences" that you've consider might be at play in some gay's life. Let's see what they are.
Psychiatrists do that. I don't. Your influences are your own. Everyone has a dynamic set of life circumstances. I don't dig shot in the dark psychology
Quote: Pariah said: Marriage was legalized in Canada......Has the country grown up now? Have people stopped persecuting you at every corner and restaurant or whatever?
We have long taken steps to look at the bigger picture. Public opinion is more informed and mature (on this and other issues). And yes, I do believe that we are in a better place for it. When the leader of the country has no problems standing up and saying 'this is necessary' than I think it speaks volumes for the citizenry. Granted, it's not perfect. There are still those who will never realize ther ignorance (we still hear of racial bigotry in today's day and age)...but as a whole, I think things are getting there.
And a side note, the vote for a national amendment to the marriage laws takes place tomorrow. As it stands now, there are still provinces that don't recognize gay marriage.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: What if it's careful and well-considered and between two people who love each other for years and will continue to love each other (and only each other) for years?
Speaking secularly: I don't find that makes a difference health awareness-wise. Remaining in the context of homosexuality; sodomy, even if protected, is physically hurtful to the body. There's no proper way to do something to the body that it wasn't meant to do in the first place.
And the idea that this could catch on among couples and those very couples thinking that casual sex, in this fashion, was acceptable makes the implication of just two people practicing sodomy moot.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Then if it's a constant, as an explanatory variable it's meaningless.
No, it's very relevent. Cuz' that consistency in influence could come from anywhere. This guy could be inspired by Lincoln while that guy could be inspired by Neitzsche.
So it's willy-niily, and, again, meaningless.
Quote: Psychiatrists do that. I don't. Your influences are your own. Everyone has a dynamic set of life circumstances. I don't dig shot in the dark psychology
IOW, you don't have an idea. You've made an assertion without considering it.
Quote: Pariah said: I wouldn't define that as "so many" when trying to correlate distinction with homosexual couples' inability to have children. Especially since that number isn't a world-wide assesment. Furthermore, a single-digit percentage of America's infertile cases borderlines on nussaince(sp) moreso than a standing concern. If it was around say 25% percent averages for every country on the globe, that would make your argument more appropriately notable.
I don't know what the number of infertile couples around the globe is, just as you don't know what the number of homosexuals around the globe is. I don't see it as being more or less of an argument if it's 25% or 2.5%. As Wednesday said, that's semantics. It's a problem either way.
You pretty much side-stepped the entire issue, which was that the argument that homosexuality is wrong(or unnatural or whatever other terms used) because a homosexual couple cannot directly produce offspring is flawed.
Homosexuals can still be parents. They can still raise children. Having a same-sex partner doesn't automatically make you any less loving or caring.
Because he, nor any of the opponents of the issue has any real argument other than it's wrong as far as thier church teaches them. This is a moot conversation if you cannot get them to accept that they are entitled to feel that way, so long as the rest of us are entiled to carry on with our lives. Pariah has jumped from argument to argument, inadiquately supporting any of them. His final 'argument' is the fact that anal sex is unhealthy and that this is a public health matter. Batwoman has said nothing of import.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: So it's willy-niily, and, again, meaningless.
So you're saying....People aren't influenced in life?
Quote: IOW, you don't have an idea. You've made an assertion without considering it.
Yeah. I have no idea what effected you, and I'm not so brazen to make an attempt at interpretation because I don't know you. I do know, however, that you were effected by your surroundings like everything else on this planet.
Quote: klinton said: Because he, nor any of the opponents of the issue has any real argument other than it's wrong as far as thier church teaches them. This is a moot conversation if you cannot get them to accept that they are entitled to feel that way, so long as the rest of us are entiled to carry on with our lives. Pariah has jumped from argument to argument, inadiquately supporting any of them. His final 'argument' is the fact that anal sex is unhealthy and that this is a public health matter. Batwoman has said nothing of import.
Quote: Animalman said: Yeah, I remember his old argument that homosexuality was wrong because of the damage done to the anus.
Like sex in general, if anal sex is done carefully, there shouldn't be anything wrong. Is it really that different from breaking the hymen? C'mon.
And, like sex in general, the main way anal sex can be harmful is if the participants have multiple sexual partners, and contract diseases.
Ani and Klint's opinions are being subjected to scrutiny so they have to sit in a circle-jerk and agree about stuff to make up for it.
Quote: Animalman said: You pretty much side-stepped the entire issue, which was that the argument that homosexuality is wrong(or unnatural or whatever other terms used) because a homosexual couple cannot directly produce offspring is flawed.
You didn't even mention this issue in your post. Nor did you mention this:
Quote: Homosexuals can still be parents. They can still raise children. Having a same-sex partner doesn't automatically make you any less loving or caring.
Quote: Animalman said: No, I didn't. The volume really isn't that important. I don't know why, of all the things I said, that tidbit was what you focused on.
So basically what you're saying is, you're following Wednesday's lead because you made a careless sweeping argument......Okay.
Ani and Klint's opinions are being sebjected to scrutiny so they have to sit in a circle-jerk and agree about stuff to make up for it.
Well, I'm feeling pretty good about myself now.
I honestly don't feel that you've presented anything that constitues scrutiny. I've given level replies to all of your 'arguments' and recieved nothing in return.
On the issue of God, and his opinions, I've tried to put that to rest. You feel how you do, and I have my feelings. We'll let Him sort that out (and I have no doubt that He will). As to the issue of legality and government policy (once again, a seperate institution) you have yet to present anything that even remotely justifies banning gay marriage.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: So it's willy-niily, and, again, meaningless.
So you're saying....People aren't influenced in life?
Of course I am not saying that. However, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to be specific in how you think "influencers" actually influence.
Quote: Yeah. I have no idea what effected you, and I'm not so brazen to make an attempt at interpretation because I don't know you. I do know, however, that you were effected by your surroundings like everything else on this planet.
But to "effected[sic] by your surroundings" says nothing in the big scheme of this discussion.
There has to be an beginning in the chain of causality.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Of course I am not saying that. However, if you want to be taken seriously, you need to be specific in how you think "influencers" actually influence.
So what? You want me to recite a bunch of freudian type hopethese(sp)? How's that gonna help?
Things are subjective to everyone. "What may be right for you, may not be right for some" and that BS.
Quote: But to "effected[sic] by your surroundings" says nothing in the big scheme of this discussion.
There has to be an beginning in the chain of causality.
And the fact of the matter is: Everyone's causality is different. I don't see how making assumptions using something so innaccurate will get us anywhere.
Quote: klinton said: I honestly don't feel that you've presented anything that constitues scrutiny. I've given level replies to all of your 'arguments' and recieved nothing in return.
In all honesty, you've been ignoring secular issues that speak against you're own arguments.
Quote: Pariah said: Yeah. I have no idea what effected you, and I'm not so brazen to make an attempt at interpretation because I don't know you. I do know, however, that you were effected by your surroundings like everything else on this planet.
Ok, let me help ya here.
Do you have an idea of class of influencers? Do you think things/events such as these influence someone to be gay:
-contact with another gay person while growing up -hearing your parents speak positively about gay people -seeing others having gay sex -"you show me yours, I'll show you mine" -playing doctor
Surely you've put some thought into it, if you believe that there are environmental influences at work in the establishment of a homosexual orientation...
Quote: Animalman said: That was the entire point of my post. I used different wording, but it was the same point.
And, yet again, you avoid actually addressing the point, and instead decide to insult me. I guess that's really your only conversational tactic.
Quote: Animalman said: Telling people that they're "trapped" in their own lifestyle isn't exactly the best way to get them to see your point of view.
Yes, it's true, it does require two components to create life.. However, there are so many heterosexual couples who are incapable of procreation for medical reasons. Should they believe that they are cursed? Should they believe that their lives have no purpose, because they can't actually conceive a child?
Quote: klinton said: Such as? You're just arguing for argument's sake, aren't you?
It appears you are actually:
Quote: Klinton said:I'm not going to get into it all again...there are pages upon pages of clear arguments in here.
Hmmm....You ignored my analysis of homosexuality's physical consequences as well as marriage's origin of purpose within government (not only in this thread either!). I wonder if you'll ignore your own words too.
Do you have an idea of class of influencers? Do you think things/events such as these influence someone to be gay:
-contact with another gay person while growing up
-hearing your parents speak positively about gay people
-seeing others having gay sex
-"you show me yours, I'll show you mine"
-playing doctor
Surely you've put some thought into it, if you believe that there are environmental influences at work in the establishment of a homosexual orientation...
I realize those things exist, and they could be right in some instances, but not all. So I don't want to get into that. I mean, neither of us are really qualified. What are you looking for?
"Yes, it's true, it does require two components to create life.. However, there are so many heterosexual couples who are incapable of procreation for medical reasons."
Is it really that hard to see? I used one example to show that the argument was flawed.
By all means, though, continue avoiding the argument.
Hmmm....You ignored my analysis of homosexuality's physical consequences as well as marriage's origin of purpose within government (not only in this thread either!). I wonder if you'll ignore your own words too.
All of which was counter argued (by myself and many others...your suggestions on the topic were distnictly false, as can be proven with minimal research). Marriage is a buisness transaction. Even just a few posts ago I offered a statement on this issue and the uses of marriage.
And for a country who opted out of the Kyoto proticals, I hardly see ridiculously inflated puplic 'health concerns' as a reason for keeping two people who love each other from marriage (not to mention that your 'argument' completely ignores the sexual habits of lesbians).
Quote: Animalman said: "Yes, it's true, it does require two components to create life.. However, there are so many heterosexual couples who are incapable of procreation for medical reasons."
Is it really that hard to see? I used one example to show that the argument was flawed.
By all means, though, continue avoiding the argument.
Animalman's technique:
A) Make broad statement.
B ) Pathetically argue it's validity.
C) After someone of his own political stance points out its stupidity, make a 180 and agree with said poster.
D) When feeling threatened after someone actually argues his points, he'll take apart his entire post and analyze it piece by piece so as to over-explain it and then destroy its original contextualization.
E) Spontateously agree with other posters who don't agree with whom he's arguing with.
F) Use volley upon volley of ad hominem when he realizes that no one's buying it.
Quote: klinton said: All of which was counter argued (by myself and many others...your suggestions on the topic were distnictly false, as can be proven with minimal research). Marriage is a buisness transaction. Even just a few posts ago I offered a statement on this issue and the uses of marriage.
I already pointed out to you that you didn't address the fact that I wasn't approaching marriage from a religious viewpoint, but a legal one. You ignored.
Quote: And for a country who opted out of the Kyoto proticals, I hardly see ridiculously inflated puplic 'health concerns' as a reason for keeping two people who love each other from marriage (not to mention that your 'argument' completely ignores the sexual habits of lesbians).
Quote: Pariah said: I already pointed out to you that you didn't address the fact that I wasn't approaching marriage from a religious viewpoint, but legal one. You ignored.
Quote: Pariah siad: You're right and that's what I've been trying to do. My problem isn't so much with marriage (although I do have civil concerns as I noted in Animalman's gay marriage thread) as it is what allowance of gay marriage encourages. I don't find sodomy to be harmless or okay--And I'm saying this from a secular as well as spiritual POV. If it was casually associated with society, I feel it could turn into a major problem.
After I notified you of government documented equal rights here:
Quote: PariahWe do live as equals. By law you are afforded the same rights as everyone else--With the exception of certain marriage benefits because they are more promptu for straight couples, plus the marriage design wasn't meant to accomodate homosexual requisites. The actions of bigots don't represent the law as governed by the United States of America or the Canadian government.
And then you responded with:
Quote: Once again, marriage is a buisness transaction. People get married every day for status, for financial security and any number of non-child rearing reasons (including politics and public approval). If you are willing to deny gay marriage becasue it cannot biologicaly produce children...there are plenty of other targets that deserve your equal attention as well. If you're not willing to address them, then you have no buisness discussing this.
And I replied saying you were an asshole....I think.
Homosexuals are allowed civil unions, which offer everything but the unlikely to be needed child-care benefits. Moreover, gays are allowed to adopt, and in many cities they can request stipends, which they may recieve depending on their financial history, which is exactly the case for straight couples. Hu-fucking-zah.
"Yes, it's true, it does require two components to create life.. However, there are so many heterosexual couples who are incapable of procreation for medical reasons."
Is it really that hard to see? I used one example to show that the argument was flawed.
By all means, though, continue avoiding the argument.
No you proved nothing. Heterosexual couples that may not be able to have their own childern have medical reasons why they aren't able to have children. These days most of it's treatable. To say that a MAN and a WOMAN who can't have sex is the same as saying a MAN and another MAN or a WOMAN and another WOMAN, who don't have the components together in that relationship to bear their own children is the same?
You really think your hot stuff don't you?
All you did was show how little you know about the subject at hand.
Ok then. A quick search (yahoo) for any new information on the 'health risks' of anal sex (any, that is, that have come out since I was a sex-ed instructor less than 5 years ago...asshole) turns up zero precautions for the act, with the exception of the 'catholic education.org' website (how fucking odd). Every secular source will agree that any risks with anal sex are in promiscuity (and someone seeking the right to marriage might not have cheating on thier mind...I'd think).
In light of the fact that your definition of marriage is false (by an easily confirmed historical record, read before you speak), it is a legal transaction...nothing more (why can't heterosexuals be subjected to the demeaning 'civil union' - God never used the term 'marriage' in the union of Adam and Eve - and have everyone inelligible for marriage?), I have to ask...
What exactly are you trying to say? Give me just one legaly acceptable reason to uphold the ban on gay marriage.
Unlike some people, I have real family members, not made up ones. I also have family across the globe, one of which is a doctor who studied medicine in the states. So I'd take his word over yours a meer teacher, and NOT doctor over the risks of anal sex.
Why am I posting here? The net's a free place, I can post where ever I want. I don't have to give you a reason as to why I'm posting. Unlike SOME people, I have never ONCE complained about how much I hate this thread and how I wish it would die. You on the other hand have said that, so why are YOU posting here when you yourself have stated how you hate it?
Quote: Batwoman said: Unlike some people, I have real family members, not made up ones. I also have family across the globe, one of which is a doctor who studied medicine in the states. So I'd take his word over yours a meer teacher, and NOT doctor over the risks of anal sex.
Why am I posting here? The net's a free place, I can post where ever I want. I don't have to give you a reason as to why I'm posting. Unlike SOME people, I have never ONCE complained about how much I hate this thread and how I wish it would die. You on the other hand have said that, so why are YOU posting here when you yourself have stated how you hate it?
why not leave?
Am I supposed to laugh at this or what? I don't get your approach here.
Yes, my entire family is made up? I spawned from nothing? Cool? Then don't take my word, take the consensus of the medical community. Ignorance is not a badge to wear so proudly.
I hate this thread because of people like yourself, not the topic. I am personally invested in this issue...'the net's a free place' (holy fucking maturity there...).
Quote: klinton said: Ok then. A quick search (yahoo) for any new information on the 'health risks' of anal sex (any, that is, that have come out since I was a sex-ed instructor less than 5 years ago...asshole) turns up zero precautions for the act, with the exception of the 'catholic education.org' website (how fucking odd). Every secular source will agree that any risks with anal sex are in promiscuity (and someone seeking the right to marriage might not have cheating on thier mind...I'd think).
You really really want what you say to be true, so you just say it not taking into account the reality of the situation. There is no correct way to go about sodomy--The act, in and of itself, is wrong--And I'm not saying that cuz' I'm Catholic, I'm saying it cuz' the body wasn't designed for it, and on a long enough timeline, your body's going to permanently and very negatively effected. In case you didn't know, the ever-widening state of the sphincter muscle is neither a positive nor a benign outcome of a dick being shoved into it. And most certainly is the reigning threats of disease or of damaging the rectum.
Take all the precautions you wish, but none of these attempts at softening the blow will make what you do "safe" or "careful" or even right.
Quote: In light of the fact that your definition of marriage is false (by an easily confirmed historical record, read before you speak), it is a legal transaction...nothing more (why can't heterosexuals be subjected to the demeaning 'civil union' - God never used the term 'marriage' in the union of Adam and Eve - and have everyone inelligible for marriage?), I have to ask...
What exactly are you trying to say? Give me just one legaly acceptable reason to uphold the ban on gay marriage.
Because it was invented with the intent of supporting families.
Stop changing the subject. Nowhere did I bring up God.
Quote: Pariah said: In case you didn't know, the ever-widening state of the sphincter muscle is neither a positive nor a benign outcome of a dick being shoved into it. And most certainly is the reigning threats of disease or of damaging the rectum.
The kind of damage you are indicating is not a risk to the average person (anymore than permanent vaginal damage is to a hetero woman). Again, don't take my word, do your reading. The anus is more than well equipped to handle the penetration (it's an incredibly maleable piece of muscle).
Quote: Stop changing the subject. Nowhere did I bring up God.
You were trying to justify that marriages exist for the security of families. I'm saying that's just not true. Marriages have served many purposes in history. The foremost historical purpose of a marriage is a legal contract providing for the aquisition of property and wealth.
Quote: klinton said: The kind of damage you are indicating is not a risk to the average person (anymore than permanent vaginal damage is to a hetero woman). Again, don't take my word, do your reading. The anus is more than well equipped to handle the penetration (it's an incredibly maleable piece of muscle).
No. It's not. The asshole wasn't specifically designed to heal from forced entry. Vaginal areas, however, are, and they do so with greater eficciency(sp) than the sphincter. They're also far more resistant to the more severe STDs (without condom). A penis entering a vagina (granted it is well lubricated--By its own secretions) is in no way unhealthy, even for a virgin--Hell, for some virgins, with enough foreplay, it doesn't even hurt. A penis entering the ass, however, is, in every way, unhealthy.
Quote: You were trying to justify that marriages exist for the security of families. I'm saying that's just not true. Marriages have served many purposes in history. The foremost historical purpose of a marriage is a legal contract providing for the aquisition of property and wealth.
But that's not issue because you're already offered that through CIVIL UNIONS.
No. It's not. The asshole wasn't specifically designed to heal from forced entry. Vaginal areas, however, are, and they do so with greater eficciency(sp) than the sphincter. They're also far more resistant to the more severe STDs (without condom). A penis entering a vagina (granted it is well lubricated--By its own secretions) is in no way unhealthy, even for a virgin--Hell, for some virgins, with enough foreplay, it doesn't even hurt. A penis entering the ass, however, is, in every way, unhealthy.
This is so ridiculous, it's not even amusing anymore. Cite me two reputable sources that will support you on your crusade.
Quote: But that's not issue because you're already offered that through CIVIL UNIONS.
Quote: klinton said: This is so ridiculous, it's not even amusing anymore. Cite me two reputable sources that will support you on your crusade.
It's basic sexual physiology for fuck's sake!
Quote: Then what is your hang up with marriage?
I could ask you th same question if you already have civil unions.
I don't feel marriage should be changed on account of a civil rights movement shelling for special rights. Marriage wasn't designed for what you want to use it for and the invention is more appropriately fitted for straight couples.
It's assumed 'basic' physiology. The risks you are implying, and the subsequent ban on gay marriage, are not to be presented based on assuptions. Show me a medical paper (and not a church endorsed piece of shit) that explains severe noteworthy 'health risks' and I will accept your argument.
Quote: I don't feel marriage should be changed on account of a civil rights movement shelling for special rights. Marriage wasn't designed for what you want to use it for and the invention is more appropriately fitted for straight couples.
What the hell...you just danced around in a circle. You said civil unions are adaquate. I told you marriage as a concept is not what you are saying (the bastion of child bearing families everywhere), and you reply 'that's not the issue'...when in fact it's your whole fucking argument. No one is asking for 'special' rights here except for you.
Quote: klinton said: It's assumed 'basic' physiology. The risks you are implying, and the subsequent ban on gay marriage, are not to be presented based on assuptions. Show me a medical paper (and not a church endorsed piece of shit) that explains severe noteworthy 'health risks' and I will accept your argument.
"Assumed"? They're "assumed"? I read it from a fucking National Geographic magazine. Where do you pull your info from? It's not like you've provided anything to prove that 'anal sex isn't harmful', so stones in a glass house.
Quote: What the hell...you just danced around in a circle. You said civil unions are adaquate. I told you marriage as a concept is not what you are saying (the bastion of child bearing families everywhere), and you reply 'that's not the issue'...when in fact it's your whole fucking argument. No one is asking for 'special' rights here except for you.
One strawman after a fucking 'nuther.
The type of marriage you're looking at is concept, because currently, in this day and age, the institution is about family security. This isn't a suggested form of government I'm speaking of, it's the reality of the situation. And by the by, I find it awfully amusing how you're junking your request for secular arguments. First you give lip-service that religious views aren't present in government, and now you're trying to denounce secularly appointed and decades standing laws. Spousal financial rights isn't the issue. It's family extensions that's the issue.
And yes, you are asking for special rights in lieu not only of the controversey surrounding whether or not homosexuality should be viewed as a mental disease, but also in your chosen ignorance of civil unions. I don't know where the hell you're getting this 'you're the one who wants special rights bullshit.
"Assumed"? They're "assumed"? I read it from a fucking National Geographic magazine.
What issue?
Quote: Where do you pull your info from? It's not like you've provided anything to prove that 'anal sex isn't harmful', so stones in a glass house.
The guide books I have on hand from my stint at the CBCA (information about which can be found at the Government of Canada website), and confirmed by a quick poll on the internet tonight.
Quote: Spoucal(sp) financial rights isn't the issues. It's family extensions that's the issue.
And this excludes me how? My family, my children, don't deserve the security? My legacy is less important somehow?
Quote: And yes, you are asking for special rights in lieu not only of the controversey surrounding whether or not homosexuality should be views as a mental disease, but also in your chosen ignorance of civil unions. I don't where the hell you're getting this 'you're the one who wants special rights bullshit.
By whom? That is such an archaic argument, it can only come from your church. It was officially dropped as such in 1973 in your country. The only ones who still cling to the concept are religious biggots.
And I'm not ignorant of civil unions...I just want to know why you insist we are not entitled to the same status as a hetero's. It's just a word...'marriage'. If your argument is not based on your religion, then tell give me something concrete as a reason.
And no. It is you that is seeking 'special' rights. You are seeking to impose your beliefs on a law that makes no (legal) concession for them (until Bush amended it). Marriage was never defined as a heterosexual union...until now.
I dunno. It was on STDs. *shrug* What, are you gonna track it down?
Just tell me what you find so unbelievable about my statement.
Quote: The guide books I have on hand from my stint at the CBCA (information about which can be found at the Government of Canada website), and confirmed by a quick poll on the internet tonight.
If you can post some text which you apparently have on hand with a site that has credibility to back it up, that'd be super.
Quote: And this excludes me how? My family, my children, don't deserve the security? My legacy is less important somehow?
Where the fuck did I say you were excluded or less important?
If you had kids with someone. Marry her, that way it'll be easier to raise em'. If you choose not to take an easier choice offered by government, then that's your own damn fault.
Quote: By whom? That is such an archaic argument, it can only come from your church. It was officially dropped as such in 1973 in your country. The only ones who still cling to the concept are religious biggots.
There are plenty of past articles posted on this thread that answer your question as to whom is researching the subject.
Quote: And I'm not ignorant of civil unions...I just want to know why you insist we are not entitled to the same status as a hetero's. It's just a word...'marriage'. If your argument is not based on your religion, then tell give me something concrete as a reason.
I have. Repeatedly. And just because you continuously say I'm not doesn't make that the case. And each time you put a new spin on what I say, like now: I never said your "status" was any different than straights'. I did however say that marriage wasn't intended for the uses you want and that your possible position. Your deviation from my real arguments is just more ad hominem bullshit designed to drift away from the issue.
Quote: And no. It is you that is seeking 'special' rights. You are seeking to impose your beliefs on a law that makes no (legal) concession for them (until Bush amended it). Marriage was never defined as a heterosexual union...until now.
I'm done talking to you. It was 'fun'...but this is going nowhere, and I've spent the better part of seven hours replying to you. If you can't see how ignorant you're being...whatever. I'm not going to change your mind. This conversation is circular. You select a few 'arguments' and oscilate between them, ignoring the logical refutes that where given the first time you presented them. Typical bigot argument strategy. Congrats, you're a good catholic.
C) After someone of his own political stance points out its stupidity, make a 180 and agree with said poster.
D) When feeling threatened after someone actually argues his points, he'll take apart his entire post and analyze it piece by piece so as to over-explain it and then destroy its original contextualization.
E) Spontateously agree with other posters who don't agree with whom he's arguing with.
F) Use volley upon volley of ad hominem when he realizes that no one's buying it.
G) Repeat.
You really got me down.
Not only did you completely misinterpret Wednesday and my comments, you can't even come up with an inventive way of hiding the fact that you'd rather sling insults than have a discussion.
I did like reading through this list, though. I think my favorite part was when you described my agreeing with Klinton as "spontaneous", when he was specifically responding to one of my posts.
From now on, I'll make sure to spontaneously ignore your asinine comments.
Quote: Batwoman said: To say that a MAN and a WOMAN who can't have sex is the same as saying a MAN and another MAN or a WOMAN and another WOMAN, who don't have the components together in that relationship to bear their own children is the same?
I wasn't talking about heterosexuals that can't have sex. I was talking about heterosexual couples that can't have children. Medical reasons or not, the situation is the same as with a homosexual couple. Neither are capable of having children.
When I saw this part of the article(ad, banner, whatever) you posted:
"Look at the way life is created, whether it is an electric current, a kitten or a baby boy or girl. It takes both components, the male and female, connected, to make life."
I interpreted it as saying homosexuality is unnatural or without purpose, because it could not directly create a life(not an uncommon argument). As I said, I believe that kind of argument to be flawed, or hypocritical, because I've never heard anyone(in the modern era, at least) condemning infertile men or women, who share the same plight, as it relates to childbearing.
Can't really add much of anything new that I haven't already said before except me and the boyfriend have passed the 14yr mark. I can look at him after all these years & get that warm fuzzy feeling that has nothing to do with sex. Can't help but feel good about the love we share for each other.
Thanks for asking, I just went back and looked and I did type it in right. Stupid here changed it to suit his needs.
For those that need a refersher, my original post
Quote: No you proved nothing. Heterosexual couples that may not be able to have their own childern have medical reasons why they aren't able to have children. These days most of it's treatable. To say that a MAN and a WOMAN who can't have sex is the same as saying a MAN and another MAN or a WOMAN and another WOMAN, who don't have the components together in that relationship to bear their own children is the same?
You really think your hot stuff don't you?
All you did was show how little you know about the subject at hand.
Quote: Batwoman said: I see you nit picked that rather than asked if I tryped in the wrong word, or something.
I didn't see it as nitpicking, that was the entire argument. For all I knew, you had misread my post.
If I wanted to nitpick, I would have brought up the fact that in your previous post you ended a sentence with a question mark when there was no question.
But, since you already seemed to think that I'm all high and mighty and that I consider myself "hot stuff", I decided to completely avoid that, and never mention it ever, no matter how much I wanted to, even if I was later accused of nitpicking, anyway.
When I saw this thread was active again, I decided to check in and see what all the fuss was about. I was tempted to stop after the second new page of trolling, but I couldn't. It's like staring at a car accident. You know you shouldn't look, you know it's ugly, but you just can't help it.
And to think this thread started with everybody actually having a real discussion. But I guess that's part of the MB thread lifecycle.
Not only did you completely misinterpret Wednesday and my comments, you can't even come up with an inventive way of hiding the fact that you'd rather sling insults than have a discussion.
I did like reading through this list, though. I think my favorite part was when you described my agreeing with Klinton as "spontaneous", when he was specifically responding to one of my posts.
From now on, I'll make sure to spontaneously ignore your asinine comments.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Can't really add much of anything new that I haven't already said before except me and the boyfriend have passed the 14yr mark. I can look at him after all these years & get that warm fuzzy feeling that has nothing to do with sex. Can't help but feel good about the love we share for each other.
Since everyone here saw fit to ignore your post, i'll just congrtatulate you on your relationship.
However do you manage what with your "choice" being all about wanton and immoral sex??!
congrats. I think that is the best revenge. Just live happy, despite all these bigots best efforts.
Show me a medical paper (and not a church endorsed piece of shit) that explains severe noteworthy 'health risks' and I will accept your argument.
Unfortunately, Klinton, there is medical evidence that indicates that anal sex can damage the sphincter and surrounding tissue. I cannot site the paper, but I have spoken with doctors who have told me that men, particularly those who have receptive anal intercourse over years' time with large objects and large penises, can exhibit a loss of sphincter control and tension as they get older (anal incontinence).
However, these remarks do not, on my part, condone agreement with Pariah's argument that anal sex is wrong because it can inflict damage on the human body.
As I said before, we as human beings engage in a number of potentially damaging behaviors without labeling them "wrong."
Furthermore, we know full well that women lose vaginal tension with repeated natural childbirths. Again, we're not going to label childbearing as "wrong" because it can inflict injury.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: The idea that anal sex is wrong because it damages the body is specious.
There are other arguments I could cite, but I'll just leave my opinion on this as needless injury. I'll go on to say that I find it idiotic to participate in the act. Vaginal areas are built for it, meaning if it's done correctly--Even if it hurts--It's not unhealthy.
Quote: Pariah said: There are other arguments I could cite, but I'll just leave my opinion on this as needless injury.
I can counter that with the idea that gay men, by their nature as being sexually attracted to other men, do NEED to engage in anal sex. As much as any str8 man *needs* to engage in vaginal sex.
Your need as a str8 man to penetrate a woman isn't driven on any substantive conscious level with a need to procreate, but rather with a need to feel that pleasure and to share this pleasure with someone you are attracted to and care about.
Jim. That's dumb. I have no need to penetrate anything. Just a want. Hell, our hands act as a neuter example in this case. And I'd bet good money if you blind-fold and gay man lead him to a woman's vagina, he'll get off just fine.
This is something you're not gonna convince me of.
Quote: Pariah said: Jim. That's dumb. I have no need to penetrate anything. Just a want. Hell, our hands act as a neuter example in this case. And I'd bet good money if you blind-fold and gay man lead him to a woman's vagina, he'll get off just fine.
Or you'll be charged with rape.
Quote: This is something you're not gonna convince me of.
I know. It must be nice to be young and be sure you've got the world all figured out...
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Or you'll be charged with rape.
I'm pretty sure you know what I meant, so I'll refine my statement a bit more:
Engaging in sexual intercourse for the purpose of pleasure seems logical enough on its own, but not when it causes needless harm with lasting damage. In the case of the vagina, it's not so needless because it was designed for the harm to vacate and not keep and lasting physical discomfort. In the case of the anus, it is not. If a person can have sex with their hands, a person can have sex with anything--Even a tractor! No seriously. I don't buy that a homosexual man has an urge to have sex with an anus. A person can take pleasure from any sex. However, that doesn't mean the need to have sex, I'm just saying they don't need to fuck themselves up in the process.
Quote: I know. It must be nice to be young and be sure you've got the world all figured out...
I'm really getting sick of that. I bet you'd never say this to Disco. He's not that much older than me.
Quote: Darknight613 said: Okay. One of us needs to get a silver bullet or wooden stake or whatever the hell else it will take, and kill this thread once and for all. It's been unnecessarily resurrected more times than Jason Vorhees, and all anyone's doing on it is either trolling, counter-trolling, or making wild interpretations of what our fellow posters are "really" trying to say, without anyone actually trying to discuss this issue seriously (and if anyone is, it's getting lost amidst the trolling, in which case a new thread devoted to serious discussion of gay marriage is probably called for anyway).
Quote: Captain Sammitch said: Close the damn thread. Nothing's being accomplished here.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: I find it funny that G dug this thread up from teh abyss to discuss closing it. I think it was about to die a natural death.
He didn't. There was a stupid 'pun' tacked onto it, and then several posts requesting it's closure. G-man is not the devil folks.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: I find it funny that G dug this thread up from teh abyss to discuss closing it. I think it was about to die a natural death.
He didn't. There was a stupid 'pun' tacked onto it, and then several posts requesting it's closure. G-man is not the devil folks.
I wasn't saying that. I guess I didn't know there were missing posts. I would never call G the devil tho, after all he IS my dad.
Quote: the G-man said: DO WE CLOSE THE THREAD OR NOT? Users may choose only one (2 total votes) Yeah, close it. It's turned into nothing but a thread for trolling and name-calling, like DK and Sammitch said 2 100%
No, keep it open. Something worthwhile may still come of it yet. 0 0%
Quote: klinton said: I must say...This is a very fascinating thread. You guys are a lot more open minded than I'd previously given you credit for.
But in all honesty, I think the whole gay marriage thing is such an overzealous waste of public attention. I'm a card carryinng friend of Dorothy, but I really don't get exited by our impending 'equal rights' here in Canada. I don't see it as being a workable situation in today's society. As enlightened as we've become in modern society, I would still not want to have my 'marriage' be immediate information in assorted situations (a job application being the first example that springs to mind). There is still more than enough ignorance going around (ex: Captain Sammich here) to make a marriage an unnecessary burden. It's sad but true.
I know that as much as I love my boyfriend (of 3 1/2 years), I have no intention of making him my husband. This isn't a statment of shame, as I'd never think of hiding denying my homosexuality...But at the same time, it's not the first thing that anyone I've just encountered needs to know about me.
I think the subject should be reveiwed again in the future...But right now, society just isn't ready to handle this.
Uh...wow....I read Wednesday's post about starting the thread, and decided to go back and do some reading from the earliest pages. I came across this loser. Fuck if I haven't done a complete 1800 over a couple of years.
I think it should stay open. Otherwise a precedent will be started & the mods will get requests for other threads being closed & whining about why the thread was closed & on & on. If you don't like the thread, just don't read it, much less continue posting on it.
Aw c'mon. Don't close the thread. If it the issue doesn't come up in this one again eventually, it'll just start up in another. I distinctly remember two other threads with this same subject and length. It'd be no matter.
Quote: DO WE CLOSE THE THREAD OR NOT? Users may choose only one (9 total votes) Yeah, close it. It's turned into nothing but a thread for trolling and name-calling, like DK and Sammitch said 7 78%
No, keep it open. Something worthwhile may still come of it yet. 2 22%
Quote: Pariah said: Aw c'mon. Don't close the thread. If it the issue doesn't come up in this one again eventually, it'll just start up in another. I distinctly remember two other threads with this same subject and length. It'd be no matter.
I'm all for a brand new thread on the topic. I found this to be an interesting discussion at first, and it's annoying to have to sift through hudreds of idiotic trolling posts while trying to find some actual content.
In fact, the whole point of closing this thread would be to start a new one for seriously discussing same sex marirages with hopefully all the trolling hopefully over and done with - seriously, after 47 pages, surely everyone's gotten the trolling out of their system and we can begin anew.
That doesn't mean non-trolling threads can't come from this topic. It was ressurected a few times before, and they had some serious discussion. Plus if we need reference, it's all in one place.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: I find it funny that G dug this thread up from teh abyss to discuss closing it. I think it was about to die a natural death.
I think it's funny that he did that and then posted this:
Quote: the G-man said: Shouldn't you be out looking for a job?
He could have been a little more subtle, like, I don't know...
Quote: the G-man said: Shouldn't you be out looGAY MARRIAGEking for a job?
Well I jumped through the hoop & voted. So now what other threads should be voted on? Since it seems to only take a couple of people complaining to hold a vote on a popular thread being locked up, why don't we make a clean sweep of the forum? I really hate it when other people decide for me what is & isn't worth posting on. I thought most of us shared that ideal no matter our political leanings. Feh!
This thread has treaded on the offensive on more than one occasion. I, a flaming gay homosexual man, find it grating to see at the top of the forum ever other month. Why does it bother you so much that it's had its time?
Quote: klinton said: This thread has treaded on the offensive on more than one occasion. I, a flaming gay homosexual man, find it grating to see at the top of the forum ever other month. Why does it bother you so much that it's had its time?
It bothers me that it's really been decided for me & everyone else. Your annoyance of seeing the thread shouldn't be more important than other people wanting to post on it. Would you like Pariah or Batwoman be able to go to Wednesday about a thread they no longer wish to see & having a special vote on locking it up? And it just sucks that while they may find my lifestyle obscene, they were at least willing to share & discuss opinions on a gay thread & not have it done away with.
I merely proposed relaunching the same-sex marriage thread because I thought that people who wanted to seriously discuss it could have a new thread that wasn't cluttered with trolling. Yes, there have been some valid points raised on this one, but they're incredibly difficult to pick out among all the flames and trolling. Believe me - I've tried.
If the rest of you want to keep this one open, so be it. I just thought it would make things easier for those who wanted to discuss this issue seriously to have a new thread to do so with.
Besides, since when does anyone around here listen to me anyways?
How about no because its incredibly pointless. At this point, whilst there's inflammatory bits within this thread, there still remains large quantities of valid argument that go over just about every facet there is. Just keep everything in one thread here.
You are not your lifestyle. I have always maintained that separation. So I may not agree with what you do, but I don't think anything less of you as a person for it.
Uh...Beardguy...you do realize that that was just forked tounge bullshit, right? You are not 'not-gay'...and until you atain that standard he will continue to judge you. The implications of his stament are that you are doing something wrong...something that you should quit.
Uh...Beardguy...you do realize that that was just forked tounge bullshit, right? You are not 'not-gay'...and until you atain that standard he will continue to judge you. The implications of his stament are that you are doing something wrong...something that you should quit.
Uh...Beardguy...you do realize that that was just forked tounge bullshit, right? You are not 'not-gay'...and until you atain that standard he will continue to judge you. The implications of his stament are that you are doing something wrong...something that you should quit.
Nothing to thank him for.
You wanna settle down? I said what I said. Nothing more, nothing less. No - I don't approve of it and I don't condone it. But I refuse to let that keep me from appreciating people for who they are. And if your identity is that wrapped up in something like sexual orientation, maybe there are some underlying problems going on.
Believe it or not, Klinton, I don't look sideways at every gay person I see. Some of my good friends are gay. Before I knew, they were perfectly ordinary, intelligent, talented people I enjoyed being around. After I knew, they were perfectly ordinary, intelligent, talented people I enjoyed being around. I don't appreciate them any less. I don't appreciate Beardguy or Jim J or you any less either. If you've got so much of a chip on your shoulder that you're convinced I can't care about you as a person and yet not approve of your choices, then you're the one with stuff you need to let go of. Be cool, dude.
Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (search) says babies born to couples of the same sex should be given amended birth certificates, but supporters of gay marriage who want to change those certificates say the governor's formula for doing so is wrong.
Click in the box to the right to watch a report by FOX News' Alisyn Camerota.
Birth certificates (search) are supposed to establish identity and parentage. In Massachusetts, the only state in the union where same-sex marriage (search) is legal, gay rights advocates want the words "Mother" and "Father" removed from birth certificates, and put in their place the terms "Parent A" and "Parent B."
"There should be no doubt in Massachusetts that Massachusetts records should accurately reflect the true nature of Massachusetts families and that includes same-sex couples," said Michele Granda, staff attorney for Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders.
Romney has instructed hospitals to cross out the words "Mother" or "Father" and write in the phrase "Second Parent."
"I'm opposed to taking the Massachusetts birth certificate and removing the term 'Mother' and 'Father' and substituting 'Parent A' and 'Parent B,'" Romney said. "Look, each child has a mother and a father. They should have the right to have that mother and father known to them and that's something I'd like to preserve on a birth certificate."
Romney opposes same-sex marriage. Gay advocates say his latest stand is discriminatory.
"There's no need for the governor to be stigmatizing the children born to same-sex couples just because he does not personally approve of same-sex couples," Granda said.
As Romney contemplates a run for president, the Republican governor from a liberal Northeast state knows his position on birth certificates has to appeal to Southern and Midwestern conservatives. Still, Romney said, he's voicing his conscience.
"My view is that that's wrong on paper and it's wrong on fact. Every child deserves to have a mother and a father, and a birth certificate should reflect mothers and fathers," he said.
Like the decision allowing gay marriage in Massachusetts, the description of a parent on birth certificates also appears to be destined for the court.
Bill Dalrymple, 56, and best friend Bryan Pinn, 65, have decided to take the plunge and try out the new same-sex marriage legislation with a twist--they're straight men. . . . The two--both of whom were previously married and both of whom are still looking for a good woman to love--insist that after the humour subsided, a real issue lies at the heart of it all. 'There are significant tax implications that we don't think the government has thought through.' Pinn said.
Bill Dalrymple, 56, and best friend Bryan Pinn, 65, have decided to take the plunge and try out the new same-sex marriage legislation with a twist--they're straight men. . . . The two--both of whom were previously married and both of whom are still looking for a good woman to love--insist that after the humour subsided, a real issue lies at the heart of it all. 'There are significant tax implications that we don't think the government has thought through.' Pinn said.
A man and a woman could do this for exactly the same reasons.
Quote: Steve T said: A man and a woman could do this for exactly the same reasons.
In which case, it would be a finagle. And that isn't illegal. Love isn't a requisite of marriage.
The government works off of maximum efficiency. And allowing only straight people the privilege to marry is incorporating such a policy. By doing that, we, and they, at least know it works a great deal. By allowing it to gays, however, it doesn't work at all.
Quote: Steve T said: A man and a woman could do this for exactly the same reasons.
In which case, it would be a finagle. And that isn't illegal. Love isn't a requisite of marriage.
The government works off of maximum efficiency. And allowing only straight people the privilege to marry is incorporating such a policy. By doing that, we, and they, at least know it works a great deal. By allowing it to gays, however, it doesn't work at all.
I'm always amazed at the lengths you go to to cover your prejudices.
Quote: Pariah said: Tell me what you find wrong with it and then I'll give a more in depth explanation.
here, let me change gay to black and straight to white and marry to vote and you'll see where your extreme prejudice is showing:
Quote: Jim Crow Pariah said: The government works off of maximum efficiency. And allowing only white people the privilege to vote is incorporating such a policy. By doing that, we, and they, at least know it works a great deal. By allowing it to blacks, however, it doesn't work at all.
Quote: Pariah said: Tell me what you find wrong with it and then I'll give a more in depth explanation.
Every. Freakin'. Part.
Exactly. That wa sa lot of words with no applicable meaning. Two men could do it. Two women could do it. A man and a woman could do it. There is no difference in the efficiency there.
Quote: Steve T said: A man and a woman could do this for exactly the same reasons.
In which case, it would be a finagle. And that isn't illegal. Love isn't a requisite of marriage.
The government works off of maximum efficiency. And allowing only straight people the privilege to marry is incorporating such a policy. By doing that, we, and they, at least know it works a great deal. By allowing it to gays, however, it doesn't work at all.
Quote: Pariah said: The government works off of maximum efficiency.
which country do you live in? Because my government spent a good hundred thousand dollars to rush senators back to washington to vote on a case involving one woman who was brain dead. Currently my government is wasting billions on a war because they didn't spend a million or so to properly analyze how to most efficiently occupy and stabilize the country.
I would assume, and Pariah is free to correct me, that Pariah is pointing out that our government works off taxes and the most tax revenue is produced by an economy working at maximum efficiency.
Quote: the G-man said: I would assume, and Pariah is free to correct me, that Pariah is pointing out that our government works off taxes and the most tax revenue is produced by an economy working at maximum efficiency.
PREZACTLY!!
As Wednesday said, there's obviously no way to get anything working at maximum efficiency--Especially not a government--But there is such thing as achieving the closest thing to it. And that's exactly what allowance of marriage for only straight people is.
The government doesn't work through selective cases, only through systems that work as efficiently as possible through bulk or majority.
Quote: Steve T said: Exactly.
That wa sa lot of words with no applicable meaning.
Two men could do it. Two women could do it. A man and a woman could do it. There is no difference in the efficiency there.
There's efficiency in adherence to the likelihood of kids and what environments they grow up in through straight marriage.
That's what I wondered when you made your argument.
But to answer your question, nope, it isn't. It's a serious question since each vote COSTS the government money and allowing everyone to vote is economically inefficient.
I still think you're being snarky here. You've sparated black people and women...Why not separate every other ethnic group there is if that's gonna be your attitude. Or is this some sort of point that says women and black people don't think like white men?
Anyway, that wouldn't be an aspiration of maximum efficiency since women and African Americans, who are allowed to vote, are mostly a conglomerance of working citizens.
Quote: Pariah said: I still think you're being snarky here. You've sparated black people and women...Why not separate every other ethnic group there is if that's gonna be your attitude. Or is this some sort of point that says women and black people don't think like white men?
Come now. You're just being silly. I asked about black people and women because they were given the right to vote respectively by the 15th and 19th Amendments--that is to say, through legislative action.
By your argument, those were both bad moves because they were economically inefficient.
Quote: Pariah said: Anyway, that wouldn't be an aspiration of maximum efficiency since women and African Americans, who are allowed to vote, are mostly a conglomerance of working citizens.
What? Are you saying that they shouldn't have been given the right or that the right shouldn't be taken away?
Quote: Wednesday said: By your argument, those were both bad moves because they were economically inefficient.
Ah. Understood.
Nah. The government has to help its citizens. It needs to understand what they want or that decreases morale. Since black people and women are apart of the laboring and consumerist wheel, having their opinions in vote-form makes for more efficiency.
Quote: Wednesday said: What? Are you saying that they shouldn't have been given the right or that the right shouldn't be taken away?
Uh....That second one. The right shouldn't be taken away since they've been representatives of the working class since the ratification of 15th and 19th ammendments. Technically, they should be given voting status even before then since they're citizens. But I'm just saying it's their ability to work that makes their opinions valuable.
Quote: Wednesday said: That's what I wondered when you made your argument.
But to answer your question, nope, it isn't. It's a serious question since each vote COSTS the government money and allowing everyone to vote is economically inefficient.
This is a brilliant statement. It is economically ineffecient, temporally inefficient, and mechanically ineffecient. It is far more efficient to have fewer and fewer people voting. In fact, a totally centralized, singular power yields a greater (the greatest?) governmental efficiency (if "working from maximum efficiency" is your goal).
Thus, government, the more it works for the people, of the people, and by the people, is by DESIGN less than maximally efficient. In fact, efficiency is NOT the goal of a Republic form of government.
It's all about equal protection under the law, folks.
However, their opinions are necessary for a working democratic society. Homosexual couples are in no way necessary. It is, in fact, detrimental for a working marriage tax-cut policy.
Quote: Pariah said: Since black people and women are apart of the laboring and consumerist wheel, having their opinions in vote-form makes for more efficiency.
Ok, by your, ahem, logic, anyone who does not work (therefore, is not a part of the "laboring" aspect of society) should have their right to vote stripped from them.
And frankly, you fail to even exhibit internal logic to your own point because the female in the workplace was a rare event circa 1920 and the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Ok, by your, ahem, logic, anyone who does not work (therefore, is not a part of the "laboring" aspect of society) should have their right to vote stripped from them.
I WISH!
But you miss the point. Because the majority are/were working, it would be more accurate (efficient) to go on that ratio.
Quote: And frankly, you fail to even exhibit internal logic to your own point because the female in the workplace was a rare event circa 1920 and the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
Quote: And frankly, you fail to even exhibit internal logic to your own point because the female in the workplace was a rare event circa 1920 and the ratification of the 19th Amendment.
They raised the kids. I think that's enough.
Your logic is falling apart, Pariah. I suggest bowing out while you can.
Quote: the G-man said: I would assume, and Pariah is free to correct me, that Pariah is pointing out that our government works off taxes and the most tax revenue is produced by an economy working at maximum efficiency.
going on taxes-and this might not have made national news but it was in the local papers-when SF allowed gay couples to file to be married they collected about $50,000 in fees for that few week period. That helped the local economy and made people feel equal. Everybody won.
Quote: Wednesday said: That's what I wondered when you made your argument.
But to answer your question, nope, it isn't. It's a serious question since each vote COSTS the government money and allowing everyone to vote is economically inefficient.
This is a brilliant statement. It is economically ineffecient, temporally inefficient, and mechanically ineffecient. It is far more efficient to have fewer and fewer people voting. In fact, a totally centralized, singular power yields a greater (the greatest?) governmental efficiency (if "working from maximum efficiency" is your goal).
Thus, government, the more it works for the people, of the people, and by the people, is by DESIGN less than maximally efficient. In fact, efficiency is NOT the goal of a Republic form of government.
It's all about equal protection under the law, folks.
Thank r3x for that. He made the point a page ago, but was ignored.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: going on taxes-and this might not have made national news but it was in the local papers-when SF allowed gay couples to file to be married they collected about $50,000 in fees for that few week period. That helped the local economy and made people feel equal. Everybody won.
Until that $50,000 and then some is takin' away through marital tax-cuts that don't apply to the homosexual requisite.
Quote: Wednesday said: That's what I wondered when you made your argument.
But to answer your question, nope, it isn't. It's a serious question since each vote COSTS the government money and allowing everyone to vote is economically inefficient.
This is a brilliant statement. It is economically ineffecient, temporally inefficient, and mechanically ineffecient. It is far more efficient to have fewer and fewer people voting. In fact, a totally centralized, singular power yields a greater (the greatest?) governmental efficiency (if "working from maximum efficiency" is your goal).
Thus, government, the more it works for the people, of the people, and by the people, is by DESIGN less than maximally efficient. In fact, efficiency is NOT the goal of a Republic form of government.
It's all about equal protection under the law, folks.
Thank r3x for that. He made the point a page ago, but was ignored.
I apologize for not giving credit where it's due. r3x, it was a brilliant point.
Pariah seems to be under the assumption that gay people sit around in orgies all day doing nothing but fucking. Gay people do actually hold down jobs and raise children. Therefore, they're as much a contributing part of the economy/society as anyone else. And their morale is effected by being limited in rights.
And if their rights are limited, same as blacks in the south circa 1960, then we'll end up with the same sort of protests that happened in the south (the bus boycott alone hurt the economy of the region).
And, Pariah, you wouldn't have the balls to say to Wednesday about black people that you say to Jim/G-man about gay people.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: It's about viewing EVERYONE on equal footing with respect to the civil benefits and responsibilities that accrue from being married.
Being married isn't about "respect" or "rights". It's a privilege that is assigned the task of paying back what it's given through families with higher morale and consumerist ability.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: Gay people do actually hold down jobs and raise children. Therefore, they're as much a contributing part of the economy/society as anyone else. And their morale is effected by being limited in rights.
You're talking about adopting. In which case, people are given help from the government to raise that child depending on whether or not they need it. So there's no need for a tax-cut there.
Quote: And if their rights are limited, same as blacks in the south circa 1960, then we'll end up with the same sort of protests that happened in the south (the bus boycott alone hurt the economy of the region).
Quote: Pariah said: Being married isn't about "respect" or "rights". It's a privilege that is assigned the task of paying back what it's given through families with higher morale and consumerist ability.
This logic has already been shot down by r3x.
Gay people work and raise children.
And many str8 marrieds do not raise children.
Now, by your logic, those str8s who are married but have no children should be compelled to divorce or have their marriages legally annulled because they do not meet one of your criteria for being married.
Further, those str8s who are married but struggle with their "consumerists abilities" should be compelled to divorce or have their marriages legally annulled because they do not meet one of your criteria for being married.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: Gay people do actually hold down jobs and raise children. Therefore, they're as much a contributing part of the economy/society as anyone else. And their morale is effected by being limited in rights.
Quote: You're talking about adopting. In which case, people are given help from the government to raise that child depending on whether or not they need it. So there's no need for a tax-cut there.
no, i'm talking about gay people being members of society in every way that straight people are. i'm talking about raising kids (yes, adopting. but still raising kids.) and i'm talking about them working and supporting the economy.
Quote: And if their rights are limited, same as blacks in the south circa 1960, then we'll end up with the same sort of protests that happened in the south (the bus boycott alone hurt the economy of the region).
Quote: Once again: Marriage isn't a right.
it is if you have to go to the government for a license to do it. if marriage was strictly a church matter then gay marriage wouldn't be an issue. but once the government got involved it became a right that everyone should have.
Neither was black men voting until we came to our senses and stated it explicitly in the Constitution. That's what the Constitution is for, for us to realize and state rights that our Founders didn't think of.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: This logic has already been shot down by r3x.
Gay people work and raise children.
Gay people working was never the issue. The fact that they have no chance of having kids without preparing for them adequately beforehand means your argument is full of shit. And what's more, the ones that aren't adequately repaired get help by the government anyway.
Quote: And many str8 marrieds do not raise children.
Stop trying to create averages that aren't there. "Many" straights who don't raise children aren't the majority of straights who do. And also, those "many" straights still mainly hone the ability to have potential families. Which is one of the larger reasons for benefits among straights.
Quote: Now, by your logic, those str8s who are married but have no children should be compelled to divorce or have their marriages legally annulled because they do not meet one of your criteria for being married.
No. As I said before, you're creating averages that aren't there. This is system is based on majority. Maximum efficiency. In the case of straights, such a marriage is a finagle. Not illegal.
Quote: Further, those str8s who are married but struggle with their "consumerists abilities" should be compelled to divorce or have their marriages legally annulled because they do not meet one of your criteria for being married.
I am shocked to know that my children are not biologically my children.
If I were to marry a man today, I would not be giving up any of my parental obligations.
Does this mean you had to give up your benefits when you were divorced? If that's the case, it's not the government's fault, but your own since you left your wife...Or hers for leaving you--I dunno.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: no, i'm talking about gay people being members of society in every way that straight people are. i'm talking about raising kids (yes, adopting. but still raising kids.) and i'm talking about them working and supporting the economy.
And them working and supporting the economy was never the issue. The fact of the matter is, they're supported for kids either way. And you're little ad hominem isn't gonna change that.
Quote: it is if you have to go to the government for a license to do it. if marriage was strictly a church matter then gay marriage wouldn't be an issue. but once the government got involved it became a right that everyone should have.
No. It didn't. The institution of marriage in the case of government is most specifically, according to government policy, not a right.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Neither was black men voting until we came to our senses and stated it explicitly in the Constitution. That's what the Constitution is for, for us to realize and state rights that our Founders didn't think of.
Yeah, you tried that bullshit before. Didn't work for a very good reason.
I'm sorryf if you can't come to terms with the fact that gay marriage isn't compatible with the marital policy, but a person's right to vote is in no way comparable to the privilege of marriage. You dragging the minorities into this is just an example of your flaming desparity.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: So those str8s who are married but unable to bear their biological children are now exempt from marriage.
Nope. Their problem is medical. Yours isn't. It's flawed reasoning to say that just because one thing doesn't work the way it's supposed to (infertility in couples) that-that validates mis-use of sex and policy by others (homosexual couples who want marriage benefits).
I know a couple who weren't able to concieve almost a decade ago who're were able to now due to a medical breakthrough.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: This logic has already been shot down by r3x.
Gay people work and raise children.
Gay people working was never the issue. The fact that they have no chance of having kids without preparing for them adequately beforehand means your argument is full of shit. And what's more, the ones that aren't adequately repaired get help by the government anyway.
Quote: And many str8 marrieds do not raise children.
Stop trying to create averages that aren't there. "Many" straights who don't raise children aren't the majority of straights who do. And also, those "many" straights still mainly hone the ability to have potential families. Which is one of the larger reasons for benefits among straights.
but with the population double what it was 25 years ago, and still growing rapidly, is it efficient at all to encourage people to have more and more children? and aren't gay marriages an efficient idea because once married they'd be more inclined to adopt children and give those children a better chance at college and being more productive in the economy?
Quote: Jim Jackson said: So those str8s who are married but unable to bear their biological children are now exempt from marriage.
Nope. Their problem is medical. Yours isn't. It's flawed reasoning to say that just because one thing doesn't work the way it's supposed to (infertility in couples) that-that validates mis-use of sex and policy by others (homosexual couples who want marriage benefits).
I know a couple who weren't able to concieve almost a decade ago who're were able to now due to a medical breakthrough.
come on, pariah. you know if they found some way for gay men to have babies and lesbians to ejaculate semen you'd still be opposed.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: but with the population double what it was 25 years ago, and still growing rapidly, is it efficient at all to encourage people to have more and more children?
The point of the system doesn't encourage more kids. It helps prepare for those kids and to make sure they grow up to be good and balanced citizens.
Quote: and aren't gay marriages an efficient idea because once married they'd be more inclined to adopt children and give those children a better chance at college and being more productive in the economy?
You really have a short memory don't you? I'm not sure where you get the idea that they'd be "more inclined" to adopt children when they're married. They can just get a civil union or merge their funds and power of attorneys. And in the end, the government still helps pay for those adopted kids.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: come on, pariah. you know if they found some way for gay men to have babies and lesbians to ejaculate semen you'd still be opposed.
We'll just wait until that scenario happens so I can better understand the circumstances of the situation.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: and aren't gay marriages an efficient idea because once married they'd be more inclined to adopt children and give those children a better chance at college and being more productive in the economy?
Another solid point about efficiencies.
There have been biological theories/positions advanced that take the position that homosexuality is a kind of biological control on species overpopulation.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: There have been biological theories/positions advanced that take the position that homosexuality is a kind of biological control on species overpopulation.
You know, I just don't get it. Why do people care about who other people marry? Who and which holes get plugged in the privacy of peoples' bedrooms is no body elses business. When I was married I never felt threatened by same sex marriage. Let people love whom they want to love and declare that love publicly. Same sex couples deserve the same rights as straight couples. Who would it harm?
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: but with the population double what it was 25 years ago, and still growing rapidly, is it efficient at all to encourage people to have more and more children?
Quote: The point of the system doesn't encourage more kids. It helps prepare for those kids and to make sure they grow up to be good and balanced citizens.
but what about single mothers/fathers? they can raise their kids just fine, and so can gay people. kids grow up "balanced" based on the way they're treated and the things they're taught. two decent gay people will raise as good a kid as two decent straight people or one single straight person.
Quote: and aren't gay marriages an efficient idea because once married they'd be more inclined to adopt children and give those children a better chance at college and being more productive in the economy?
You really have a short memory don't you? I'm not sure where you get the idea that they'd be "more inclined" to adopt children when they're married. They can just get a civil union or merge their funds and power of attorneys. And in the end, the government still helps pay for those adopted kids.
And a very serious health risk. Fuck...we really need to start rounding these faggots up and gassing the little fuckers. They are going to ruin the world for normal 'Fight Club' worshipers everywhere.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: come on, pariah. you know if they found some way for gay men to have babies and lesbians to ejaculate semen you'd still be opposed.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: There have been biological theories/positions advanced that take the position that homosexuality is a kind of biological control on species overpopulation.
Not smart to laugh at your origins, you lil' pecker-snapper.
Quote: magicjay38 said: Let people love whom they want to love and declare that love publicly. Same sex couples deserve the same rights as straight couples. Who would it harm?
Quote: Pariah said: Origins? What origins do you speak of?
Just come out of the closet. Like Dahmer, anyone with that much hate and bile and prejudice in their is obviously to distance themselves from their sexual orientation.
Quote: magicjay38 said: Let people love whom they want to love and declare that love publicly. Same sex couples deserve the same rights as straight couples. Who would it harm?
Pariah.
How about if we all promise to stay far away (very far away) from his anus?
Quote: Steve T said: Presumably Lesbian couples can marry cos they can get a sperm donor and raise children?
Again. There's no way a child would be unpredictable within that relationship. And because the benefits are in place as a protocol for unplanned or earlier-than-expected as well as planned child-birth, it's deemed void for lesbian couples.
Quote: Steve T said: Presumably Lesbian couples can marry cos they can get a sperm donor and raise children?
Again. There's no way a child would be unpredictable within that relationship. And because the benefits are in place as a protocol for unplanned or earlier-than-expected as well as planned child-birth, it's deemed void for lesbian couples.
I think that straight couples are just as likely to be fucked up as gay couples. Of course, having "god hates fags" fellows like yourself in their face may add a stress factor.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: I think that straight couples are just as likely to be fucked up as gay couples.
It's not a matter of considering whether or not kids are going to be put with anyone who's imbalanced. Obviously anyone can be deranged. The reason a child being had under a man and a woman is more orthodox is because it's best to have both influences.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: I think that straight couples are just as likely to be fucked up as gay couples.
It's not a matter of considering whether or not kids are going to be put with anyone who's imbalanced. Obviously anyone can be deranged. The reason a child being had under a man and a woman is more orthodox is because it's best to have both influences.
You are living proof that woman & possum can procreate, poopy pants!
HISTORIC VOTE: California lawmakers became the first in the country to approve a bill allowing same-sex marriages.
UNCERTAIN FUTURE: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could veto the measure, though. He has said the issue should be decided by voters or the courts.
CURRENT RIGHTS: California already gives same-sex couples many of the rights and duties of marriage if they register with the state as domestic partners.
HISTORIC VOTE: California lawmakers became the first in the country to approve a bill allowing same-sex marriages.
UNCERTAIN FUTURE: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger could veto the measure, though. He has said the issue should be decided by voters or the courts.
CURRENT RIGHTS: California already gives same-sex couples many of the rights and duties of marriage if they register with the state as domestic partners.
This will be a very tough call for the Guvrnator. Whatever choice he makes, he's fucked. He signs it, he loses the Central Valley, the Inland Empire, and the Southern Coastal counties from OC to the Mexican boarder. A veto will cost him dearly in Los Angeles, the largest population region in the in the state. It won't cost him much in the San Francisco Bay Area either way. He was never popular up here.
The question is does he want to pursue a national agenda or retain the governorship? Signing it will kill his chances with fundy Republicans. The veto will kill him in the state race. To get elected to statewide office you've got to carry at least one of the population centres: LA or SF. His chances respectivly are slim to none with the veto.
Quote: the G-man said: CURRENT RIGHTS: California already gives same-sex couples many of the rights and duties of marriage if they register with the state as domestic partners.[/LIST]
From the Boston Globe via blogger Lashawn Barber we've got a story of homosexuals trying to intimidate those who sign a petition banning gay marriage in the bay state:
Lang, 42, said the name, street address, hometown and ZIP code of everyone who signs the petition will be posted on the Web site KnowThyNeighbor.org.
"Everyone's scrambling to know who in their town would sign this," Lang told the Boston Herald. "And this Web site will give gay people the tools to know, to defend themselves and their families, to let them go neighbor-to-neighbor and say, 'I don't appreciate your signing this.'"
"I'm going to be aggressive personally," he said. "I want to know that the people I do business with are not against (gay marriage). This is going to be won by economics."
I'll be waiting for the liberal concern that was so present when pro-lifers posted names and addresses of abortionists, namely, when their houses were picketed that it might lead to violence.
Gay rights advocates said they were heartened after both candidates for governor of New Jersey stated they would oppose a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage, but a day after those declarations, their campaigns declined to specify what either man would do if the state Supreme Court allows such unions.
In a debate Tuesday, gubernatorial candidates Doug Forrester and Jon Corzine found common ground on the issue. Both said they oppose same-sex marriage, but that they would oppose a constitutional amendment banning it.
Their positions could be tested next year, when the state Supreme Court is expected to rule on a lawsuit from several same-sex couples who claim the state Constitution gives them a right to marry. Arguments have not been scheduled in the case and are likely to be heard sometime after the Nov. 8 election.
In the debate, both candidates gave a nuanced and nearly identical view on gay marriage.
From Corzine, a Democrat: "I believe (that) the fundamental and traditional view of marriage is between a man and a woman. On the other hand, I don't believe constitutions are about taking away rights. That's why I wouldn't have supported an amendment in the federal government and I won't support one in New Jersey."
From Forrester, a Republican: "I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman. I believe that a constitutional amendment isn't the right tool to make that defense."
When pressed for clarifications on Wednesday, the campaigns had little to say.
Lower courts have twice held that gay couples do not have the right to marry in New Jersey, but court-watchers on both sides of the issue think there's a good chance the state Supreme Court will overturn those rulings.
Wednesday, Corzine spokeswoman Ivette Mendez said she would not answer questions about what Corzine would do in that case, saying they were "hypothetical"
Forrester spokeswoman Sherry Sylvester said Forrester believes the gay marriage decision should be made by elected lawmakers, not appointed judges. And if judges allowed same-sex matrimony, she said, he would "take any steps to return the debate to the Legislature, where he believes the decision should be made."
She would not specify those steps, though, and reiterated that Forrester opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
Anti-gay marriage activists say that such a ban is their best hope of preventing the unions in New Jersey, which is one of a handful of states to recognize domestic partnerships.
A Swedish man who donated his sperm to a lesbian couple must pay child support for the three boys he fathered, the Supreme Court has ruled.
The man, now 39, gave his sperm to the couple in the early 1990s. Three sons were born in the years 1992 to 1996.
He agreed he would play no role in the boys' upbringing, but signed a document saying he was the father. The women separated and the biological mother demanded that the man pay child support. The man went to the district and appeals courts, but lost. The Supreme Court upheld these rulings
I think its an interesting ancillary issue to the gay marriage issue and how every "advancement" in legal rights creates corresponding legal "headaches."
A Swedish man who donated his sperm to a lesbian couple must pay child support for the three boys he fathered, the Supreme Court has ruled.
The man, now 39, gave his sperm to the couple in the early 1990s. Three sons were born in the years 1992 to 1996.
He agreed he would play no role in the boys' upbringing, but signed a document saying he was the father. The women separated and the biological mother demanded that the man pay child support. The man went to the district and appeals courts, but lost. The Supreme Court upheld these rulings
Bizarre parentage law is not confined to the gay community. Read the following.
From Harper's Magazine August 2005, Readings Pg. 21
Snow Job
From a decision issued in Feb. 2005 by an Appellate court In Illinois. In Nov. 2000, Sharon Irons sued Richard Phillips for child support; in may, 2003, Phillips countersued, charging Irons with fraud, theft and intent to cause emotional distress. The court found Irons innocent of fraud and theft but held her liable for causing Phillips emotional distress. Phillips was ordered to pay child support. Both are MDs.
Plaintiff and defendant began dating in Jan. 1999. Plaintiff informed defendant he did not wish to have children prior to marriage and intended to use a condom when and if they engaged in sexual intercourse. During the entire course of their relationship, the parties engaged in intimate sexual acts 3 times. Vaginal penetration never occurred. On or around Feb. 19, 1999, defendant 'intentionally engaged in oral sex with plaintiff so that she could harvest his semen and artificially inseminate herself.' Plaintiff asserts that defendant took his 'semen, sperm and genetic material without his permission, for the purpose of concieving a child.'
Defendant responds that plaintiff did not loan or lease his sperm, and there was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request. She asserts that when plaintiff 'delivered' his sperm to the defendant it was a gift - an absolute and irrevocable transfer of title to property from a donor to a donee. Plaintiff's donative intent was clear, she argues. 'Had he not intended to deliver his sperm to me, he would have used a condom and kept its contents.' Plaintiff cannot show he had the right to unconditional possession of his sperm . Plaintiff presumably intended, and he does not claim otherwise, that defendant discard his semen, not return it to him.
A gay man charged with helping his lover loot a wealthy school district has asked a judge to rule that state law protecting spouses from having to testify against each other also applies to same-sex partners.
Stephen Signorelli, fighting charges that he stole at least $219,000 from the Roslyn, N.Y., school district, is seeking to bar testimony by his longtime companion, Frank Tassone, the district's former superintendent.
Auditors say that in all, $11.2 million was taken from the Long Island district, and state Comptroller Alan Hevesi has called the case "the largest, most remarkable, most extraordinary theft" from a school system in American history.
Tassone pleaded guilty this year to stealing $1 million between 1996 and 2002. As part of his plea bargain, he agreed to testify against other defendants in the case, which meant he might have to take the stand in Signorelli's trial.
In a motion filed before a judge in Nassau County, Signorelli sought to bar such an appearance, saying he and Tassone deserved the same protection as a heterosexual couple.
"Mr. Tassone and I have been loving partners for 33 years," Signorelli said in an affidavit, adding that the two had participated in "a solemn religious ceremony" conducted while they were on a Caribbean cruise, "to memorialize our relationship and love for one another."
I don't think a marriage license or domestic partnership should be a license to steal for couples regardless of the genders involved. I think the exclusion of spousal testimony harkens back to the days when women were considered little better than chattel. A man should not have to fear the testimony of his property. Until 30 years ago it was legal to rape your wife, for instense.
The best solution, I believe, is to remove the exclusion rule on all couples with the possible exception of capital murder cases. One shouldn't be compelled to assist in putting their partner to death. Even that should be at the discretion of the witness, not defense attorneys.
These guys were more than partners in love. They were partners in crime. One copped a plea with the understanding that he may later be compelled to testify against his lover. He should be so compelled.
The original idea of the "spousal privilege" was also that marriage was a partnership built on trust. Not unlike the doctor-patient privilege or lawyer-client privilege, it was based on the idea that you should be able to trust your spouse with your secrets (within certain limiations).
Also, the privilege is for the defendant, not the witness, to claim. So the fact the guy copped a plea doesn't affect his "partner's" right to claim it as a defense.
It seems to me that, if allow gay marriage, you should allow the spousal privilege.
OTOH, if you don't apply the privilege to unmarried cohabitating hetero couples, you shouldn't apply it to unmarried cohabitating gay couples. To do so would be legislation from the bench and create a defense for gay criminals that doesn't exist for straight ones.
Quote: the G-man said: The original idea of the "spousal privilege" was also that marriage was a partnership built on trust. Not unlike the doctor-patient privilege or lawyer-client privilege, it was based on the idea that you should be able to trust your spouse with your secrets (within certain limiations).
Also, the privilege is for the defendant, not the witness, to claim. So the fact the guy copped a plea doesn't affect his "partner's" right to claim it as a defense.
It seems to me that, if allow gay marriage, you should allow the spousal privilege.
OTOH, if you don't apply the privilege to unmarried cohabitating hetero couples, you shouldn't apply it to unmarried cohabitating gay couples. To do so would be legislation from the bench and create a defense for gay criminals that doesn't exist for straight ones.
I thought it was that spouses couldn't be "compelled" to testify meaning they could if they wanted.
Quote: the G-man said: The original idea of the "spousal privilege" was also that marriage was a partnership built on trust. Not unlike the doctor-patient privilege or lawyer-client privilege, it was based on the idea that you should be able to trust your spouse with your secrets (within certain limiations).
Also, the privilege is for the defendant, not the witness, to claim. So the fact the guy copped a plea doesn't affect his "partner's" right to claim it as a defense.
It seems to me that, if allow gay marriage, you should allow the spousal privilege.
OTOH, if you don't apply the privilege to unmarried cohabitating hetero couples, you shouldn't apply it to unmarried cohabitating gay couples. To do so would be legislation from the bench and create a defense for gay criminals that doesn't exist for straight ones.
I can agree with that. I don't think a spouse should be compelled to testify against their mate. On the other hand if the mate is willing to testify, that's a different story. Regardless of marital status, I think the plea agreement on the partner's own substantial crimes and the interest of the state should prevail over any privilidge claim.
I know this would require a change in the laws of criminal proceedure. But surprise, surprise G-man! I'm siding with law enforcement over a defendents rights!
Hundreds of gay couples are preparing to form civil partnerships in the coming weeks as the law changes after decades of campaigning. At least 1,200 ceremonies are confirmed as being scheduled already, according to figures from councils compiled by the BBC News website.
Councils are preparing for the first ceremonies, with couples permitted to register from Monday morning.
Campaigners says the law ends inequalities for same-sex couples.
The first ceremonies under the Civil Partnerships Act can take place in Northern Ireland on 19 December, followed by Scotland the next day and England and Wales on 21 December.
Under the law, couples who want to form a partnership must register their intentions with local councils. Unlike marriages, the signing of the legal partnership papers does not need to happen in public.
Gay marriage has come a step closer in the Czech Republic. The lower house of parliament has approved a bill legalizing civil partnerships for same-sex couples, despite strong opposition from Christian Democrats in the government. If the bill is rejected by the Senate, the lower house will have to hold a second vote, requiring an absolute majority for it to become law.
Quote: the G-man said: I think its an interesting ancillary issue to the gay marriage issue and how every "advancement" in legal rights creates corresponding legal "headaches."
Surely it is an issue that could apply equally to a straight couple that used a sperm donor?
I still don't get your meaning. The gay couple who took the sperm sample relied on the nearest man for support--The guy who happened to be the sperm donor. If it was a straight relationship, the nearest man wouldn't be the sperm donor, but the adoptive father. In which case, the burden of joint support would rightfully fall on him and not the sperm donor.
Explain to me what you mean by legal protection exactly.
i believe over heer if you go through the official channels to get a sperm donor, his resposibility is wavered.
I didn't gett he impression these women relied on the donor for support as a couple once his donation was made. It was only after the couple split that the mother demanded money
Quote: Steve T said: i believe over heer if you go through the official channels to get a sperm donor, his resposibility is wavered.
This is only the case if you're an anonymous donor.
Quote: I didn't gett he impression these women relied on the donor for support as a couple once his donation was made. It was only after the couple split that the mother demanded money
It doesn't really make much difference. The point being that because her spouse is another woman who is not biologically related to the children, the man is left with their mess.
Quote: Pariah said: It doesn't really make much difference. The point being that because her spouse is another woman who is not biologically related to the children, the man is left with their mess.
But is that a result of the way they didit rather than the homosexual nature of the relationship?
Allowing the lesbian couple to marry would have eliminated most of the legal problems you're talking about. Rather than walking away from her obligations to her former partner a divorce action would have been required. Property would have been divided. Parental rights and obligations defined and ajudicated by a court. The deadbeat mom would be forced to provide for the child she agreed to care for when the decision to have a child was made.
The poor gay man that helped out his friends has learned one of the axioms of life: No good deed shall go unpunished. He should have made a contract defining what his rights and responsibilities were before making his donation.
Quote: Steve T said: But is that a result of the way they didit rather than the homosexual nature of the relationship?
No. Because if it was a straight relationship, regardless of MagicJay's assertion, the man who should be charged with the support is given the responsibility.
It's been so long since I'd looked at the origin of this discussion I'd completely forgot the case is in Sweden. I'm sure you will be pleased to know, Pariah, that as of Aug. 23, 2005, no such legal ambiguity exists in California.
The California Supreme Court broke new legal ground for same-sex parents Monday by ruling that lesbian and gay partners who plan a family and raise a child together should be considered legal parents after a breakup, with the same rights and responsibilities as heterosexual parents.
Three weeks after issuing a precedent-setting decision banning business discrimination against domestic partners, the justices took another step toward equal treatment for the tens of thousands of California households headed by same-sex couples. The court became the first in the nation to grant full parental status to same-sex partners regardless of their marital status or biological connection with their children.
"We perceive no reason why both parents of a child cannot be women,'' said Justice Carlos Moreno, writing for the majority in three related rulings issued Monday.
It was a bold statement by a normally cautious court -- although, as Moreno pointed out, the Legislature said essentially the same thing in a new law that gave domestic partners most of the same rights as spouses, including parental rights. Monday's rulings went a step further and granted parental status to members of couples who had separated before the law took effect in January.
In each of the three cases, the court said, lesbian partners had cooperated in conceiving and rearing children in a family setting and, thus, were both legal parents -- entitling them to visitation over an ex-partner's objections and requiring them to pay child support. The ruling would apply equally to gay men who agreed to raise a child together.
Quoting county government officials who argued for child support in one of the cases, the court said, "A person who actively participates in bringing children into the world, takes the children into her home and holds them out as her own, and receives and enjoys the benefits of parenthood, should be responsible for the support of those children -- regardless of gender or sexual orientation.''
Courts in other states have granted visitation and other parental rights to same-sex partners who had bonded with their child, ruling that such a nurturing adult may be considered a "psychological parent'' even if not biologically related to the child.
But those rulings did not establish full parent-child relationships, which include such rights as inheritance, Social Security and health insurance coverage for children as well as custody and visitation for parents.
Monday's rulings are the first in the nation to recognize complete parental status for same-sex partners who raise a child together, said Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, which took part in all three cases.
"This is one of those moments of legal history in the making,'' he said. "The decisions are going to be important not just in California but across the country.''
The court did not discuss same-sex marriage, an issue it may address next year in lawsuits by gay and lesbian couples and the city of San Francisco challenging the constitutionality of a state law that defines marriage as the union of a man and a woman.
Those suits could be derailed, however, by initiatives now in circulation that would lock the ban on same-sex marriage into the state Constitution and also repeal the newly established domestic-partner rights. A lawyer who opposed the expansion of parental rights in the three cases called Monday's rulings "another stepping-stone for same-sex marriage'' that showed the need for action by the voters.
"By saying that children can have two moms, the court has undermined the family'' and has "underscored the importance of amending California's Constitution to preserve marriage as one man and one woman,'' said attorney Mathew Staver of Liberty Counsel. He added, however, that the proposed initiatives probably wouldn't affect Monday's rulings, which focused on parent- child relationships rather than the couples' marital status or gender.
"These rulings recognize that these children have the same rights as the children of opposite-sex couples in maintaining ties to the people who helped raise them and presumably love them,'' said Tom Dresslar, spokesman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer, whose office argued for parental status in the case of a lesbian mother seeking child support. "The rulings also properly recognize the diverse nature of family relationships in today's world.''
The rulings represent a change of course for California courts, which have generally regarded only biological parents as legal parents, regularly citing the state Supreme Court's statement in 1993 that a child can have only one natural mother.
But Moreno, in one of Monday's rulings, said the 1993 observation in a surrogate-parent case was meant only to resolve claims between two women -- the surrogate parent and the childless wife who signed the surrogacy contract -- and did not preclude recognition of two lesbian parents.
Each of the cases in Monday's decisions identified the plaintiffs and defendants by their initials to protect their children's privacy.
In the case handled by Lockyer, partners Elisa B. and Emily B. had children in 1997 and 1998, respectively, using the same sperm donor, and raised them together before separating in 1999. Elisa agreed to provide financial support whenever she could for her stay-at-home partner's twins -- one of them seriously ill -- but stopped making payments 18 months after the couple separated.
Reversing a lower-court ruling, the Supreme Court said Elisa was a legal parent of the children she had helped to plan and raise, and must pay $1,815 a month in child support. El Dorado County sued Elisa for support after Emily applied for welfare.
"We were doing everything we possibly could to form a family,'' Emily B. said at a news conference after the ruling. Noting that children of an opposite-sex couple would clearly have been entitled to support in the same situation, she said the court recognized the needs of "children who were invisible.''
Elisa B.'s lawyer was unavailable for comment.
In a second case, the court said a Los Angeles woman, Kristine H., was bound by a pre-birth agreement she signed with her partner, Lisa R., saying both would be parents of the child Kristine was carrying. After their split nearly two years after the baby was born, Kristine opposed Lisa's request for visitation and custody, but the court said Kristine had taken the benefits of the agreement -- Lisa's initial help in raising the child -- and must accept the burdens.
- Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer Tuesday, January 3, 2006
When San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom ordered city officials to marry same-sex couples -- a defiant act two years ago that soon was emulated in Portland, Ore., and New Paltz, N.Y. -- gay rights supporters in Seattle demanded that their elected officials do the same.
Instead, King County Executive Ron Sims placed an unusual phone call.
"He said, 'I don't want to break the law. Will you please sue me to strike down the law?' " said Lisa M. Stone, executive director of the Northwest Women's Law Center. "That's not a call we get very often."
The Washington State Supreme Court is expected to rule any day in the case that resulted and a second, related lawsuit. Not since the state Supreme Court in Massachusetts in 2003 ordered that state's legislature to legalize same-sex marriage has a gay marriage case drawn as much attention. Legal experts say the rulings may serve as a gauge of the national mood and could prompt another battle in Congress over a federal marriage amendment.
"We're watching this case very closely," said Tom McClusky, director of government affairs for the Family Research Council, the conservative Washington, D.C., lobbying organization leading the effort for a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.
"We've been pushing Congress even before the Washington state ruling just in anticipation because we see this as a matter of utmost importance," he said.
The two Washington state cases explore two major issues being debated across the nation: whether marriage is a right and how the government can allow straight people to marry but not gays or lesbians.
"The cases present constitutional issues that judges haven't thought about a great deal yet," said Matt Coles, director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Lesbian and Gay Rights Project. "It's not just the narrow issue of marriage but how you think about laws that discriminate against gay people under the equal protection clause, how you think about what a fundamental right is.
"Whenever there's a situation like that," Coles added, "I think it's very hard to be sure how (judges) are going to go."
Looks like it's not only The Netherlands that's headed down the slippery slope to polygamy. A new study for Canada's federal justice department has just recommended that Canada legalize polygamy.
This would involve not only the abolition of anti-polygamy laws, but also the regulation of polygamy. That is, it is recommended that the law provide "clearer spousal support and inheritance rights" to polygamous families. Obviously, that would be a major step toward eventual full recognition of polygamous marriages.
The study in question was authored by a professor at Queens University named Martha Bailey. Bailey was a key author of "Beyond Conjugality," the report of the Law Commission of Canada I discussed in "Beyond Gay Marriage."
"Beyond Conjugality" directly suggested moving to a partnership system that would put multi-partner unions on a par with marriage.
The funny thing about this news story is that it refers to a second report that scoffs at the idea of a slippery slope from same-sex marriage to polygamy. Polygamy, this second report says, undermines equality for women. Yet the first report clearly contradicts this view. It says that polygamy per se is not the problem, and that abuses within polygamous marriage can be dealt with by other sorts of laws. And again, if the proposal is to tailor new laws of spousal support and inheritance rights to polygamous families, can calls for formal recognition be far behind?
Right now Canada's conservatives are on track to unseat the liberal government. If so, don't expect to see these reforms enacted into law right away. But the direction Canada's liberals want to move in is clear.
You might recall conservatives fretting that a recognition of gay marriage could soon lead to legalizing polygamy and incest. Those concerns were typically scoffed at by liberals.
Quote: the G-man said: You might recall conservatives fretting that a recognition of gay marriage could soon lead to legalizing polygamy and incest. Those concerns were typically scoffed at by liberals.
The gay person's plight is not the polygamist's or the incestualist's plight.
That making gays equal to straights with respect to marriage should automatically extend to polygamists and those who wish to practice incest, and so, gays should be denied that equality because of the pandora's box that will open?
Sorry Jim but you have to be an ignorant homophobe to not be able to recognize that homosexuality & polygamy are two different things. It's not a slippery slope but a leap.
BTW, Dale & I have now passed the 15yr mark of being together.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: OK, I'm so stupid, what's his point then, boy?
That making gays equal to straights with respect to marriage should automatically extend to polygamists and those who wish to practice incest, and so, gays should be denied that equality because of the pandora's box that will open?
Here we go again...
The institution of marriage isn't a right. It's not even a privelege. It is assigned to straight couples because it actually works for their ratio. Whereas with homosexual couples, it doesn't work at all.
So not only would allowing same-sex marriage be pointlessly cost-inefficient, but it would also open up the flood gates for other ratios that have no point to marry.
Now I will wait for Jim's rebut, ready with every single post made in the past, on this thread, that has already covered the subject, which he feels like carrying on as if it was never even discussed. I suppose, however, that I should be glad with the fact that he's finally admitted that other unorthodox (and even more stupid) forms of marriage woulf be allowed with the sanctioning of gay marriage.
Quote: Pariah said: The institution of marriage isn't a right. It's not even a privelege. It is assigned to straight couples because it actually works for their ratio. Whereas with homosexual couples, it doesn't work at all.
Actually gays have been getting legally married in other countries for a couple of years now, so folks might want to update a bit when they make their declarations about marriage, so they look a little less ignorant.
Yes. I know what the words mean. However, your usage of those words was peculiar, and I was hoping you'd actually explain what you meant. I guess I won't be completely heartbroken if you don't, though.
I think what they're talking about is creating a body of law to define custody rights and inheritance rights for people in polyamorous families. Polyamory is not as uncommon as one might think. I know people that live in this situation though none have children.
But it does happen where say, Pariah & Lor, a married couple hook up with G-man & Batwoman, another married couple, and form a household. In the course of this liason Pariah and Batwoman produce a child. In the event of a break-up, who should have the rights of paternity, G-man or Pariah (imagine picking one of those wankers for a father)? Or G-man dies intestate. How should the rich lawyers dough be distributed?
Does current law aimed at traditional couples provide equity in these situations? I think not. And what does incest have to do with polyamory anyway?
Quote: Pariah said: I suppose, however, that I should be glad with the fact that he's finally admitted that other unorthodox (and even more stupid) forms of marriage woulf be allowed with the sanctioning of gay marriage.
Looks like it's not only The Netherlands that's headed down the slippery slope to polygamy. A new study for Canada's federal justice department has just recommended that Canada legalize polygamy.
This would involve not only the abolition of anti-polygamy laws, but also the regulation of polygamy. That is, it is recommended that the law provide "clearer spousal support and inheritance rights" to polygamous families. Obviously, that would be a major step toward eventual full recognition of polygamous marriages.
The study in question was authored by a professor at Queens University named Martha Bailey. Bailey was a key author of "Beyond Conjugality," the report of the Law Commission of Canada I discussed in "Beyond Gay Marriage."
"Beyond Conjugality" directly suggested moving to a partnership system that would put multi-partner unions on a par with marriage.
The funny thing about this news story is that it refers to a second report that scoffs at the idea of a slippery slope from same-sex marriage to polygamy. Polygamy, this second report says, undermines equality for women. Yet the first report clearly contradicts this view. It says that polygamy per se is not the problem, and that abuses within polygamous marriage can be dealt with by other sorts of laws. And again, if the proposal is to tailor new laws of spousal support and inheritance rights to polygamous families, can calls for formal recognition be far behind?
Right now Canada's conservatives are on track to unseat the liberal government. If so, don't expect to see these reforms enacted into law right away. But the direction Canada's liberals want to move in is clear.
You might recall conservatives fretting that a recognition of gay marriage could soon lead to legalizing polygamy and incest. Those concerns were typically scoffed at by liberals.
This article is stupid.
It reports that a new study recommends laws providing clearer spousal support and inheritance rights to polygamous families. That's pretty much all it has to go on.
Then it says that this is an obvious slippery slope toward the legalization of polygamy, and therefore, gay marriage is a slippery slope to polygamy.
It assumes one slippery slope to prove another.
Come on.
And posters on this board are jumping on this, using it as evidence?
When someone uses the philosophy that equates homosexuality between consenting adults to polygamy or incest or pedophilia, it tells me a couple of things:
-they don't understand the vast majority of gays and the psychology of gay adults
-they have a general anti-gay sentiment
The things that surprised me and disappointed me and sometimes disgusted me the most after I joined the RKMB community were how vocal the anti-gay sentiment is around here. No, I'm not lumping everyone here who's not an out bi or gay person as homophobic or even gay-unsympathetic. But there are enough posters who post regularly who strike me as very gay-unfriendly.
It seems that comic books were the thing that brought most of us here in the first place. And it's no secret that comics are a major hobby to many gay and bi people. So I'm surprised at the lack of gay support that I often encounter here. There are times in this forum that I feel decidedly unwelcome as a gay man.
Because polygamy reduces the status of women within their own marriages. Instead of being "one of two," a woman in a polygamist relationship becomes "one of many."
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Because polygamy reduces the status of women within their own marriages. Instead of being "one of two," a woman in a polygamist relationship becomes "one of many."
If, however, the woman wants to be "one of many" and is a consenting adult, what's the harm?
And your decree that polygamy "reduces" the status of a woman is a value judgement on your part, no different than a value judgement by someone else that being gay is unsavory or unmanly.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Because polygamy reduces the status of women within their own marriages. Instead of being "one of two," a woman in a polygamist relationship becomes "one of many."
Why do you assume that it's one male with multiple wives? Often people in polyamorous relationships have a femme dom that has several male slaves.
Wouldn't you love to attend the collaring of G-man?
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Because polygamy reduces the status of women within their own marriages. Instead of being "one of two," a woman in a polygamist relationship becomes "one of many."
I agree that phychologically the plight of the homosexual and the polygimist are worlds apart, but I don't think their plight is any different legaly.
bery similair, i give jim the point on 2 spouses....i think they, in court will seperate gay marriage from polygamy with the 2 spouses arguement. to make gay marriage closer to what alread constitutes marriage and what is illegal.
True, which makes them worlds apart on many different levels, but I agree with wbam that the legal plights are the same.
Many in America want marriage to be defined as only between one man and one woman. Those in support of gay marriage have a problem with the man/woman part. Polygamy supporters have a problem with the one/one part.
Quote: Wednesday said: True, which makes them worlds apart on many different levels, but I agree with wbam that the legal plights are the same.
Many in America want marriage to be defined as only between one man and one woman. Those in support of gay marriage have a problem with the man/woman part. Polygamy supporters have a problem with the one/one part.
Acceptance of the gay marriage legal position does not and should not logically constitute acceptance of the polygamist position.
it woud help them in the sense of consenting adults are allowed to marry, what was not allowed is now acceptable, why not polygamy also, when all are consenting. they will argue that changes are made, why not go one more and allow those that wanna marry who they choose, man, woman, or multiple mn or women.
Quote: big_pimp_tim said: it woud help them in the sense of consenting adults are allowed to marry, what was not allowed is now acceptable, why not polygamy also, when all are consenting. they will argue that changes are made, why not go one more and allow those that wanna marry who they choose, man, woman, or multiple mn or women.
As currently practiced in the USA there are significant social and governmental costs associated with polygyny. I believe you will find the highest rates of AFDC dependence are in Southeastern Utah where heretical sects of Mormonism continue the practice. The husband is legally married to only one wife while the others are viewed as single moms in the eyes of the law. Those other wives derive welfare benefits which in turn go to the father/husband.
Those of you that are married with children know that careing for a family is a tremendously expensive proposition. Can you imagine your present situation times 3 or 4? Very few of us could provide adequate support in that situation. It falls to the taxpayer to pick up the slack.
That is the present situation with polygyny. Would bringing the practice into legitimate marriage help or hurt? I don't know. Any of you guys have a theory?
i don't think that it would change it. they would still be recieving government support. maybe not as much. to make the man with 3 wives keep from producing 10 hilderen when he should have stopped with 2 it might be necessary if married to restrict the aide. but then it may just cause them to opt not to marry anyway, even though they legally could to keep the single mother aide. therefore makin it mute. they could get married but most won't to keep the aide they are dependant on.
Quote: Wednesday said: True, which makes them worlds apart on many different levels, but I agree with wbam that the legal plights are the same.
Many in America want marriage to be defined as only between one man and one woman. Those in support of gay marriage have a problem with the man/woman part. Polygamy supporters have a problem with the one/one part.
Acceptance of the gay marriage legal position does not and should not logically constitute acceptance of the polygamist position.
It does, because what you're asking for is that the government not make a value judgment on your union before granting a certificate.
i am thinkin their point is by allowing what was considered unacceptable, by allowing 2 consenting adults to do as they choose, why not allow 3, or 4. why not allow consenting adults to do what is considered unacceptable as far as marriage is concerned
Quote: Jim Jackson said: When someone uses the philosophy that equates homosexuality between consenting adults to polygamy or incest or pedophilia, it tells me a couple of things:
-they don't understand the vast majority of gays and the psychology of gay adults
Actually Jim, I understand your version on gay psychology just fine.
Quote: It seems that comic books were the thing that brought most of us here in the first place. And it's no secret that comics are a major hobby to many gay and bi people. So I'm surprised at the lack of gay support that I often encounter here. There are times in this forum that I feel decidedly unwelcome as a gay man.
I know I've read a couple times from Darknight and Whomod that the majority of people here are to the right....And that's pretty much bullshit.
If you hadn't noticed in previous threads, you have an overwhelming amount of support here. You're usually arguing these points on gay marriage against one or two people. Not a barrage of dissent. On the other hand, we have a whole bunch of posters popping into these threads and making cracks about whoever's arguing against you as being homophobic or 'protesting too much'--And this is multiple people mind you.
Quote: big_pimp_tim said: i am thinkin their point is by allowing what was considered unacceptable, by allowing 2 consenting adults to do as they choose, why not allow 3, or 4. why not allow consenting adults to do what is considered unacceptable as far as marriage is concerned
Quote: Jim Jackson said: gay marriage and str8 marriage both involve 2 spouses and 2 spouses only.
I don't see why that's so hard to get your head around.
It's not hard for me to get my head arround at all. It does however have nothing to do with my point. My point has to do solely with the legal merit. You can't say we demand the right to marry whome ever you want then out of the other side of your mouth say that another group can't. A homosexual may want to marry another man the same ass a man may want to marry more than one woman and more than one woman may want to marry the same man. You simply keep resorting back to teh simple fact that both gay marraige and hetero marriage have something in common wich is that they both involve 2 people, well hetero marraige and poygymy both involve two genders, there's a comparrison. Are you saying that you now WANT government to make a value judgement saying that even though a man truly loves two women and those woment both truly love him and they all want to get married they shouldn't be permitted to?
I thought Wednesday pointed out that the study from which this argument spewed first was a bunch of bunk. If you guys want to discuss the merits of legalizing polygamy then you should start a thread for it.
Quote: Wednesday said: True, which makes them worlds apart on many different levels, but I agree with wbam that the legal plights are the same.
Many in America want marriage to be defined as only between one man and one woman. Those in support of gay marriage have a problem with the man/woman part. Polygamy supporters have a problem with the one/one part.
Acceptance of the gay marriage legal position does not and should not logically constitute acceptance of the polygamist position.
I never said it should. I said the legal plights are the same.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I thought Wednesday pointed out that the study from which this argument spewed first was a bunch of bunk. If you guys want to discuss the merits of legalizing polygamy then you should start a thread for it.
I think the point is that you can't argue for one w/out also arguing for teh other.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: You can't say we demand the right to marry whome ever you want then out of the other side of your mouth say that another group can't. A homosexual may want to marry another man the same ass a man may want to marry more than one woman and more than one woman may want to marry the same man. You simply keep resorting back to teh simple fact that both gay marraige and hetero marriage have something in common wich is that they both involve 2 people, well hetero marraige and poygymy both involve two genders, there's a comparrison. Are you saying that you now WANT government to make a value judgement saying that even though a man truly loves two women and those woment both truly love him and they all want to get married they shouldn't be permitted to?
The only thing I don't think I'm getting is how homosexual marriage will automatically allow polygamists a legal springboard. Hasn't the government already made a value judgement regarding marriage?
Ok, so the government decides to impose a legal age limit on marriage. They decide you have to be at least 18 to get married. You guys are doing the equivalent of saying, "Oh but if you make it 18 then 17 & 16 year olds will also argue that they should be able to get married. Maybe we shouldn't let 18 year olds get married"
This type of argument has been used against expanding the vote to women to interracial marriage. Why is this a valid argument now?
at 18 you are considered an adult. therefore allowed to smoke, marry, vote, and join the military.
though, you can actually get married before 18 already if your parents permit. there are other ways too believe. so there are already special allowances for that.
and the point it while gay marriage is the marriage of consenting adults, it can be used as a valid point in an arguement for polygamy. if a gay man can marry another as consenting adults, why can't a man and 2 wimmins marry if they all want it. also as consenting adults.
Quote: big_pimp_tim said: ... and the point it while gay marriage is the marriage of consenting adults, it can be used as a valid point in an arguement for polygamy. if a gay man can marry another as consenting adults, why can't a man and 2 wimmins marry if they all want it. also as consenting adults.
It's more than just consenting adults. Brother & sisters can't marry reguardless of age. Nor can a marriage be used legally as a business transaction for somebody to get legal residency. Our government already makes some legal judgements about consenting adults & marriage.
well, inbeeding is illegal for the problems it causes the offspring. simple as that. gay marriage and polygamy doesn't have that problem. and people do marry to get legal residency. it's illegal, only if it's a sham marriage. because it is not a marriage in the sense of the word, not 2 people who love each other and therefore abusing that right.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Ok, so the government decides to impose a legal age limit on marriage. They decide you have to be at least 18 to get married. You guys are doing the equivalent of saying, "Oh but if you make it 18 then 17 & 16 year olds will also argue that they should be able to get married. Maybe we shouldn't let 18 year olds get married"
Age issues aren't equivalent to either political or psychological issues. They are definitely related in that many pre-18 year-olds could be more mature than someone who actually is 18. But, because there is no true age of mental maturity, it's set at 18. i.e. It's being "better safe than sorry"...Although, this view could change if enough youngsters feel like sticking their oars in--And don't dare tell me it can't happen. Anyway, marriage between homosexuals doesn't go within the 'better safe than sorry' category since it's a question of financial/logcial efficiency and not controversey over maturity.
And, actually, there is no universal marriage requirement as far as age is concerned. last I heard, the Kansas standard is 13 years.
Quote: This type of argument has been used against expanding the vote to women to interracial marriage. Why is this a valid argument now?
And that makes the issues totally comparable.....Oh wait....No it doesn't.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: It's more than just consenting adults.
Then why do you and the majority of your constituent voice only concentrate on the "consenting adults" argument if it really is more complicated than the simple use of that statement makes it seem?
Quote: Brother & sisters can't marry reguardless of age.
Yes. Due to health concerns. One could make the same argument for homosexuals.
Quote: Nor can a marriage be used legally as a business transaction for somebody to get legal residency.
Yes it can. It's not condoned, but it's allowed.
Quote: Our government already makes some legal judgements about consenting adults & marriage.
Quote: This type of argument has been used against expanding the vote to women to interracial marriage. Why is this a valid argument now?
And Hitler enforced speed limits in Nazi Germany.... what's your point?
This is a sad attempt to assign guilt by association.
Either you're saying government should make no value judgments in regards to marraige or they should make value judgemtns but make an exception for one group... which is it?
I think everyone's assuming I agreed with how wbam feels, which I don't. I only agree with what he said in that one single post.
Quote: the G-man said: You CAN argue for one without arguing for the other. However, if you are going to be intellectually consistent you pretty much have to do so.
No, you don't. Outside the one man/one woman amendment proposal, the two have very little in common. I could very easily argue for gay marriage or polygamy while arguing against the other without losing consistency. Jim Jackson is doing it right now.
In fact, if gay marriage supporters fought to get a "one man or woman/one man or woman" amendment instead, the two fronts would lose pretty much ALL shared legal ground.
Quote: Wednesday said: I could very easily argue for gay marriage or polygamy while arguing against the other without losing consistency. Jim Jackson is doing it right now.
That's your view, and I'm not surprised. I'd suspect it's the view of anyone who subscribes to the faulty slippery slope theory. However, slippery slopes aren't assured in the real world, and Jim is sticking to an intellectually consistent, real world argument. You might not agree, but that makes his argument no less sound.
It would do you good to remember that.
That isn't to say that I personally agree with Jim, however. I don't.
Quote: Wednesday said: That's your view, and I'm not surprised. I'd suspect it's the view of anyone who subscribes to the faulty slippery slope theory. However, slippery slopes aren't assured in the real world, and Jim is sticking to an intellectually consistent, real world argument. You might not agree, but that makes his argument no less sound.
Thank you.
Quote: That isn't to say that I personally agree with Jim, however. I don't.
Quote: Then why is it wrong to equate same-sex marriage to interracial marriage?
Both involve consenting adults Both involve sexual relations. Both involve the right to marry whomever you choose.
To equate the two is to say there is a fudemental difference between races. There isn't. Asside from meletonin levels we are the same. I could marry a black woman and produce beatifull healthy children. The one difference some may point to is cultural differences wich I would say is negligable (as a whole). I would generally have more in common with a black woman from Seattle then I would a white woman from France.
Men and women however are fundamentally different and you can't substitute one for the other without fundementally changing the dynamic of the relationship.
Quote: Wednesday said: That's your view, and I'm not surprised. I'd suspect it's the view of anyone who subscribes to the faulty slippery slope theory. However, slippery slopes aren't assured in the real world, and Jim is sticking to an intellectually consistent, real world argument. You might not agree, but that makes his argument no less sound.
Consistent? Yes. Intellectually consistent? No.
The most he's been doing is tossing out academics without addressing other peoples' assertions to how he's misinterpreting them.
"What we have here is a game of show and tell. He's telling me everything, but he doesn't want to show me nuthin'."
Our differences in this topic appear, to me, to be paradigmatic in the sense of Thomas Kuhn and his theories about scientific revolutions.
We're all pointing to what we feel are the relevant issues while believing the other(s) are focusing on irrelevant or less-relevant issues.
To me, marriage should be based not on gender or race or religion or ethnicity, but on number. What's crucial in a marriage is that it's between two and only two people.
Quote: To me, marriage should be based not on gender or race or religion or ethnicity, but on number. What's crucial in a marriage is that it's between two and only two people.
That makes sense as a position, but it hasn't been the position put forth by the proponants of same sex marraige. You're saying that there should be restrictions on consenting adults getting married, but those restrictions should have nothing to do with gender. The prominant position coming from proponants of same sex marriage is that marraige is a civil right and shouldn't be denied to any consenting adult.
I guess I don't give a shit what you say "proponents" are saying.
*I* am saying what I said.
You will need to show me where a well-established position on same-sex marriage explicitly says that the *number* of consenting adults in any marriage is irrelevant.
Quote: I guess I don't give a shit what you say "proponents" are saying.
*I* am saying what I said.
I'll accept that, but G-MAn didn't post the article to show what your position could lead to, but rather what the popular position would.
Quote: ou will need to show me where a well-established position on same-sex marriage explicitly says that the *number* of consenting adults in any marriage is irrelevant.
I never said they said it was irrelevent, nor have they sait it was relevent. What they've said is that marraige is a civil right that shouldn't be denied to consenting adults. How then could you deny that civil right if 3 consenting adults want to marry each other.
I never said they said it was irrelevent, nor have they sait it was relevent. What they've said is that marraige is a civil right that shouldn't be denied to consenting adults. How then could you deny that civil right if 3 consenting adults want to marry each other.
In a polygamist situation, are all the wives married to each other, or are they each singly and only married to the man?
Are there millions and millions of potential polygamists who wish make polygamy legal? We know there are millions of gays. It's a legit question, I'm not asking it to be cheeky.
Quote: In a polygamist situation, are all the wives married to each other, or are they each singly and only married to the man?
I'm not exactly sure to be honest, but I think they are all married to the man, but the arument could be, why should a woman be kept from marrying the man she "loves" just because he's allready married if he and his current wife both consent?
Quote: Are there millions and millions of potential polygamists who wish make polygamy legal? We know there are millions of gays. It's a legit question, I'm not asking it to be cheeky.
I didn't take it as cheeky. I'm really not sure how many "closet" polygimists are out there. You may want to look at adultureres as "closet" polygimists after all they were born with teh desire to love multiple women. I don't think however that if you're going to make a civil rights argument you want to do so on teh basis of numbers. It's an arbitrary precident. Do you base civil rights on a percentage of people or a round number like a million?
Quote: In a polygamist situation, are all the wives married to each other, or are they each singly and only married to the man?
I'm not exactly sure to be honest, but I think they are all married to the man, but the arument could be, why should a woman be kept from marrying the man she "loves" just because he's allready married if he and his current wife both consent?
There is an argument to be made that women who are willing to do this are, in fact, debasting themselves, lowering their status as an equal within the marriage just "to get their man."
To me, marriage should be based not on gender or race or religion or ethnicity, but on number. What's crucial in a marriage is that it's between two and only two people.
What about love? I know some of you are married or were in the past. Did you consider any of the above when deciding to tie the knot?
I don't see how that can be brought into any kind of practical discussion about definitions of marriage. I mean, it's nice and all, but we're talking legal definitions and civil recognition.
Quote: In a polygamist situation, are all the wives married to each other, or are they each singly and only married to the man?
I'm not exactly sure to be honest, but I think they are all married to the man, but the arument could be, why should a woman be kept from marrying the man she "loves" just because he's allready married if he and his current wife both consent?
There is an argument to be made that women who are willing to do this are, in fact, debasting themselves, lowering their status as an equal within the marriage just "to get their man."
I would agree with you entirely and yet there are people who would make similar if not the same arguments about same sex marraiges. I'm not saying there aren't compelling value judgements to be made. I'm just asking if you want the government to make value judgements. I for one do.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: I would agree with you entirely and yet there are people who would make similar if not the same arguments about same sex marraiges.
I will need to see some semblance of the argument about how one man marrying another man or one woman marrying anotehr woman is debasing himself/herself before I have an idea of what to make of that remark.
Quote: I'm not saying there aren't compelling value judgements to be made. I'm just asking if you want the government to make value judgements. I for one do.
I think we ask our government to do that all the time. We have, as a people, decided that the general legal age for adulthood in the US is 18. You can vote at 18 in any state, serve in the military, get married, own property, etc. Why 18? Because we've made that value judgement. It is iron-clad? No, we have seen instances where 18 year olds can behave like children. But we've drawn that distinction and we move on and deal with issues that arise from it on a case by case basis.
I see acceptable value in a same-sex union.
I don't see acceptable value in any kind of polygamist union.
Quote: I will need to see some semblance of the argument about how one man marrying another man or one woman marrying anotehr woman is debasing himself/herself before I have an idea of what to make of that remark.
That's not the point I'm making. I'm making the point that you're trying to say that you think Marraige should be between 2 people because you think it's wrong to do otherwise. At the same time a majority of people in the US think marraige should be between a man and a woman and that it would be wrong to do otherwise. While I agree with your assesment of polygimists, I would say that you're doing to them exactly what you ask others not to do of you.
Quote: I see acceptable value in a same-sex union.
There are two arguments here, the one you made above wich I think is good. If you see acceptable value then you need to promote that value to enough people to affect the legislature to make changes accordingly. If however you want to argue that marraige is a civil right then you have no grounds for denying it to others just because you don't see the acceptable value.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: If however you want to argue that marraige is a civil right then you have no grounds for denying it to others just because you don't see the acceptable value.
I'll give that argument credence when I see Polygamists staging their own Stonewall and Pride Days. When I see polygamists given their own special symbol in the Death Camps. When I see polygamists beaten and strung up to die in Wyoming. When I see Jerry Falwell declare that a disease has been specifically created by God as punishment for polygamists.
Civil rights aren't a prize you get for being persecuted, having parrades or attacking policemen from bars. Civil rights are just that rights. By your logic civil rights would only apply to the oppressed and noone else. How about Koreans. Do they deserve civil rights?
You're starting to make emotional arguments, not logical ones.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: Civil rights aren't a prize you get for being persecuted, having parrades or attacking policemen from bars. Civil rights are just that: rights.
That is probably the first great thing I have read in this thread. Well said WBAM!
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: Civil rights aren't a prize you get for being persecuted, having parrades or attacking policemen from bars. Civil rights are just that rights. By your logic civil rights would only apply to the oppressed and noone else. How about Koreans. Do they deserve civil rights?
You're starting to make emotional arguments, not logical ones.
It's easy to say that dismissively when you're not somebody in the persecuted group.
My god, I can't even be out to my employer without being fired on the spot.
And I appeal to an emotional example (see above) when I can't see the logic in the other argument, i.e., supporting polygamy.
Futhermore, the establishment of civil rights in this country has always been brought about from those groups who have felt opposed and became motivated to protest.
And don't start telling me that being persecuted isn't a cause for civil recognition. The Jews got Israel given to them following the Holocaust.
Jim. I never thought I had to say this, because, in spite of our many disagreements and the many times I feel you've been wrong, I always thought you were reasonable enough. However, that last post just leads me to believe that YOU'RE A GODDAMN FUCKWIT!!
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: Civil rights aren't a prize you get for being persecuted, having parrades or attacking policemen from bars. Civil rights are just that rights. By your logic civil rights would only apply to the oppressed and noone else. How about Koreans. Do they deserve civil rights?
You're starting to make emotional arguments, not logical ones.
It's easy to say that dismissively when you're not somebody in the persecuted group.
My god, I can't even be out to my employer without being fired on the spot.
And I appeal to an emotional example (see above) when I can't see the logic in the other argument, i.e., supporting polygamy.
Futhermore, the establishment of civil rights in this country has always been brought about from those groups who have felt opposed and became motivated to protest.
And don't start telling me that being persecuted isn't a cause for civil recognition. The Jews got Israel given to them following the Holocaust.
It's much easier for me to say this because I'm white and straight, but if we look at rights as a give-and-take rewards system then no one will ever be even. Black people and white people will always be feuding because someone called someone else a nigger or a whitey. Gay people and straight people will always be bickering because we happen to check out opposite genders.
Rights should be rights. We should all have them and be equal. You should be allowed to get married because I'm allowed to get married. You should be allowed a chance at a job because I'm allowed a chance at a job, but that's all you get. A chance. When you think of rights as a rewards system, suddenly you have people in positions they don't deserve because they achieved their status through whining. Look at the current situation in Israel: they're surrounded by enemies who don't believe they have any right to be there. If rights are concrete, then we don't have those kinds of problems.
Of course, this world I'm describing will probably never come to pass because we're all a bunch of bastards. I respect your posts and definitely don't think that you're the whiner type, but WBAM is right.
P.S. Your employer is a bastard who needs to get fired.
It's much easier for me to say this because I'm white and straight, but if we look at rights as a give-and-take rewards system then no one will ever be even.
It isn't about "give and take." It's about recognizing injustices and redressing them reasonably so that there is equal protection under the law. If we're still stuck on the "gays and polygamists" argument, no one has yet presented a *reasonable* argument that polygamists are a group who feels disenfranchised with respect to marriage.
Quote: P.S. Your employer is a bastard who needs to get fired.
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist Friday, January 20, 2006
There is this theory, more of a truism really, tossed about like a fuzzy beach ball by the gurus and the masters and the mystics since Jesus was but a lint ball of possibility in the Great Belly Button of Time.
It goes like this: When human consciousness expands, for whatever reason and with whatever stimulation and even if you can only measure it in hairsbreadth, when our nasty habit of harsh judgment falls away and people begin to get a little bit, you know, lighter, there is always, as sure as there's someone who hates the sunrise, a clampdown, a recoil, a desperate need by the terrified and ever-paranoid conservative sect to, you know, put a quick stop to this so-called awakening crapola ASA-damn-P.
As soon as people begin realizing there's more to this brief little slice of existence than hate and war and the constant drumbeat of fear, there's always resistance, a reactive sneer at the idea that people might be waking up, even a little, and it's all in the name of protecting the status quo and defending the power base and not upsetting any of those carefully wrought prejudices, about making sure everyone stays quiet and doesn't ask any difficult questions of the Authority.
Religious groups make phone calls and complain. Big chunks of money get thrown into the pockets of sanctimonious politicians. Quasi-religious bonk-job leaders declare sex and music and gay people the source of all woes and vices and diseases. Ugly new laws get passed. And yes, bitter, convulsive justices get appointed to the Supreme Court.
Just like, you know, right now.
Witness, won't you, the confluent forces, the twin streams of conflicting culture represented by the amazing "Brokeback Mountain" movie phenomenon, a spare and sad and highly controversial little indie-style flick that is shaking up the homophobic community and raking in the Golden Globes and which now seems a shoe-in to win an Oscar or four, as compared and contrasted with, say, the humorless, depressing, dry-as-death Samuel Alito Supreme Court nomination. Oh yes, we have a match. Do you see it?
Look closer. On the one hand, here is the astounding reach and power of this rare and striking little film, an emotional tinderbox of a movie that, in the wrong hands or with the wrong marketing or if it had been off pitch by just this much, could have very easily been trashed and quickly dismissed, would have hobbled the careers of two up-and-coming hunk actors, been mocked across the board and demonized by the religious right as revolting gay propaganda, the source of all ills, proof of the existence of the devil himself.
Of course, the latter is still happening (isn't it always?), but the amazing thing is, no one seems to care. The screech of the right's homophobes is being easily drowned out by the fact that this astonishing, pitch-perfect film is now considered a movie that, quite literally, changes minds. Shifts perceptions. That moves the human experiment forward and makes people truly think about sex and gender and love and not in the way that, say, "Pride & Prejudice" makes you think because that kind of thinking is merely sweet and harmless, whereas "Brokeback" slaps bigotry and intolerance upside its knobby little head and induces heated discussions of the film's dynamics and politics and ideas of love over a bottle of wine and some deep curious sighing.
That's one side. On the other hand, here we have this relentless neocon spiritual death wish, as evidenced by the imminent appointment of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, yet another dour white male judge who, by all evidence, will do everything in his power to keep America's spiritual, humanitarian and sexual progress -- you know, the exact kind of universal awareness illuminated by intensely intimate movies like "Brokeback" -- locked in the ironclad box of anti-women, anti-gay, power-über-alles conservative thinking for the next three decades or more.
Of course you may say: Oh please, this is just silly, no way is there a direct connection between Alito and "Brokeback." I mean come on, one's just a heartbreaking gay love story and one's a massive disheartening political maneuver and they simply have no direct correlation in this world as we know it and to draw a correlation is to, well, make stuff up.
To which I say: You are right, but only a little. Of course Alito is not about to be appointed to deflect "Brokeback"'s message per se, but rather, he is being installed in general reaction to, in attack on, in preparation for what "Brokeback" and its ilk represent. Which is, of course, the aforementioned awakening, the shift, the movement toward something new and different and open. Do you see?
This is the ever-present push-pull of the culture. This is how we stumble toward the light, gasping and bleeding and with painful rope burns on our wrists. After all, there is no progress forward -- intellectual, spiritual, sexual or otherwise -- without a concomitant blood-curdling scream from the power brokers and the religiously terrified to hold it all back. Change brings fear. Sexuality brings confusion. For every person who has his rigid homophobic ideology shattered by "Brokeback"'s emotional hammer, there is a confused neocon who redoubles his efforts to replant it.
But it doesn't matter. No matter the heat and bile of the resistance, no matter how brutish or sanctimonious the stranglehold of our leadership, no matter how many complaints about nipples or wailings about intelligent design or accusations of a "gay agenda," no matter how many uptight neocon judges they appoint, progress still manages to find the cracks, to slip through the holes, to seek the sun. Consciousness expands anyway. The river flows on. The awakening continues. It is always the way.
And the Bushes and the Cheneys and the Rumsfelds, the Gonzalezes and the James Dobsons and the Sam Alitos of the world, they can only stand at the base of that mountain of new awareness and pass their laws and beat their chests and scream their resistance as the mystics and the masters just smile that ageless, knowing smile and walk away.
I posted this because it provides an accurate view of the way liberals view conservatives not only on gay rights but a broad spectrum of ideas. Thoughts, anyone?
Quote: My god, I can't even be out to my employer without being fired on the spot.
I had a friennd who WAS fired because he came out of the closet at work. He didn't even come out on his on volition, he was asked. The only difference is the closet he came out of was the conservitive closet. My friend was a quirky musition type who fit in the Seattle scene perfectly. The only difference was that he he proudly voted for Bush and Supported teh war in Iraq. After the 2004 election his boss and coworkers were fuming about the election how most of America were morons and had ruined the country. He remained silent finally a co-worker asked him in the presence of teh boss what he thought about it all and he said he was acctually happy that Bush had been re-elected. He was fired the next week. In the city of Seattle conservitives are a much more persecuted minority than homosexuals.
Perhaps it's safe to say that persecution will always be around and that bosses are generally bastards. We can all find friends and aquaintances to try and refute each other, but that doesn't mean that Jim or your friend should have been fired. Liberal persecution against Conservatives does not justify Conservative persecution against Liberals.
Ok, WBAM, relative to our discussion here...what does that example have to do with anything?
That there's always somebody else worse off than the universal You? That one example you can cite guarantees than gays are FAR worse off in Seattle than Conservatives?
Quote: Captain Sammitch said: And the last movie to EARN an Oscar was Return of the King. They really will hand them out to just about anybody anymore.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Ok, WBAM, relative to our discussion here...what does that example have to do with anything?
That there's always somebody else worse off than the universal You? That one example you can cite guarantees than gays are FAR worse off in Seattle than Conservatives?
No it was in responseto yo saying.
Quote: It's easy to say that dismissively when you're not somebody in the persecuted group.
You used the example of you possibly being fired as proof that you were in a special position to demand something on an emotional basis. I think something either "is" or "is not" the level of persecution someone endures doesn't make them any more right or any more wrong. Just last night while teh wife and I were out to dinner I had to listen to teh people in teh booth next to us discuss conserivitives as though they were inhuman. So what, no matter who you are or where you are, people will still be ass-holes, you can either deal with it or play the victim, but niether will change teh way things are. Unless you or my buddy want to trade jobs you're both gonna have to cope and you'll both be stronger for it.
Quote: Gay fetish: the infinite shelf life of homo- distraction
Katy McKy - Raw Story Columnist Published: January 30, 2006
The sky isn't falling, but it's fraying. The ozone, that blanket of O3 between oblivion and us, dissolves when we spray fluorocarbons. The oceans rise. Divorce rates also rise, as more and more Americans, especially in the red states, emulate Britney Spear's matrimonial habits.
Then there's more. According to Sir James Lovelock, the original Gaian guy, the Earth is treating us like a virus, raising the temp to burn us off the global body. With every factory closing, we become more a nation of consumers and borrowers rather than producers and savers. And we're borrowing 2 trillion dollars to fund our Iraqi imperialism. Via that imperialism, we've cultivated a fresh crop of terrorists. We're running out of oil, but we're running high on gluttony. And so on.
And what worries the Right? Brokeback Mountain. And gay marriage. Advertisement
As a college class exercise, a friend of mine recently interviewed a classmate.
My friend asked, "What don't you like about America?"
The 18-year old classmate said, "Off the record, gay people are taking over."
What has taken over is the discussion of gay people. Whereas I consider the civil rights of gay people to be fundamental to the American dream and a requisite for Constitutional integrity, I consider the Right's ad nauseam appetite for gay-themed diatribes to be a deadly diversion.
Janet Parshall, the talk show host, said on the January 17th edition of Larry King Live, "After all, I think what we're witnessing, Larry, is the homosexualizing of America."
What most recently wadded up Parshall's panties and shoved them so far up her rectum that it'll take a proctologist to remove them is Brokeback Mountain. It's a semi-mainstream movie and it has Parshall squawking that the sky is falling. Well, Ms. Parshall, the sky is fraying. The oceans are rising. So is the temp. And what worries you? Make-believe amour between a couple comely sheepherders?
The hunky horror, the hunky horror.
Parshall and others assert that homosexuality is sin. Thus, if one is straight and frames homosexuality as sin, it's the sweetest sin, for it's not one's sin. This gives homosexuality an infinite shelf life. It's never grows stale, for whereas it demands change of others, it requires no personal change. No sacrifice. So long as one is straight and heterosexuality demarcates purity, one is permanently pure.
Thus, such Right-thinking straight people can use homosexuality as their fetish object for moral masturbation. It would be merely creepy if it didn't keep the Right from the work of weaning ourselves off oil, decreasing the production of gases that accelerate global warming, equalizing education, delivering healthcare to all children, and so on.
On a personal level, the gay moral fetish distracts from Biblical adherence. As long as Rush Limbaugh rants about queer folk, he's distracted from returning to his first wife, as the Bible demands. As long as Parshall squawks about Brokeback Mountain, she won't have to forsake her family and her fortune, as the Bible also demands.
Perhaps the homophobe should pay gay people for their perpetual diversion. One pays a cable provider for the television shows that distract us from the work of our time and the deprivations of the future, for as oil prices, the oceans, and the temperature rise and rise, quality of life will fall and fall. So, shouldn't the homophobes of the Right pay gay folks for distracting them from their patriotic duties and their Christian duties, since those duties are hard and their distraction means that their children and grandchildren will bear the brunt of massive debt and monstrous drought?
Like the 18-year old who believes that what's wrong with America is that "gay people are taking over," when you can hold back your rising worries with a sturdy dyke, life is good. For now.
But gay people do more than distract. They pander to our inveterate desire for an other. Queer people are the divine other, for homo-bigots believe that they have Biblical clearance to hate.
"Yes, uh, Flight 2002," they imagine God saying, "you have clearance to land on the civil rights of your fellow homosexual citizens. On final approach, you might run into some Constitutional interference, but tune that out and when you taxi over to the tarmac, we'll, uh, amend that Constitution."
The homo-fetish also serves an ancient purpose. It's no longer safe to publicly articulate racial hatred. But there remains a deep desire to define and elevate oneself by what one isn't. With God's green light, the fundy Right references gays everyday. However, with only 3 gay references in the Bible, and a hundred times that number of warnings against wealth, the arithmetic suggests that the real work of being a Christian is casting off wealth. Jesus told one story about a man going to Hell. That man was a rich man, a man who lived on the sweet side of a wall while a poor man suffered on the other.
But walking away from wealth would be Hell on Earth for those that love manna more than their fellow man.
Quote: Gay fetish: the infinite shelf life of homo- distraction
Katy McKy - Raw Story Columnist Published: January 30, 2006
The sky isn't falling, but it's fraying. The ozone, that blanket of O3 between oblivion and us, dissolves when we spray fluorocarbons. The oceans rise. Divorce rates also rise, as more and more Americans, especially in the red states, emulate Britney Spear's matrimonial habits.
Then there's more. According to Sir James Lovelock, the original Gaian guy, the Earth is treating us like a virus, raising the temp to burn us off the global body. With every factory closing, we become more a nation of consumers and borrowers rather than producers and savers. And we're borrowing 2 trillion dollars to fund our Iraqi imperialism. Via that imperialism, we've cultivated a fresh crop of terrorists. We're running out of oil, but we're running high on gluttony. And so on.
And what worries the Right? Brokeback Mountain. And gay marriage. Advertisement
As a college class exercise, a friend of mine recently interviewed a classmate.
My friend asked, "What don't you like about America?"
The 18-year old classmate said, "Off the record, gay people are taking over."
What has taken over is the discussion of gay people. Whereas I consider the civil rights of gay people to be fundamental to the American dream and a requisite for Constitutional integrity, I consider the Right's ad nauseam appetite for gay-themed diatribes to be a deadly diversion.
Janet Parshall, the talk show host, said on the January 17th edition of Larry King Live, "After all, I think what we're witnessing, Larry, is the homosexualizing of America."
What most recently wadded up Parshall's panties and shoved them so far up her rectum that it'll take a proctologist to remove them is Brokeback Mountain. It's a semi-mainstream movie and it has Parshall squawking that the sky is falling. Well, Ms. Parshall, the sky is fraying. The oceans are rising. So is the temp. And what worries you? Make-believe amour between a couple comely sheepherders?
The hunky horror, the hunky horror.
Parshall and others assert that homosexuality is sin. Thus, if one is straight and frames homosexuality as sin, it's the sweetest sin, for it's not one's sin. This gives homosexuality an infinite shelf life. It's never grows stale, for whereas it demands change of others, it requires no personal change. No sacrifice. So long as one is straight and heterosexuality demarcates purity, one is permanently pure.
Thus, such Right-thinking straight people can use homosexuality as their fetish object for moral masturbation. It would be merely creepy if it didn't keep the Right from the work of weaning ourselves off oil, decreasing the production of gases that accelerate global warming, equalizing education, delivering healthcare to all children, and so on.
On a personal level, the gay moral fetish distracts from Biblical adherence. As long as Rush Limbaugh rants about queer folk, he's distracted from returning to his first wife, as the Bible demands. As long as Parshall squawks about Brokeback Mountain, she won't have to forsake her family and her fortune, as the Bible also demands.
Perhaps the homophobe should pay gay people for their perpetual diversion. One pays a cable provider for the television shows that distract us from the work of our time and the deprivations of the future, for as oil prices, the oceans, and the temperature rise and rise, quality of life will fall and fall. So, shouldn't the homophobes of the Right pay gay folks for distracting them from their patriotic duties and their Christian duties, since those duties are hard and their distraction means that their children and grandchildren will bear the brunt of massive debt and monstrous drought?
Like the 18-year old who believes that what's wrong with America is that "gay people are taking over," when you can hold back your rising worries with a sturdy dyke, life is good. For now.
But gay people do more than distract. They pander to our inveterate desire for an other. Queer people are the divine other, for homo-bigots believe that they have Biblical clearance to hate.
"Yes, uh, Flight 2002," they imagine God saying, "you have clearance to land on the civil rights of your fellow homosexual citizens. On final approach, you might run into some Constitutional interference, but tune that out and when you taxi over to the tarmac, we'll, uh, amend that Constitution."
The homo-fetish also serves an ancient purpose. It's no longer safe to publicly articulate racial hatred. But there remains a deep desire to define and elevate oneself by what one isn't. With God's green light, the fundy Right references gays everyday. However, with only 3 gay references in the Bible, and a hundred times that number of warnings against wealth, the arithmetic suggests that the real work of being a Christian is casting off wealth. Jesus told one story about a man going to Hell. That man was a rich man, a man who lived on the sweet side of a wall while a poor man suffered on the other.
But walking away from wealth would be Hell on Earth for those that love manna more than their fellow man.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: Well written story. Hit the nail on the head.
It caught my eye after the whole polygamy thing. I can't know the true motivations of those trying to pin polygamy to homosexuality but suspect for some it was fun & even made themselves feel a bit better getting to sit in the judges chair.
Quote: Gay fetish: the infinite shelf life of homo- distraction
Katy McKy - Raw Story Columnist
Published: January 30, 2006
The sky isn't falling, but it's fraying. The ozone, that blanket of O3 between oblivion and us, dissolves when we spray fluorocarbons. The oceans rise. Divorce rates also rise, as more and more Americans, especially in the red states, emulate Britney Spear's matrimonial habits.
Then there's more. According to Sir James Lovelock, the original Gaian guy, the Earth is treating us like a virus, raising the temp to burn us off the global body. With every factory closing, we become more a nation of consumers and borrowers rather than producers and savers. And we're borrowing 2 trillion dollars to fund our Iraqi imperialism. Via that imperialism, we've cultivated a fresh crop of terrorists. We're running out of oil, but we're running high on gluttony. And so on.
And what worries the Right? Brokeback Mountain. And gay marriage.
Advertisement
As a college class exercise, a friend of mine recently interviewed a classmate.
My friend asked, "What don't you like about America?"
The 18-year old classmate said, "Off the record, gay people are taking over."
What has taken over is the discussion of gay people. Whereas I consider the civil rights of gay people to be fundamental to the American dream and a requisite for Constitutional integrity, I consider the Right's ad nauseam appetite for gay-themed diatribes to be a deadly diversion.
Janet Parshall, the talk show host, said on the January 17th edition of Larry King Live, "After all, I think what we're witnessing, Larry, is the homosexualizing of America."
What most recently wadded up Parshall's panties and shoved them so far up her rectum that it'll take a proctologist to remove them is Brokeback Mountain. It's a semi-mainstream movie and it has Parshall squawking that the sky is falling. Well, Ms. Parshall, the sky is fraying. The oceans are rising. So is the temp. And what worries you? Make-believe amour between a couple comely sheepherders?
The hunky horror, the hunky horror.
Parshall and others assert that homosexuality is sin. Thus, if one is straight and frames homosexuality as sin, it's the sweetest sin, for it's not one's sin. This gives homosexuality an infinite shelf life. It's never grows stale, for whereas it demands change of others, it requires no personal change. No sacrifice. So long as one is straight and heterosexuality demarcates purity, one is permanently pure.
Thus, such Right-thinking straight people can use homosexuality as their fetish object for moral masturbation. It would be merely creepy if it didn't keep the Right from the work of weaning ourselves off oil, decreasing the production of gases that accelerate global warming, equalizing education, delivering healthcare to all children, and so on.
On a personal level, the gay moral fetish distracts from Biblical adherence. As long as Rush Limbaugh rants about queer folk, he's distracted from returning to his first wife, as the Bible demands. As long as Parshall squawks about Brokeback Mountain, she won't have to forsake her family and her fortune, as the Bible also demands.
Perhaps the homophobe should pay gay people for their perpetual diversion. One pays a cable provider for the television shows that distract us from the work of our time and the deprivations of the future, for as oil prices, the oceans, and the temperature rise and rise, quality of life will fall and fall. So, shouldn't the homophobes of the Right pay gay folks for distracting them from their patriotic duties and their Christian duties, since those duties are hard and their distraction means that their children and grandchildren will bear the brunt of massive debt and monstrous drought?
Like the 18-year old who believes that what's wrong with America is that "gay people are taking over," when you can hold back your rising worries with a sturdy dyke, life is good. For now.
But gay people do more than distract. They pander to our inveterate desire for an other. Queer people are the divine other, for homo-bigots believe that they have Biblical clearance to hate.
"Yes, uh, Flight 2002," they imagine God saying, "you have clearance to land on the civil rights of your fellow homosexual citizens. On final approach, you might run into some Constitutional interference, but tune that out and when you taxi over to the tarmac, we'll, uh, amend that Constitution."
The homo-fetish also serves an ancient purpose. It's no longer safe to publicly articulate racial hatred. But there remains a deep desire to define and elevate oneself by what one isn't. With God's green light, the fundy Right references gays everyday. However, with only 3 gay references in the Bible, and a hundred times that number of warnings against wealth, the arithmetic suggests that the real work of being a Christian is casting off wealth. Jesus told one story about a man going to Hell. That man was a rich man, a man who lived on the sweet side of a wall while a poor man suffered on the other.
But walking away from wealth would be Hell on Earth for those that love manna more than their fellow man.
Quote: ABC News States Eye Picketing at Soldiers' Funerals States Rush to Stop Fundamentalists From Picketing U.S. Soldiers' Funerals
By CARRIE SPENCER GHOSE COLUMBUS, Ohio Feb 6, 2006 (AP)— States are rushing to limit when and where people may protest at funerals all because of a small fundamentalist Kansas church whose members picket soldiers' burials, arguing that Americans are dying for a country that harbors homosexuals. During the 1990s, the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., went around picketing the funerals of AIDS victims with protest signs that read, "God Hates Fags." But politicians began paying more attention recently when church members started showing up at the burials of soldiers and Marines killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Legislation is being considered in at least 14 states, and several of the bills moving quickly, with backing from legislative leaders and governors. If they pass, the bills could set up a clash between privacy and free speech rights, and court challenges are almost certain. ...
Quote: ABC News States Eye Picketing at Soldiers' Funerals States Rush to Stop Fundamentalists From Picketing U.S. Soldiers' Funerals
By CARRIE SPENCER GHOSE COLUMBUS, Ohio Feb 6, 2006 (AP)— States are rushing to limit when and where people may protest at funerals all because of a small fundamentalist Kansas church whose members picket soldiers' burials, arguing that Americans are dying for a country that harbors homosexuals. During the 1990s, the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan., went around picketing the funerals of AIDS victims with protest signs that read, "God Hates Fags." But politicians began paying more attention recently when church members started showing up at the burials of soldiers and Marines killed in Afghanistan and Iraq. Legislation is being considered in at least 14 states, and several of the bills moving quickly, with backing from legislative leaders and governors. If they pass, the bills could set up a clash between privacy and free speech rights, and court challenges are almost certain. ...
I think these people are the slime of the USA. I can't understand there thinking at all. But they have the right to say it and I'll defend their rights. It's no different than Nazis in Skokie, IL.
I think these people are the slime of the USA. I can't understand there thinking at all. But they have the right to say it and I'll defend their rights. It's no different than Nazis in Skokie, IL.
it shows a lack of class, but then, what do you do, limit their free speech. and in doing so allow them to intrude on a private moment of rememberance?
I think these people are the slime of the USA. I can't understand there thinking at all. But they have the right to say it and I'll defend their rights. It's no different than Nazis in Skokie, IL.
it shows a lack of class, but then, what do you do, limit their free speech. and in doing so allow them to intrude on a private moment of rememberance?
I think you could use trespassing statutes to deny them access to cemetary grounds. On the streets and sidewalks they're on their own. Of course, the cops could declare an unlawful assembly.
A lesbian couple who could become the first to divorce after "marrying" just three months ago were warned by lawyers yesterday that they may have a long wait.
Liz King, 40, and Daphne Ligthard, 36, registered their civil partnership in Ashford, Kent, on Feb 11 before sharing a honeymoon in Amsterdam.
But the relationship soured after Miss Ligthard accused Miss King of seeing another woman who had been a guest at their "wedding". The couple are now splitting up and face the prospect of dividing their joint assets.
Lawyers said that, under the Civil Partnerships Act that came into force in December, the couple could not terminate their partnership until it had been in existence for at least a year.
Moreover, in contrast to marriage, adultery was not recognised as grounds for ending a civil partnership, though unreasonable behaviour could be cited.
Mark Harper, a divorce specialist with the London law firm Withers, said that the dissolution of a partnership was almost exactly the same as any other divorce.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: Thank Jesus that we have someone in the white house who isn't afraid to openly discriminate. Who ever said the constitution was meant for freedom? Washington and Jefferson were just practical jokers. All that freedom and pursuit of happiness stuff was a joke. But they were serious about the bear arms.
Wow, so now we can insult black people if they object to the comparison of the ski thier born w/ to the chosen behavior of others. Nice.
actually the idea of whether its a chosen lifestyle may be somewhat offensive to the gay posters (and moderators) here. And yes, you can insult a group who fought for their civil rights and then turned their back on the civil rights of others. That's called hypocrisy (or hippo-crazssy to you).
Wow, so now we can insult black people if they object to the comparison of the ski thier born w/ to the chosen behavior of others. Nice.
I rarely see black people on the slopes. Not in Tahoe, not in Colorado, Not in Mammoth Lakes. Maybe it's because there are no slopes in the South?
And the ski's they're born with???? C'mon, WBAM short skis for adults have been out of fashion for years. Half the sport is about looking cool, ya know?
Thank Jesus that we have someone in the white house who isn't afraid to openly discriminate. Who ever said the constitution was meant for freedom? Washington and Jefferson were just practical jokers. All that freedom and pursuit of happiness stuff was a joke.
But they were serious about the bear arms.
How many gay marriages were occuring in 1776?
Anyone? Anyone?
Just a few less than happen today in this shit hole of a country!
Glad I've got a marrriage offer from a tranny girl in Vancouver. I can leave the USA but still visit WBAM!
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: Thank Jesus that we have someone in the white house who isn't afraid to openly discriminate. Who ever said the constitution was meant for freedom? Washington and Jefferson were just practical jokers. All that freedom and pursuit of happiness stuff was a joke.
Quote: the G-man said: How many gay marriages were occuring in 1776?
Anyone? Anyone?
Quote: magicjay38 said: Just a few less than happen today in this shit hole of a country!
The point, however, is that, given the were no gay marriages (or at least no legally sanctioned gay marriages) at the time the Constitution was drafted and/or ratified, it is difficult to see how Ray can argue that the Founding Fathers intended to protect such marriages in the constitution.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: Thank Jesus that we have someone in the white house who isn't afraid to openly discriminate. Who ever said the constitution was meant for freedom? Washington and Jefferson were just practical jokers. All that freedom and pursuit of happiness stuff was a joke.
Quote: the G-man said: How many gay marriages were occuring in 1776?
Anyone? Anyone?
Quote: magicjay38 said: Just a few less than happen today in this shit hole of a country!
The point, however, is that, given the were no gay marriages (or at least no legally sanctioned gay marriages) at the time the Constitution was drafted and/or ratified, it is difficult to see how Ray can argue that the Founding Fathers intended to protect such marriages in the constitution.
so by your standard the ammendment ending slavery should be overturned because it directly violates the standard in 1776. I would argue that "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" is more pro-gay marriage then for specifically adding discrimination and limiting rights within the constitution.
Quote: actually the idea of whether its a chosen lifestyle may be somewhat offensive to the gay posters (and moderators) here. And yes, you can insult a group who fought for their civil rights and then turned their back on the civil rights of others. That's called hypocrisy (or hippo-crazssy to you).
It may be offensive, but that doesn't mean it's not true. It's absurd to equate behavior with heritage regardless of how ingained someone claims that behavior is.
Also redefining an ancient institution isn't a civil right. If it was a civil right then you could put NO restrictions on marraige whatsoever.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: actually the idea of whether its a chosen lifestyle may be somewhat offensive to the gay posters (and moderators) here.
I don't care how offensive it is. I know you find the idea that you're a retard offensive, but that doesn't make it a false statement.
The same scientists who claim that homosexuality is an ingrained trait are the same ones who say that the urge to kill is a bred trait as well. But are you really going to call the person who was born a killer a murderer even if he refrains from doing so?
There's absolutely no logic in basing your entire argument on "always gay". Labels require more than simple feeling. They require action. In which case, it is fallacious to say that everyone who declares themself gay has "always been" gay.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: actually the idea of whether its a chosen lifestyle may be somewhat offensive to the gay posters (and moderators) here.
I don't care how offensive it is. I know you find the idea that you're a retard offensive, but that doesn't make it a false statement.
The same scientists who claim that homosexuality is an ingrained trait are the same ones who say that the urge to kill is a bred trait as well. But are you really going to call the person who was born a killer a murderer even if he refrains from doing so?
There's absolutely no logic in basing your entire argument on "always gay". Labels require more than simple feeling. They require action. In which case, it is fallacious to say that everyone who declares themself gay has "always been" gay.
being gay and being a killer are vastly different things. you're like the guys who used to say that black people were by design inferior to whites. basically your point is that people should force themselves to conform with whatever your view of "normal" is. Tell me, Pariah. How's your tranny porn collection going?
And like a typical Whomodian zombie, you take the high road and associate the word "killer" with "homosexual", from my post, instead of addressing my point regarding your inability to prove that homosexuality is an ingrained trait at birth through a comparison to another situation alikened to the homosexuality issue.
I don't need to hear about your insecurities r3x; just address my point if you really want to argue it.
And my collection is flourishing, thank you for asking.
Quote: Pariah said: And like a typical Whomodian zombie, you take the high road and associate the word "killer" with "homosexual", from my post, instead of addressing my point regarding your inability to prove that homosexuality is an ingrained trait at birth through a comparison to another situation alikened to the homosexuality issue.
I don't need to hear about your insecurities r3x; just address my point if you really want to argue it.
And my collection is flourishing, thank you for asking.
sigh. some people are born with sociopathic traits, some are born gay, some are born smart, some are born retarded, some are born left handed, some are born right handed. Some sociopaths kill, others are just weird. Some gay people stay closeted and spew hate upon gays while collecting gay/tranny porn, while others are more open and honest with themselves and can therefore live happy lives because their sexuality is dealt with. I'm not sure what your point is, in fact i'm probably wasting my time with you. You're a hateful person who sees it as your place to judge people for who they want to have sex with. But at the end of the day, life can be very shitty and people might as well try and live a happy life as long as its not hurting others. You (or anyone else) have yet to offer a single valid reason to ban gay marriage. Its as flimsy as the reason for banning interracial and we'll look back at this conversation in 30 years and see how idiotic your side really is.
And its a nice touch for G-man to bury my thread. Because he was able to sidestep the point of the title, which is: Bush only brings up the ammendment before elections. I don't remember any action on his part in 2005.
What the hell are you trying to say with your "some are" speech?
I'll restate my point: If you were to title someone, who decided they were homosexual, as always gay (or "born gay if you wish), then you'd have no choice but to say that particular individuals who have an urge to kill people have always been killers even before they killed someone--You'd even have to say this to people who fought the urge down. My point here is not to say homosexuals kill people (as you tried to deceptively imply), but rather show you an example that makes it more clear on how you're misunderstanding the situation...Perhaps purposefully.
Quote: Pariah said: What the hell are you trying to say with your "some are" speech?
I'll restate my point: If you were to title someone, who decided they were homosexual, as always gay (or "born gay if you wish), then you'd have no choice but to say that particular individuals who have an urge to kill people have always been killers even before they killed someone--You'd even have to say this to people who fought the urge down. My point here is not to say homosexuals kill people (as you tried to deceptively imply), but rather show you an example that makes it more clear on how you're misunderstanding the situation...Perhaps purposefully.
You're playing semantics. By definition a killer is someone who has killed, whereas by definition a homosexual is either someone who has sex with the same gender or is attracted to the same gender. Someone who is a born killer as you say I would label a "psychopath," "sociopath," or whatever term fits their particular profile and actions. So, if I knew someone was born with this "killer gene" I would be always careful and watchful around them and not trust them to change their brain chemistry, and if I knew someone with a "gay gene" I wouldn't waste my time trying to make them straight.
Quote: By definition a killer is someone who has killed,
Which is my entire point!
Quote: whereas by definition a homosexual is either someone who has sex with the same gender or is attracted to the same gender.
Not if a person was born a killer--As many people assert to be the case with assorted people who have killed. In which case, it's placed and used in exactly the same context as the label "homosexual". It's only after someone dubs themself as such that it is concluded that they were born that way. This is just as much the case with people who say they have the urge to kill. Even though they have the urge, they can, and have, fought it. But still, by your logic, they'd be closet killers because they carry an urge. This proves that both the term "homosexual" and the term "killer" carry the same proper context in my point. This is opposed to how you tried to differentiate it with your first sentence.
Quote: Someone who is a born killer as you say I would label a "psychopath," "sociopath," or whatever term fits their particular profile and actions.
But then you'd have to deal with the issue of a person having the capacity to kill, which is associated with urges. Even people who kill in self defense would have to go under your standard.
Furthermore, your evasive use of "psycho/socio" totally avoids the issue here. The propriety of dubbing them as "killers" is at the heart of my argument and not simply the state of their sanity. Neither "socio" nor "psycho" statically mean "urge to kill".
Quote: So, if I knew someone was born with this "killer gene" I would be always careful and watchful around them and not trust them to change their brain chemistry, and if I knew someone with a "gay gene" I wouldn't waste my time trying to make them straight.
And, once again, you totally avoid my point in favor of ad hominem.
My point, as I had already stated, was not to say that homosexuals have mannerisms we should be as cautious of as we do killers, but rather to show you that your way of deciding how someone has "always been gay" is fallacious. It is because you cannot call someone a killer before they have killed someone that you cannot retroactively label someone homosexual after they out themselves through sex or a declaration of homosexuality.
I don't know why I'm bothering to even respond. You go around in your dumb little circles trying to prove some point and making it sound like you have some well reasoned argument when you don't.
Killing is an action, a killer is someone who does that action. Gay/homosexual is a preference/attraction. Your point would only stand if I said buttfucker or carpetmuncher.
And once again you are trying to draw parallels between homosexuality and a form of mental perversion. You did this before saying pedophile was the same thing as being gay and now you're saying equating the urge to kill with sexual desires. You, Pariah, and people like you are the true deviants in this world. You're a hateful, spiteful little boy who wants the world to fall into your hateful, angry view. Well it won't happen. If you look at history, eventually more positive things win out in the end.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: Thank Jesus that we have someone in the white house who isn't afraid to openly discriminate. Who ever said the constitution was meant for freedom? Washington and Jefferson were just practical jokers. All that freedom and pursuit of happiness stuff was a joke.
Quote: the G-man said: How many gay marriages were occuring in 1776?
Anyone? Anyone?
Quote: magicjay38 said: Just a few less than happen today in this shit hole of a country!
Quote: the G-man said The point, however, is that, given the were no gay marriages (or at least no legally sanctioned gay marriages) at the time the Constitution was drafted and/or ratified, it is difficult to see how Ray can argue that the Founding Fathers intended to protect such marriages in the constitution.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: so by your standard the ammendment ending slavery should be overturned because it directly violates the standard in 1776.
Actually, your attempt to draw an analogy to slavery proves, rather than questions, my point.
Slavery, sadly, existed at the time of the passage and ratification of the constitution. Therefore, a prohibition against it was contrary to the founders' intent. As such, it required an amendment to prohibit it.
You, on the other hand, are arguing that gay marriage, something that did NOT exist at the time of the constitution's passage, something that was, in fact wholly outlawed, is somehow consistent to the founders' intent.
I have said in the past that I think the issue of gay marriage should be decided by legislation and that, if the appropriate legislature approves gay marriage, I have no problem with that.
However, I continue to oppose "legislation from the bench." Such judicial activism is, I would submit, wholly and clearly inconsistent with the framers' intent that there be a "separation of powers" between the judicial, executive and legislative branches.
If an amendment is necessary to prevent the courts from exceeding their authority, I would submit that the amendment is more consistent, not less, with the intent of the constitution to separate powers.
Actually, your attempt to draw an analogy to slavery proves, rather than questions, my point.
Slavery, sadly, existed at the time of the passage and ratification of the constitution. Therefore, a prohibition against it was contrary to the founders' intent. As such, it required an amendment to prohibit it.
Actually Jefferson was torn on the issue of slavery and it is now believed he considered banning it but chose not to due to the fragile nature of the union. My point stands that they never would have written an amendment limiting someone's freedom. You can not argue that the founding fathers wanted later generations to write discrimination into the constitution.
Quote: You, on the other hand, are arguing that gay marriage, something that did NOT exist at the time of the constitution's passage, something that was, in fact wholly outlawed, is somehow consistent to the founders' intent.
I have said in the past that I think the issue of gay marriage should be decided by legislation and that, if the appropriate legislature approves gay marriage, I have no problem with that.
then why are you bitching about whether it existed in 1776? My point has been about putting discrimination into the constitution.
Quote: However, I continue to oppose "legislation from the bench." Such judicial activism is, I would submit, wholly and clearly inconsistent with the framers' intent that there be a "separation of powers" between the judicial, executive and legislative branches.
Judges entire role is to determine if something violates the law or, in the case of higher courts, if the law violates the constitution. So if a judge reads "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness" they can determine that banning two adults from marrying (especially based on religious reasons) in a City Hall is unconstitutional. That's not legislating from the bench, its not judicial activism, its a judge doing their duty and following the law/constitution as they see it.
Quote: If an amendment is necessary to prevent the courts from exceeding their authority, I would submit that the amendment is more consistent, not less, with the intent of the constitution to separate powers.
you're way off. Once a discriminating law is put in the Constitution then it opens the door for other discrimination. Once you throw in that there are limits to personal freedom in regards to marriage then someone can argue before the supreme court that another discrimination is okay and the judges will have to agree because its in the constitution. Also, unless there's some fancy legal trick I'm missing, if its in the constitution then no state can legalize gay marriage no matter how much they want to. The legal marriages in Mass. become void and it prevents anyone from passing any sort of law allowing gays to marry.
And again I point out the main topic of MY thread that you deleted to avoid the point that you can't really argue which is that Bush is only making this an issue in election years.
Quote: the G-man said: You're the one who asked for thoughts, feelings and opinions on Reagan. Why ask if you didn't really want us to answer?
And you avoid the question I asked. And you avoid the points I brought up. Typical G-man. You get backed into a corner and then pretend the corner is your front door so you meant to go there all along.
Quote: the G-man said: You're the one who asked for thoughts, feelings and opinions on Reagan. Why ask if you didn't really want us to answer?
And you avoid the question I asked. And you avoid the points I brought up. Typical G-man. You get backed into a corner and then pretend the corner is your front door so you meant to go there all along.
Quote: the G-man said: You're the one who asked for thoughts, feelings and opinions on Reagan. Why ask if you didn't really want us to answer?
And you avoid the question I asked. And you avoid the points I brought up. Typical G-man. You get backed into a corner and then pretend the corner is your front door so you meant to go there all along.
Still no response, eh G-man? Methinks Rob's goldenboy has lost his shine.
Actually, I was savoring the moment before I demolish you once again, by pointing out that you have, once again, constructed your argument upon "rayfacts," which are well known to be false.
In regards to your attempt to induce the reader to conclude that Bush is, for lack of better term, pandering by opposing gay marriage, you have not argued a single point to support your premise. Instead, you have argued the constitutional grounds on which a prohibition should or should not exist.
Unfortunately for you, your constitutional argument rests on fallacies.
You have argued that a Judge is constitutionally empowered to interpret the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness clause" of the US Constitution to judicially impose gay marriage.
There is, in fact, no such clause. Further, the phrase itself appears nowhere in the Constitution.
Since the phrase does not appear in the constitution, your argument, again, fails.
It would be tempting to suggest that, if you spent half as much time trying to research your arguments for factual accuracy, and constructing your points, as you do whining about "unfairness" and spamming forums when you don't get your way, you might not embarrass yourself quite as often.
However, since your "rayfacts" provide no shortage of amusement to the rest of us, and your arguments tend to make the rest of us look all the smarter, I won't.
So...any other reasons why you think the federal government has no legitimate basis to consider the question of gay marriage
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: so by your standard the ammendment ending slavery should be overturned because it directly violates the standard in 1776.
Actually, your attempt to draw an analogy to slavery proves, rather than questions, my point.
Slavery, sadly, existed at the time of the passage and ratification of the constitution. Therefore, a prohibition against it was contrary to the founders' intent. As such, it required an amendment to prohibit it.
You, on the other hand, are arguing that gay marriage, something that did NOT exist at the time of the constitution's passage, something that was, in fact wholly outlawed, is somehow consistent to the founders' intent.
I have said in the past that I think the issue of gay marriage should be decided by legislation and that, if the appropriate legislature approves gay marriage, I have no problem with that.
However, I continue to oppose "legislation from the bench." Such judicial activism is, I would submit, wholly and clearly inconsistent with the framers' intent that there be a "separation of powers" between the judicial, executive and legislative branches.
If an amendment is necessary to prevent the courts from exceeding their authority, I would submit that the amendment is more consistent, not less, with the intent of the constitution to separate powers.
I'm sure you've heard this before but here goes. Original intent is a fallacious idea. At the time it was written the framers could hardly imagine a world like todays. Their real intent was to create a living document that could adapt to changes in the world and circumstance while maintaning core values of liberty and freedom. It's purpose is to protect those ideas, not limit them.
The courts aren't really at liberty to write law anyway. A judge may rule on an issue but legislatures and governors certainly have the right to change the law if they disagree. The checks and balances remain in effect. The courts protect freedoms from politics.
I've ever been able to understand why the right has such an interest in who people sleep with. It doesn't cost them anything. No one is asking them to sleep with people they don't desire so why the big deal?
BTW Pariah, you'll be so much happier when you come out of the closet. Most 'Straight' guys that are into t-girls really want the cock. That's why they're interested in us. The only problem is most t-girls aren't into it. Only in porn do you find the man topping domme!
Quote: the G-man said: Actually, I was savoring the moment before I demolish you once again, by pointing out that you have, once again, constructed your argument upon "rayfacts," which are well known to be false.
i find it funny that you have no respect for the declaration of independence. I also find it funny that you needed so long to respond.
Quote: In regards to your attempt to induce the reader to conclude that Bush is, for lack of better term, pandering by opposing gay marriage, you have not argued a single point to support your premise. Instead, you have argued the constitutional grounds on which a prohibition should or should not exist.
Bush in 2004 (an election year) pushed for the amendment. Bush in 2005 did nothing (at least I don't recall a single story where he was actively pushing for it, show me one where he was, ACTIVELY). Bush in 2006 (election year) pushes for the amendment again.
Quote: Unfortunately for you, your constitutional argument rests on fallacies.
You have argued that a Judge is constitutionally empowered to interpret the "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness clause" of the US Constitution to judicially impose gay marriage.
There is, in fact, no such clause. Further, the phrase itself appears nowhere in the Constitution.
you're right. the declaration said that. i am such an idiot. i forgot the declaration is looked down upon as jibberish and the constitution has no mention of freedom except.....
Quote:
9th "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
Quote: Since the phrase does not appear in the constitution, your argument, again, fails.
founding fathers, bitch. They worked on both of them. If I said Yellow Submarine was on Rubber Soul would you argue the Beatles never wrote it because it was on Revolver?
Quote: It would be tempting to suggest that, if you spent half as much time trying to research your arguments for factual accuracy, and constructing your points, as you do whining about "unfairness" and spamming forums when you don't get your way, you might not embarrass yourself quite as often.
I hit a nerve, didn't I?
Quote: However, since your "rayfacts" provide no shortage of amusement to the rest of us, and your arguments tend to make the rest of us look all the smarter, I won't.
okay, G-man. Thanks for proving my point to Rob.
Quote: So...any other reasons why you think the federal government has no legitimate basis to consider the question of gay marriage
Besides the numerous moral reasons? Or the fact that the constitution has never been about adding discrimination? That in 230 years its approved upon the rights and liberties of the people in this country? That this amendment is offensive to the very idea of what America is supposed to be? Other than that, none that I can think of now?
Tell me why an atheist conservative wants christian values imposed on the states by the federal government. You try and play yourself off as more of a economical conservative, not a religious right one.
you're the perfect poster boy for what's wrong with Bushies, G-man. You partially respond, then avoid the things you don't like, then come out swinging with "you're wrong and I laugh at you for it" and you never have an actual debate.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: I don't know why I'm bothering to even respond.
Becuase you're insecure in your position and have to constantly prove to people that you're right about your blind stupidity.
Quote: Killing is an action, a killer is someone who does that action. Gay/homosexual is a preference/attraction. Your point would only stand if I said buttfucker or carpetmuncher.
Wrong again. I have already stated repeatedly that "Killer" is comparable to "homosexual" in that particular individuals carry the urge according to scientists who continually say our genes control everything about us. Because of this, it can be used in the same way the word "homosexual" does in that it's constantly asserted that they've been that way their entire lives. So, again, by your logic, killers have always been killers even before they killed--Or even if they fought off the urges--Just as homosexuals have always been homosexual even before they decided what they were--Or even if they never acted upon those urges you say that were ingrained upon them.
I'll spell it out a whole lot more clearly for you, because you're obviously straining to avoid it: Homosexuality is just as much based on action as killing is. Thus, your attempted wrongful use of the word is what kills your argument.
Quote: And once again you are trying to draw parallels between homosexuality and a form of mental perversion. You did this before saying pedophile was the same thing as being gay and now you're saying equating the urge to kill with sexual desires.
I've already long since recognized that the acts are different, but that doesn't mean the urges aren't overtly related through mental disorder.
Quote: You, Pariah, and people like you are the true deviants in this world. You're a hateful, spiteful little boy who wants the world to fall into your hateful, angry view. Well it won't happen. If you look at history, eventually more positive things win out in the end.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: Bush in 2004 (an election year) pushed for the amendment.
Bush in 2005 did nothing (at least I don't recall a single story where he was actively pushing for it, show me one where he was, ACTIVELY).
Early in January of 2005, Bush told the Washington Post that although he still supported the amendment, he would not lobby heavily for the passage because he believed that until a federal court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act, there would not be enough votes for passage.
On January 25, 2005, according to the New York Times, Bush told a privately invited group of African-American community and religious leaders that he remained committed to amending the Constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
Over the course of the next two days, it was revealed by the Washington Post and USA Today that the Bush Administration had paid columnists to promote its views on marriage. The Department of Health and Human Services paid Maggie Gallagher $21,500, and Mike McManus $49,000, to write syndicated news columns endorsing the FMA.
Additionally, Gallagher also received $20,000 in 2002 and 2003 to write a report on government initiatives to strengthen marriage. McManus leads a group called Marriage Savers that works with other organizations to promote marriage as defined between a man and a woman.
In regards to your points about the Declaration of Independence, regardless of who wrote it, it is not U.S. law. It was passed in 1776, years before the United States was formed. Judges interpret laws, not declarations. It is completely without precedential or legal authority.
Your point on the Ninth Amendment is more valid. And, in fact, that would be a potential basis for a judge to rule in favor of gay marriage. Which, of course, is a valid reason for an opponent of gay marriage to want a subsequent amendment to prevent it.
You may or may not have a point about whether we should allow gay marriage. I think there are legitimate arguments for why we should, in fact, legalize it through a legislative process. However, to have those arguments requires our leaders, including Bush, to broach the topic.
So why are you opposed to the topic being brought up?
Quote: the G-man said: Your point on the Ninth Amendment is more valid. And, in fact, that would be a potential basis for a judge to rule in favor of gay marriage.
Only if marriage was actually a right. And it's not.
Quote: the G-man said: Your point on the Ninth Amendment is more valid. And, in fact, that would be a potential basis for a judge to rule in favor of gay marriage.
Only if marriage was actually a right. And it's not.
we get it, pariah. you don't think gay people should be allowed to do anything but pose nude in drag for you to jerk off to.
Transexuals are not gay men! They are women trapped inside men's bodies you ignorant/intolerant fuckwit!
Some T people would describe their experience that way but not all. Some m2f's hate their genitals, which is classified as a Body Dysmorphic Disorder in the DSM IV, the same as anorexia or bulemia.
A move is afoot to delist GID (gender Identity disorder) from the DSM. Gender roles are largely determined by society and culture. Therefore gender variance is a social problem, not a psychiatric one. Studies have found that gender role variance in itself is not harmfull while corrective measures frequently are.
For those seeking SRS, the 'disorder' definition is crucial to getting insurance companies to pay for it. So for business purposes we are stuck with a mental illness diagnosis that is incorrect.
TG people may have other mental illness to accompany transgenderism. Depression is a frequent companion as are substance abuse problems. PTSD is another problem trans people may have.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: Welcome to the club, Pariah...please wait 4 to 6 weeks for your Gay membership card to arrive....It will instruct you on :
Musicals you must listen to.
Great online sites to meet a man..or a woman..or whatever it is you are seeking....
Terrific discounts on drinks at selected bars, sex clubs, and a $2.00 locker at the baths on Tuesdays and Thursday!
Congratulations, Pariah..You are one of us now....
Guys that are into trannies arent really gay, Beardguy. They self identify as straight even though they usually want to get real personal with the dangly bits of a t-girl. Often they want you to top them, something myself and most trannies aren't into. "Admirers" seem like bi-guys in deep denial of their homo erotic desires. It's okay if your partner has tits and where's a dress!
Sound like anyone we know?
BTW, I don't know about your experience but mine is out gay men rarely hook up with pre-op transexual women. But there is this gay guy I know.....
I didn't come out of the closet until I was a few weeks away from turning 21. That was mid June, 1978. I remember hearing from SOMEWHERE that when you are gay, gay guys just come to your door one day, they make you dress up in drag, they make you wear one of those dumb little pointed hats like kids wear to birthday parties, and they give you a party where everyone is in drag and make you listen to showtunes on the stereo and they dance.
Ughh! So, when in reality I finally went to my first gay bar the summer of 1978, there was one guy sleeping at the bar, another guy sitting there drunk, and another man talking with the bartendar.
No drag queens. No dumb little pointed hats. No dancing. The jukebox wasn't even on, so no showtunes.
It was pretty fucking boring, actually......
A year or so later, I met a guy who was black, about 6 ft tall, and about 45 years old. He sometimes got dressed in drag for shows. He looked masculine enough when he was wearing guy clothes. I didn't get involved with him because the whole drag thing turned me off then, but if I met a hot guy like that who wasn't a big lady at heart, not totally, anyway, LoL, I might date him if he was a cool guy and nice, too.
Ving Rhames did a wonderful job of playing a drag queen in "Holiday Heart." He was fabulous in that role. I don't want to have sex with a guy while he is dressed as a girl, that is not my thing.
I guess that is as close as I would like to get to T Girls.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: I didn't come out of the closet until I was a few weeks away from turning 21. That was mid June, 1978. I remember hearing from SOMEWHERE that when you are gay, gay guys just come to your door one day, they make you dress up in drag, they make you wear one of those dumb little pointed hats like kids wear to birthday parties, and they give you a party where everyone is in drag and make you listen to showtunes on the stereo and they dance.
Ughh! So, when in reality I finally went to my first gay bar the summer of 1978, there was one guy sleeping at the bar, another guy sitting there drunk, and another man talking with the bartendar.
No drag queens. No dumb little pointed hats. No dancing. The jukebox wasn't even on, so no showtunes.
It was pretty fucking boring, actually......
A year or so later, I met a guy who was black, about 6 ft tall, and about 45 years old. He sometimes got dressed in drag for shows. He looked masculine enough when he was wearing guy clothes. I didn't get involved with him because the whole drag thing turned me off then, but if I met a hot guy like that who wasn't a big lady at heart, not totally, anyway, LoL, I might date him if he was a cool guy and nice, too.
Ving Rhames did a wonderful job of playing a drag queen in "Holiday Heart." He was fabulous in that role. I don't want to have sex with a guy while he is dressed as a girl, that is not my thing.
I guess that is as close as I would like to get to T Girls.
Drag queen and transexual are to very different creatures. Both fall under the heading of transgender, but the similarity stops there. Drag quuens, and I love 'em btw, are characatures of women. They're over the top and generally just into the show. Our very own Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence are all over 6 feet tall without heels. Transexuals on the other hand are women full time. Drag queens seek to stand-out in a crowd, TS s seek to blend in to it.
My favorite TG flick is an English movie called Different for Girls that came out in '98. Steven Mackintosh plays Kim a TS woman who rekindles a friendship with her best friend from school.
Jay, I know the difference between the two, but thank you for pointing that out. There may be some here who don't know the difference.
I neglected to mention that, during that same summer of 1978, I met a T girl and her boyfriend. I had just missed my last train home from downtown. I told them that, without expecting anything, and they offered to let me sleep on their couch. They were very nice people! In return, I helped them with housework, and they gave me lunch.
There was no sex, but I never forgot the experience. Later, on my way to the train station, they took me to a trans bar. It was a bit surreal, seeing the T girls, playing pool and cursing like sailors on shore leave. I had a good time. They were very good to me.
That was my first summer out. I learned a lot. It was much more fun than being in the closet. I am out to my entire family. My mom knew George and had a crush on him, LoL.
Sorry to disappoint you Pariah. If you want consistency you probably don't want to get involved in the TG world. If you think T-girls will put up with bullshit from guys, you'd be wrong. There ae lots of guys that want a t-girl for peviously stated reasons. There aren't that many of us.
What do you mean by consistency anyway? CDs, TVs, drag queens, gender queers and transexuals aren't the same things. Current thinking in the shrink world is that the binary model of gender is false. Gender is as much a social construct as it is a biological one. People of both biological genders display a variety of cross gender charateristics. That thinking has led many shrinks to believe that Gender Identity Disorder, like homosexuality, is not a disorder at all.
Empire State Pride Agenda executive director Alan Van Capelle described Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) as "a complete disappointment" in a memo published on The New York Observer's Politicker website, because of her opposition to same-sex marriage, and refused to "lend [his] name and sell tickets" to any fundraiser for Clinton's Senate re-election campaign.
Good for him!! I am very disgusted with the religious right and their anti gay agenda. We are HUMAN FUCKING BEINGS.... not evil Goddamn devils in human form. They oughta ostracize that hate monger, Jerry Falwell, and his boy sidekick, Pat Robertson, instead.
Thwowing out words like biggot in order to illicit a pavlovian responce is probobly easier than discussing the core beliefs of either side of the debate.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: Thwowing out words like biggot in order to illicit a pavlovian responce is probobly easier than discussing the core beliefs of either side of the debate.
Core beliefs: Christians think homosexuality is a sin and don't want to have gays marry because they see marriage as religious.
Gays see marriage as a right, since its officially sanctioned and license by the government, and gays want the same rights as everyone else.
The Republicans use the issue to drum up christians voters who might not care to vote otherwise, while the Democrats often pussyfoot (or "G-man Foot") out of dealing with the issue head on.
The truth is that gay marriage will not destroy society. Just the same as how gays being accepted by society has not destroyed us. All it will do is make gay people feel more like they are accepted and part of the world, not outcasts. So-called christian values will not be harmed because 2 free-wheeling christians can wed and raise their kids same as before. The only thing gay marriage hurts is religious pride. By making homosexuality completely acceptable the christians lose a villain to fight against, lose a rally cry.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: Good for him!! I am very disgusted with the religious right and their anti gay agenda. We are HUMAN FUCKING BEINGS.... not evil Goddamn devils in human form. They oughta ostracize that hate monger, Jerry Falwell, and his boy sidekick, Pat Robertson, instead.
And what the fuck do they have to do with Hillary Clinton?
Quote: Beardguy57 said: It is the fault of those who pander to the religious right, as well, G Man...(or to those who are bigots.) ..just to get into office.
I think your supposed to focus just on Hillary who also doesn't support amending the Constitution just to get the anti-gay vote. Really liked your response Beardguy.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: Good for him!! I am very disgusted with the religious right and their anti gay agenda. We are HUMAN FUCKING BEINGS.... not evil Goddamn devils in human form. They oughta ostracize that hate monger, Jerry Falwell, and his boy sidekick, Pat Robertson, instead.
And what the fuck do they have to do with Hillary Clinton?
Pariah, I have had to deal with anti gay bullshit all my life. Yeah, I tend to lump these people together...for me, it is the same hateful rhetoric, but the faces are slightly different.
Anyone who is against gay marriage in the political arena is against me and the many others like me being able to live my life with the same HUMAN RIGHTS as them. It's as simple as that.
WBAM, this applies to your response to my post, too. I say this calmly because I know I get VERY emotional where gay...and human rights are concerned. You two have not walked in my shoes and been treated like shit just for being who you are. I don't want pity. I want to be accepted as I am, not as a sinner. As a human being.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: It is the fault of those who pander to the religious right, as well, G Man...(or to those who are bigots.) ..just to get into office.
I think your supposed to focus just on Hillary who also doesn't support amending the Constitution just to get the anti-gay vote. Really liked your response Beardguy.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: Good for him!! I am very disgusted with the religious right and their anti gay agenda. We are HUMAN FUCKING BEINGS.... not evil Goddamn devils in human form. They oughta ostracize that hate monger, Jerry Falwell, and his boy sidekick, Pat Robertson, instead.
And what the fuck do they have to do with Hillary Clinton?
What's your problem? It's your right that we're fighting for!
That doesn't answer my question: What does Falwell and Robertson talking about Christianity have to do with Hillary being against gay marriage?
Quote: Beardguy57 said: Pariah, I have had to deal with anti gay bullshit all my life. Yeah, I tend to lump these people together...for me, it is the same hateful rhetoric, but the faces are slightly different.
Anyone who is against gay marriage in the political arena is against me and the many others like me being able to live my life with the same HUMAN RIGHTS as them. It's as simple as that.
WBAM, this applies to your response to my post, too. I say this calmly because I know I get VERY emotional where gay...and human rights are concerned. You two have not walked in my shoes and been treated like shit just for being who you are. I don't want pity. I want to be accepted as I am, not as a sinner. As a human being.
......
.........Are you Jon Stewart or did you smoke a whole fucking lot of crack throughout your life?
Quote: Pariah said: That doesn't answer my question: What does Falwell and Robertson talking about Christianity have to do with Hillary being against gay marriage?
Quote: Beardguy57 said: Pariah, I have had to deal with anti gay bullshit all my life. Yeah, I tend to lump these people together...for me, it is the same hateful rhetoric, but the faces are slightly different.
Anyone who is against gay marriage in the political arena is against me and the many others like me being able to live my life with the same HUMAN RIGHTS as them. It's as simple as that.
WBAM, this applies to your response to my post, too. I say this calmly because I know I get VERY emotional where gay...and human rights are concerned. You two have not walked in my shoes and been treated like shit just for being who you are. I don't want pity. I want to be accepted as I am, not as a sinner. As a human being.
......
.........Are you Jon Stewart or did you smoke a whole fucking lot of crack throughout your life?
At least I am open and honest with myself about my lust for cock, Pariah...unlike you.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: It is the fault of those who pander to the religious right, as well, G Man...(or to those who are bigots.) ..just to get into office.
Fair enough.
So...here's the question I have to ask.
At this point you have to assume the 2008 republican presidential candidate will oppose gay marriage.
And there's a better than 50/50 chance the democratic candidate will be Hillary Clinton...who now claims to oppose gay marriage.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: It is the fault of those who pander to the religious right, as well, G Man...(or to those who are bigots.) ..just to get into office.
Fair enough.
So...here's the question I have to ask.
At this point you have to assume the 2008 republican presidential candidate will oppose gay marriage.
And there's a better than 50/50 chance the democratic candidate will be Hillary Clinton...who now claims to oppose gay marriage.
How do you vote?
Damn!! G Man..that is like being asked how do I want to die? Be gassed or shot? Seriously, I am a registered Democrat. The best I can hope for is that the senate will keep opposing all attempts at passing a ban on Gay marriage. I have to wonder..first, a ban is passed on gay marriage...and then what after that? What rights which took DECADES to get could be taken away?
Quote: Beardguy57 said: It is the fault of those who pander to the religious right, as well, G Man...(or to those who are bigots.) ..just to get into office.
Fair enough.
So...here's the question I have to ask.
At this point you have to assume the 2008 republican presidential candidate will oppose gay marriage.
And there's a better than 50/50 chance the democratic candidate will be Hillary Clinton...who now claims to oppose gay marriage.
How do you vote?
Clinton all the way. The GOP is willing to change the Constitution to reflect an anti-gay bias. Blech
Quote: the G-man said: So, enacting a gay marriage ban is acceptable as long as it isn't in the constitution?
Are you speaking about the already enacted gay marriage ban that President Clinton did while in office? (thus taking out much of the steam for a constitutional ammendment)
WBAM, this applies to your response to my post, too. I say this calmly because I know I get VERY emotional where gay...and human rights are concerned. You two have not walked in my shoes and been treated like shit just for being who you are. I don't want pity. I want to be accepted as I am, not as a sinner. As a human being.
First off, you haven't walked in my shoes either, so teh shoes argument is weak. You have no idea where I've been, what I've experienced, so don;t try to trump my personal experience with yours. If personal experience won the day then I could probobly make moot anything you say, but that's not how I roll, but to say you seem to have as much hate in you as those you despise.
Second, marraige isn't a human right, there are many restrictions on marraige today. To argue that it's a human right is to argue against every restriction. No one is preventing you from doing what you want to do, live whith whome you choose, love who you want to love or have sex whith whoever you wish what they are preventing you from doing is redefining an ancient tradition. Even then they aren't preventing you from doing it, they're just forcing you to do it through legislation rather than through the courts.
As far as not wanting to be considered a sinner..... we're all sinners.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: It is the fault of those who pander to the religious right, as well, G Man...(or to those who are bigots.) ..just to get into office.
Fair enough.
So...here's the question I have to ask.
At this point you have to assume the 2008 republican presidential candidate will oppose gay marriage.
And there's a better than 50/50 chance the democratic candidate will be Hillary Clinton...who now claims to oppose gay marriage.
How do you vote?
Clinton all the way. The GOP is willing to change the Constitution to reflect an anti-gay bias. Blech
Why is the ammendment called anti gay? There is no language in teh proposed ammendment that mentions gays. You could call it anti polygamy or anti beastiality.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said:... ... Why is the ammendment called anti gay? There is no language in teh proposed ammendment that mentions gays. You could call it anti polygamy or anti beastiality.
Your ignoring what the effect the amendment would have on gays. Most people tend to be more concerned about actual effect, which is in this case anti-gay.
WBAM, this applies to your response to my post, too. I say this calmly because I know I get VERY emotional where gay...and human rights are concerned. You two have not walked in my shoes and been treated like shit just for being who you are. I don't want pity. I want to be accepted as I am, not as a sinner. As a human being.
First off, you haven't walked in my shoes either, so teh shoes argument is weak. You have no idea where I've been, what I've experienced, so don;t try to trump my personal experience with yours. If personal experience won the day then I could probobly make moot anything you say, but that's not how I roll, but to say you seem to have as much hate in you as those you despise.
Second, marraige isn't a human right, there are many restrictions on marraige today. To argue that it's a human right is to argue against every restriction. No one is preventing you from doing what you want to do, live whith whome you choose, love who you want to love or have sex whith whoever you wish what they are preventing you from doing is redefining an ancient tradition. Even then they aren't preventing you from doing it, they're just forcing you to do it through legislation rather than through the courts.
As far as not wanting to be considered a sinner..... we're all sinners.
Quote: the G-ham said: I'm willing to pander for anti-gay groups if it helps get my party elected.
I'm willing to vote for the moderate who supports gays, like Hillary Clinton. Yeah she's not supporting gay marriage but instead civil unions. She's a good candidate not only for advancing gay rights but also from taking a big huge step backwards. That would happen if a candidate really far to the left won the primary. Election night would be a sea of red states with more chances of changing our Constitution to reflect hate & fear IMHO.
Quote: the G-ham said: I'm willing to pander for anti-gay groups if it helps get my party elected.
I'm willing to vote for the moderate who supports gays, like Hillary Clinton. Yeah she's not supporting gay marriage but instead civil unions. She's a good candidate not only for advancing gay rights but also from taking a big huge step backwards. That would happen if a candidate really far to the left won the primary. Election night would be a sea of red states with more chances of changing our Constitution to reflect hate & fear IMHO.
I agree with you, ME MAN....we will see in 2008...
WBAM, this applies to your response to my post, too. I say this calmly because I know I get VERY emotional where gay...and human rights are concerned. You two have not walked in my shoes and been treated like shit just for being who you are. I don't want pity. I want to be accepted as I am, not as a sinner. As a human being.
First off, you haven't walked in my shoes either, so teh shoes argument is weak. You have no idea where I've been, what I've experienced, so don;t try to trump my personal experience with yours. If personal experience won the day then I could probobly make moot anything you say, but that's not how I roll, but to say you seem to have as much hate in you as those you despise.
Second, marraige isn't a human right, there are many restrictions on marraige today. To argue that it's a human right is to argue against every restriction. No one is preventing you from doing what you want to do, live whith whome you choose, love who you want to love or have sex whith whoever you wish what they are preventing you from doing is redefining an ancient tradition. Even then they aren't preventing you from doing it, they're just forcing you to do it through legislation rather than through the courts.
As far as not wanting to be considered a sinner..... we're all sinners.
I will summarize my thoughts into two words:
Human Rights.
Fine then.. you have human rights. So what's left to talk about?
Seriously, you totally ignore my argument and try instead of making any form of cojent argument yourself rely on a cheeky platitude, well, I hate to break it to you, but government endorsement isn;t a human right. The government allready lets you live your life as you see fit, you can have sex with whoever you want, be contractually obligated to that person if you see fit, you can have a religious cerimony. in essence you can do anything a married couple can do, government just won't endorse it, how is that a denial of human rights? Marraige has alwayse been about bringing together the two uniquily seperate elements of humanity, you want that redefined and the fact that society doesn;t unquestionably capitulate and deny the unique differences of men and women to join in a union that ideally produces offsping you think that's a denial of some unspecified human right and you attemt to silence any opposition by labeling them biggots. You're wholy unwilling to even consider a position that doesn;t offer you complete affermation.
Just for the sake of pretending you acctually read anything I said, let me ask you to back up your two word summary, please tell me what human right you are being denied.
Quote: the G-ham said: I'm willing to pander for anti-gay groups if it helps get my party elected.
I'm willing to vote for the moderate who supports gays, like Hillary Clinton. Yeah she's not supporting gay marriage but instead civil unions. She's a good candidate not only for advancing gay rights but also from taking a big huge step backwards. That would happen if a candidate really far to the left won the primary. Election night would be a sea of red states with more chances of changing our Constitution to reflect hate & fear IMHO.
I agree with you, ME MAN....we will see in 2008...
You agree with MEM that Hillary would be a good canidate even though she is willing to deny you essential human rights?
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: If personal experience won the day then I could probobly make moot anything you say, but that's not how I roll
I'm a blind katrina surviving paraplegic with AIDS, cancer, and the plague.
Quote: No one is preventing you from doing what you want to do, live whith whome you choose, love who you want to love or have sex whith whoever you wish what they are preventing you from doing is redefining an ancient tradition.
Marriage(at least, marriage in the western world) today is not the same as it was hundreds of years ago. It's not even the same as it was a few decades ago. It's been redefined and adjusted to fit the standards of an evolving society time and time again.
Seriously, you totally ignore my argument and try instead of making any form of cojent argument yourself rely on a cheeky platitude, well, I hate to break it to you, but government endorsement isn;t a human right. The government allready lets you live your life as you see fit, you can have sex with whoever you want, be contractually obligated to that person if you see fit, you can have a religious cerimony. in essence you can do anything a married couple can do, government just won't endorse it, how is that a denial of human rights?
Because the government is essentially saying, by your own statement, "you do what you want, but you don't have the same rights." Like being separate but equal. Gay people want to be considered part of society, not a sub group.
Quote: Marraige has alwayse been about bringing together the two uniquily seperate elements of humanity,
that's bullshit, and you should know it having read the bible. Marriage was about power and children and building households with multiple wives and heirs. Brides were sold to husbands, husbands had many wives, etc. Then you have the poets and the writers who came along and turned marriage into some beautiful bonding of the souls. I'm all for love, but marriage hardly has its origins in that.
Quote: you want that redefined and the fact that society doesn;t unquestionably capitulate and deny the unique differences of men and women to join in a union that ideally produces offsping you think that's a denial of some unspecified human right and you attemt to silence any opposition by labeling them biggots.
how would gay marriage effect you? your wife? your marriage? your children? I would figure gay sex would be the big button pusher. but since they can do that, they can live together, how does gay marriage effect YOU. What it does is allow two people to feel like they're part of society, not shunned. Don't people have the right to feel accepted? And to deny strangers the right to do something that will harm no one out of some sense of pride or baseless predjudice makes you a biggot.
Quote: You're wholy unwilling to even consider a position that doesn;t offer you complete affermation.
again, what's wrong with being accepted, what's wrong with not being treated as a lesser being? black people once were referred to in the dictionary as having lower mental capacity, they weren't allowed to marry whites. if you accept the discrimination of gays, then you must also accept discrimination of blacks. and that means you hate G-man and Wednesday.
Quote: Just for the sake of pretending you acctually read anything I said, let me ask you to back up your two word summary, please tell me what human right you are being denied.
how about the right to be treated equally by their government. my personal belief is that government shouldn't let anyone marry, they should do non-religious civil unions for anyone. Marriage is a church thing, but as long as the government handles marriage, then anyone should be able to marry.
for me the question falls to "Do you believe two gay people can be in love?" If you believe they can, then you should have no problem with gay marriage. If you don't believe gay people can really love, then you're a biggot.
Quote: Animalman said: Marriage(at least, marriage in the western world) today is not the same as it was hundreds of years ago. It's not even the same as it was a few decades ago. It's been redefined and adjusted to fit the standards of an evolving society time and time again.
That all depends on what perspective you're viewing it from. Are you describing it as a government institution or a particular tradition?
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: Because the government is essentially saying, by your own statement, "you do what you want, but you don't have the same rights." Like being separate but equal.
Gay people want to be considered part of society, not a sub group.
That's so stupid. That's even more stupid than "stupid" can be described as "stupid". Homosexuals have the legal ability to marry whatever male or female they choose as long as the sex they choose is opposite of theirs. That alone disproves your fallacious context of describing how "rights" are involved in the marriage arrangement.
Marriage has nothing to do with rights and everything to do with more efficiently organizing the population and its growth. The simple truth is that the institution of marriage actually works through the binding agreement of a male and female and not m/m or f/f.
Quote: how would gay marriage effect you? your wife? your marriage? your children?
Gay marriage would unecessarily cause higher tax increase. That affects everyone dumbass. Assigning tax cuts for straight couples at least has pay off through the potential and/or definite production of offspring for whom that money could be used for. Because homosexuals don't have the obstacle of unexpected pregnancy, they have all the time in the world to save up and adopt or artificially inseminate themselves. They're never gonna be caught unawares like straights.
Quote: I would figure gay sex would be the big button pusher. but since they can do that, they can live together, how does gay marriage effect YOU. What it does is allow two people to feel like they're part of society, not shunned.
Don't people have the right to feel accepted?
And to deny strangers the right to do something that will harm no one out of some sense of pride or baseless predjudice makes you a biggot.
That was beautiful r3x. Do you take lessons from Jesse Jackson? Beardguy maybe?
Quote: for me the question falls to "Do you believe two gay people can be in love?" If you believe they can, then you should have no problem with gay marriage. If you don't believe gay people can really love, then you're a biggot.
The institution of marriage has absolutely nothing to do with love. You're confusing legal contracts with traditions.
That's so stupid. That's even more stupid than "stupid" can be described as "stupid". Homosexuals have the legal ability to marry whatever male or female they choose as long as the sex they choose is opposite of theirs. That alone disproves your fallacious context of describing how "rights" are involved in the marriage arrangement.
Which is like saying you can order anything off the menu as long as its chicken noodle soup.
Quote: Marriage has nothing to do with rights and everything to do with more efficiently organizing the population and its growth.
1. infertile men and women marry all the time. 2. if population growth is your aim then multiple partners, as shown in the bible, is the best way to go.
Quote: The simple truth is that the institution of marriage actually works through the binding agreement of a male and female and not m/m or f/f.
and you can show me statistics on a generation of gay married couples held up against straight couples?
Quote: Gay marriage would unecessarily cause higher tax increase.
????
Quote: That affects everyone dumbass. Assigning tax cuts for straight couples at least has pay off through the potential and/or definite production of offspring for whom that money could be used for. Because homosexuals don't have the obstacle of unexpected pregnancy, they have all the time in the world to save up and adopt or artificially inseminate themselves. They're never gonna be caught unawares like straights.
i think that's the dumbest point ever. blind people are more likely to get hit by a car than a sigthed person, should they be the only ones allowed to have medical insurance?
Quote:
That was beautiful r3x. Do you take lessons from Jesse Jackson? Beardguy maybe?
so you avoid the actual point and make a personal attack?
Quote:
The institution of marriage has absolutely nothing to do with love. You're confusing legal contracts with traditions.
tradition isn't always a good thing. Long tradition of women not being allowed to vote, of cheating spouses being stoned, of witch trials and iquisitions, of slavery, racism, sexism, crime, war, poverty, etc. If you want to deny someone a chance to be happy in life based on some potential, and baseless, tax reason then I will have to again point out that you are a pathetic human being.
WBAM, this applies to your response to my post, too. I say this calmly because I know I get VERY emotional where gay...and human rights are concerned. You two have not walked in my shoes and been treated like shit just for being who you are. I don't want pity. I want to be accepted as I am, not as a sinner. As a human being.
First off, you haven't walked in my shoes either, so teh shoes argument is weak. You have no idea where I've been, what I've experienced, so don;t try to trump my personal experience with yours. If personal experience won the day then I could probobly make moot anything you say, but that's not how I roll, but to say you seem to have as much hate in you as those you despise.
Second, marraige isn't a human right, there are many restrictions on marraige today. To argue that it's a human right is to argue against every restriction. No one is preventing you from doing what you want to do, live whith whome you choose, love who you want to love or have sex whith whoever you wish what they are preventing you from doing is redefining an ancient tradition. Even then they aren't preventing you from doing it, they're just forcing you to do it through legislation rather than through the courts.
As far as not wanting to be considered a sinner..... we're all sinners.
I will summarize my thoughts into two words:
Human Rights.
Fine then.. you have human rights. So what's left to talk about?
Seriously, you totally ignore my argument and try instead of making any form of cojent argument yourself rely on a cheeky platitude, well, I hate to break it to you, but government endorsement isn;t a human right. The government allready lets you live your life as you see fit, you can have sex with whoever you want, be contractually obligated to that person if you see fit, you can have a religious cerimony. in essence you can do anything a married couple can do, government just won't endorse it, how is that a denial of human rights? Marraige has alwayse been about bringing together the two uniquily seperate elements of humanity, you want that redefined and the fact that society doesn;t unquestionably capitulate and deny the unique differences of men and women to join in a union that ideally produces offsping you think that's a denial of some unspecified human right and you attemt to silence any opposition by labeling them biggots. You're wholy unwilling to even consider a position that doesn;t offer you complete affermation.
Just for the sake of pretending you acctually read anything I said, let me ask you to back up your two word summary, please tell me what human right you are being denied.
WBAM, I read your post. This is about the rights of gays and lesbians to marry and have the same legal rights as heterosexuals...For example : My partner of 17 years died intestate...without a will..he was going to have a new one written up, but died in a farm accident before he could do so.
His family came and to summarize that story up: They were EVIL to me. No details of that, just use your imagination.
YES - there ought to have been a will....but there was none.
Had George and I been able to legally marry, I would have had rights as his spouse that not even his family could have denied me.
When this sort of thing happens to heterosexuals, the wife or husband has legal rights as the surviving spouse.
I had no legal rights to anything when George died.
They were his family. It does not matter that he did not like or trust them. They were blood.
Without that right to marry, I was just the asshole that had lived with George for over 17 years.
I am just as human as you, and the next person. Don't I deserve the best that life has to offer, as you do and everyone else does?
It boils down to that, minus the rhetoric, without mentioning the Bible or quoting it or anything or anyone else.
No one is preventing you from doing what you want to do, live whith whome you choose, love who you want to love or have sex whith whoever you wish what they are preventing you from doing is redefining an ancient tradition.
Marriage(at least, marriage in the western world) today is not the same as it was hundreds of years ago. It's not even the same as it was a few decades ago. It's been redefined and adjusted to fit the standards of an evolving society time and time again.
What is different now?
I think you're right-on the money Animalman. Marriage has evolved tremendously over time. Sealing a family alliance used to be the main purpose. Romantic love was hardly a consideration.
I think Hillary is trying to defuse the issue by dropping the 'M' word. Change the name to civil union and 2/3rds of the public favour it. No one has ever accused Hillary of being less than shrewed. Eight years of Republican administration has been a disaster and I'm sure that's what she wants to talk about.
WBAM - Come talk to me when you've walked a mile in 4" stiletos.
Pariah - Is there a test for Mad Cow disease? You should get one.
Quote: Pariah said: That all depends on what perspective you're viewing it from. Are you describing it as a government institution or a particular tradition?
Both would fit my description, but if you're asking me how I view marriage, then the answer is definitely a government institution. I think it's fine that the religiously-inclined place a great deal of importance and ritualization in it, but the fact of the matter is: today, marriage is a legal contract. This is the age of prenuptial agreements(which, once upon a time, was also an unpopular idea because it "violated the sanctity of marriage"), divorce settlements and custodial battles. As I've said before, not everyone gets married in a church, temple, mosque, etc.
Really, to paint marriage now as a Judeo-Christian practice the way so many have is borderline offensive. If you view marriage as sacred...well, that's your prerogative, but I don't agree. Marriage is a law, and no law should be sacrosanct. Bar none, the thing I like most about this country is that we live in a society that constantly questions itself and its ideas so as to create the best possible environment for its people. That we are currently at war with a theocracy only further drives that point home for me.
Getting back on point...if you want to retain your own ideas and traditions when it comes to your marriage, that's OK by me. You just shouldn't have the right to expect everyone else to follow the same traditions. If your church thinks homosexuals shouldn't marry...don't marry them in your church. What is written in the Bible shouldn't extend to the courthouse.
Quote: magicjay38 said: WBAM - Come talk to me when you've walked a mile in 4" stiletos.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: Which is like saying you can order anything off the menu as long as its chicken noodle soup.
Uh huh, and anyone can order off that "Chicken Soup Only" menu. Homosexuals and straights alike.
Quote: 1. infertile men and women marry all the time.
There's no way to police that. That's a legal finagle moreso than a flaw. You can't measure the success of how something works based on an uncharacteristic breakdown. Men and women naturally have the ability to procreate and so we operate on that average. Just because there's sterile individuals out there, that doesn't mean we should abandon the fact that our bodies normally work a certain way that's more convenient for our system.
Furthermore, while the taxcuts work immediately for the couple, the pre-child cuts aren't very comparable to the ones recieved after you have a kid--Which is what I meant by "potential and/or definite".
Quote: 2. if population growth is your aim then multiple partners, as shown in the bible, is the best way to go.
This has nothing to do with population growth all on its own. It's about making sure the growth is socially stable.
Also, the Bible doesn't say anywhere that it condones multiple marriages dumbass. Just because you see stories with people who have mutliple wives, that doesn't mean it was okay.
Quote: and you can show me statistics on a generation of gay married couples held up against straight couples?
I don't need to because, once again, homosexual couples aren't going to have any unexpected pregnancies. Straights, however, are.
Quote: ????
Gay marriage would unecessarily cause higher tax increase.
Quote: i think that's the dumbest point ever. blind people are more likely to get hit by a car than a sigthed person, should they be the only ones allowed to have medical insurance?
What the hell are you going on about? I just explained to you that homosexuals won't have unexpected pregnancy and you rant about blind people and cars. There is no "likelihood" involved in the gay reproduction matter, because the only way to reproduce is with a male and female or with a female and some purchased spermine. You're scenario is in no way analogous with situation of homosexuals.
Quote: so you avoid the actual point and make a personal attack?
I already addressed your "point" previously. I was just pointing out your repetition through ad hominem.
Quote: tradition isn't always a good thing.
Holy crap, you are so stupid. I'm the one talking about legal contracts. You're the one who's talking about tradition.
Quote: Long tradition of women not being allowed to vote, of cheating spouses being stoned, of witch trials and iquisitions, of slavery, racism, sexism, crime, war, poverty, etc.
Wow, you really have a skewed definition of the word "tradition".
Quote: If you want to deny someone a chance to be happy in life based on some potential, and baseless, tax reason then I will have to again point out that you are a pathetic human being.
They can get married. Just not with taxcuts.
Quote: Animalman said: Both would fit my description, but if you're asking me how I view marriage, then the answer is definitely a government institution. I think it's fine that the religiously-inclined place a great deal of importance and ritualization in it, but the fact of the matter is: today, marriage is a legal contract.
That's pretty much the point I've been trying to make here. Posters like r3x have been spending so much time ranting about how marriage isn't a religious tradition anymore that he hasn't taken into mind the fact that I've been talking about marriage as a government institution. Marriage hasn't technically changed over the years so much as its just started associating itself with government. One can still get married without legal obligations, but its current relation to government is exactly what I'm trying to cover.
The lesbian couple whose landmark lawsuit helped Massachusetts become the only state in America where same-sex couples can marry legally have split up, a spokeswoman said on Friday.
Julie and Hillary Goodridge and six other gay and lesbian couples sued Massachusetts for the right to marry and won when the state's highest court ruled narrowly for them in 2003.
Their suit helped spark a nationwide debate on gay marriage.
In November 2003, Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, of the [Massaschusetts] State Judicial Court, gave the Masachussetts [state] legislature 6 months to enact a law granting homosexuals the right to marry.
In July [2004] the U.S. Supreme Court had prepared the ground for [Chief State Justice] Marshall's decision, when it struck down the laws of seventeen states and declared homosexual sodomy to be a constitutionally protected right.
Following that Lawrence decision, Justice Antonin Scalia fairly exploded:
Quote: ...state laws against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, adultery, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity [are now] called into question...
The court has largely signed onto the homosexual agenda...
The court has taken sides in the culture war.
Indeed, it had.
Nevertheless, on May 17, 2004, [Massachusetts] Governor Mitt Romney bowed to the order of the court, and began handing out the marriage licenses, though he and the state legislature believed that nothing in the constitution of the commonwealth mandated gay marriages.
Few better examples exist of how unelected judges have usurped the law-making power, and how unelected individuals have abdicated.
When did this revolution begin?
Sixty years to the day before Romney's surrender, May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 9-0 decision, in Brown vs. the Board of Education.
In the name of equal rights, the Warren Court had effected an historic coup d'etat. It had usurped power over state schools never granted to courts, either in federal law, or in the Constitution.
That the 14th amendment did not outlaw segregation was obvious. That amendment was approved by a Congress that presided over the segregated schools of Washington D.C.
But the Warren Court, fed up with the [lethargic slow pace of] the democratic process, decided to desegregate America -- by court order.
The coup succeeded.
Though Eisenhower was stunned by [the court's Brown vs. Board] decision, he and the Republican Congress accepted the court ruling as federal law, to be enforced by federal troops, as it would be at Central High School in Little Rock in 1957.
And because we agreed with the goal --an end to segregation-- we accepted, without questioning the implications, the means adopted: judicial dictate.
Having written its views of segregation into the Constitution and imposed its will on the nation, a confident Warren Court now began to impose a social, cultural and moral revolution on America.
Under this secularist and egalitarian revolution, America's schools were as de-Christianized as the Soviet Union. Voluntary prayer and Bible readings were abolished. All replicas of the Ten Commandments were removed. Easter pageants and Christmas carols were forbidden. Teachers were ordered to stop wearing crosses and cricifixes to class.
This remoreseless campaign to de-Christianize public life of the nation was only the beginning.
In the half-century after Brown, the Supreme Court and its subordinate courts:
Declared pornography and dancing in beer halls to be constitutionally protected freedom of expression.
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Created new rights for criminals.
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Inposed broad new restrictions on state and local prosecutors.
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Outlawed the death penalty across America for a generation.
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Declared abortion a Constitutional right, and ruled that states cannot protect babies from a grisly procedure that involves stabbing the child in the head with scissors when halfway out of the womb. [a k a, partial-birth abortions]
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Order both houses of all state legislatures reapportioned on the basis of population alone.
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Ordered VMI and the Citadel to end their 150-year old all-male cadet corps traditions, and to stop saying grace before meals.
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Abolished term limits on members of Congress, enacted in popular referenda.
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Forbade Arizona to make English the official language for state business.
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Ordered California --60 percent of whose people had voted to end welfare to illegal aliens-- to restore welfare benefits to all illegals.
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Approved of discrimination against white students to advance the "compelling state interest" of "diversity" in colleges.
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Declared homosexual sodomy a constitutional right.
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Declared that the First Amendment protects the right of adults to burn the American flag --but prohibits school children from reciting the Pledge of Allegience to that flag.
In each case, courts overthrew laws supported by majorities, to replace them with policies demanded by minorities.
"The Judiciary, led by the Supreme Court, is in the vanguard of the elite imposing non-majority values and policies on the country", write legal scholars William Quirk and R. Randall Bridwell, in Judicial Dictatorship.
"They are, as Jefferson said, the 'miners and sappers' of Democracy"
Today, America meekly awaits the Supreme Court's judgement on whether all 50 states must legalize gay marriage. Were [King] George III to return to life, he would erupt with laughter at what a flock of sheep the descendents of the American rebels have become.
No Congress, no president, could have survived the issuance of such radical dictates. Yet the Supreme Court has prospered to become the first branch of government. Why do we submit?
"Here, sir, the people rule!" was the proud boast of 19th-century Americans.
But the people no longer rule in America.
Though our society is democratic, our government is not. Like ancient Israel, the republic has fallen under the rule of judges. How serious is our situation?
Robert Bork answers:
Quote: It is extremely serious... the court is steadily shrinking the area of self-government without any legitimate authority to do so, in the Constitution or elsewhere.
In the process it is revising the moral and cultural life of the nation. The constitutional law it is producing might as well be written by the ACLU.
How did it happen that a republic born of a rebellion against a king and parliament we did not elect has fallen under the tyranny of judges we did not elect? How did we come to live under what Jefferson warned us would be "the despotism of an oligarchy" ?
The latest gay rights rulings by the court are just yet another nail in the coffin of our democratic representative government.
These rulings are illegitimate without a House and Senate vote, or a national referendum.
Short of that, it's just tyranny of a elitist minority over the unrepresented majority.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: wow, when you slant history, you really slant it. the "coup" the "revolution" and "grisly baby murder."
That's a rather dismissive reply, Ray, that bypasses Buchanan's point:
That the U.S. Supreme Court and lower courts have usurped the authority of state and federal legislatures, and have passed into law many absurdities that bypass the will of a vast majority of Americans.
And I might add, on issues of illegal immigration, national defense, and ignoring the institutions this nation was founded on, and politically-correct/ultra-liberal rulings based on abstractions of convoluted principle, that obstruct common-sense laws of self-preservation (such as containing illegal immigration, and not giving illegals free health care), endanger our very existence.
School prayer, for example, removed from schools in two supreme court rulings in 1962-1963.
Polls at the time show 97% of Americans approved of prayer and the Bible in schools.
Only 3% wanted it excluded.
That demonstrates very clearly the absurdity, that 3% should determine repression of the other 97%.
I'm not the first to call it a "revolution". Conservatives and Hippies/leftists alike have called it a cultural revolution for 40 years.
"Grisly procedure" is not an innacurate description of the partial birth abortion act of stabbing a fully grown fetus in the head and then sucking its brains out with a surgical vaccuum machine, to make its skull collapse, to move its corpse out of the mother's womb.
I suppose you would call this a merciful and humanitarian procedure?
All this is done to prevent a perfectly healthy and fully formed baby from drawing air for a few seconds and legally being defined as a baby, a human being. While it is a human being regardless of legalistic semantics, not allowing it to leave the womb alive allows it to technically avoid being defined as a human being.
And thus technically avoid being legally termed the act of murder that it truly is.
It amazes me how liberals can bemoan the need for humanitarian compassion, and can rail on conservatives for not wanting to spend more to fight AIDS and other diseases, can at the very same time so freely rationalize such a brutal and cold-blooded mockery of surgical procedure.
The courts provide us some checks & balances. (not a popular concept these days apparently) There was a reason they're more insulated from the electorate. In the long run it protects us from the tyrany that Buchanan is railing against.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: The courts provide us some checks & balances. (not a popular concept these days apparently) There was a reason they're more insulated from the electorate. In the long run it protects us from the tyrany that Buchanan is railing against.
But then who provides checks and balances for the courts?
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: The courts provide us some checks & balances. (not a popular concept these days apparently) There was a reason they're more insulated from the electorate. In the long run it protects us from the tyrany that Buchanan is railing against.
But then who provides checks and balances for the courts?
the legislative branch through laws. courts simply interpret the laws and make decisions based upon that. so gay marriage is ruled on based on the rights laid out in the constitution, then laws may be passed to ban or permit certain things which may be challenged in court to see if they contradict constitutional rights. so ultimately the argument here is not "activist judges" but whether gay marriage is covered by rights of freedom and anti-discrimination laws. or whether those laws cover only specific forms of discrimination, not general forms of discrimination.
Quote: so ultimately the argument here is not "activist judges" but whether gay marriage is covered by rights of freedom and anti-discrimination laws. or whether those laws cover only specific forms of discrimination, not general forms of discrimination.
The argument is about activist judges if the courts take action not specifically spelled out in the constitution.
For the record there is no blanket "anti-discrimination" clause in the constitution. Anti discrimination laws do only cover specific forms of discrimination. Here's an example you can go out and observe today if you'd like. It is illegal to have seperate bathrooms for whites and blacks however it it completely legal to discriminate between men and women and have seperate bathrooms for them. Before you right this off there are activists in teh transgender populace who do believe this is an unfair discrimination and seek to change it, but regardless of your feelings about seperate men's and women's bathrooms it is discrimination and it is legal.
Quote: ShowbizData The gay-oriented Houston Voice has "outed" CNN's Anderson Cooper and Fox News Channel's Shepard Smith, charging that they "choose to hide and deceive -- and to protect their incomes and images -- at the expense of contributing important weight and star power to the gay civil rights movement." Managing Editor Kevin Naff claims in an editorial appearing in the current edition of the Voice that Smith once tried to pick him up in a gay piano bar in New York City and that Cooper dodged a question about his sexual orientation in a recent New York magazine interview by saying, ""The whole thing about being a reporter is that you're supposed to be an observer and to be able to adapt with any group you're in ... and I don't want to do anything that threatens that." Commented Naff: "Does he believe that female and African-American reporters lack credibility to cover stories since their minority status is showing?"
Are those homosexuals who, by trade, read minds in general, or rather, mind-readers of unspecified sexual orienatation whose particular area of expertise is in reading the minds of homosexuals?
Looks like it's not only The Netherlands that's headed down the slippery slope to polygamy. A new study for Canada's federal justice department has just recommended that Canada legalize polygamy.
This would involve not only the abolition of anti-polygamy laws, but also the regulation of polygamy. That is, it is recommended that the law provide "clearer spousal support and inheritance rights" to polygamous families. Obviously, that would be a major step toward eventual full recognition of polygamous marriages.
The study in question was authored by a professor at Queens University named Martha Bailey. Bailey was a key author of "Beyond Conjugality," the report of the Law Commission of Canada I discussed in "Beyond Gay Marriage."
"Beyond Conjugality" directly suggested moving to a partnership system that would put multi-partner unions on a par with marriage.
The funny thing about this news story is that it refers to a second report that scoffs at the idea of a slippery slope from same-sex marriage to polygamy. Polygamy, this second report says, undermines equality for women. Yet the first report clearly contradicts this view. It says that polygamy per se is not the problem, and that abuses within polygamous marriage can be dealt with by other sorts of laws. And again, if the proposal is to tailor new laws of spousal support and inheritance rights to polygamous families, can calls for formal recognition be far behind?
Right now Canada's conservatives are on track to unseat the liberal government. If so, don't expect to see these reforms enacted into law right away. But the direction Canada's liberals want to move in is clear.
You might recall conservatives fretting that a recognition of gay marriage could soon lead to legalizing polygamy and incest. Those concerns were typically scoffed at by liberals.
The American Spectator reports that a group of "sexual pioneers" and gay rights advocates have released a statement admitting they want to move beyond homosexual marriage rights into what appears to be polygamy:
Released last month, the statement specifically endorses "committed, loving households in which there is more than one conjugal partner," among many other sexual alternatives.
****
In their statement, they advocate a "new vision for securing governmental and private institutional recognition of diverse kinds of partnerships, households, kinship relationships and families." This new vision, they hope, will move the nation "beyond the narrow confines of marriage politics" as they exist today. Naturally, they want a "flexible set of economic benefits," regardless of the nature of the association, "conjugal" or otherwise.
By focusing extensively on "economic benefits" and "social justice" in their statement, these advocates appear to be saying that their primary goal is not just sexual equality, but yet-another attempt at traditional socialism:
... their larger drive for social justice [attacks] "corporate greed, draconian tax cuts and breaks for the wealthy, and the increasing shift of public funds from human needs into militarism, policing, and prison construction."
****
The "push to privatize Social Security and many other human needs benefits" also is "at the center of this attack," the statement asserts.
This admission, assuming the public hears about it, could prove to be a roadblock to the gay rights movement.
Many of the movement's gains have been made by appealing to "libertarian" streaks in the conservative movement, republicans and independents who may not agree with homosexuality but who try to avoid government intrusion into personal lives.
Socialism and wealth redistribution, however, are direct intrusions into our lives, and reveal a certain hypocrisy in the gay rights movement.
By advocating for these intrusions now, when many Americans are still undecided about the gay rights issues, the movement may have overreached and may find themselves coming up short.
Wasn't polygamy legal when we had are strongest anti-gay laws? This linkage smacks more of politics & less about actual right or wrong. The article G-man presents is about a small group (about 20 according to the article) Such a small group isn't representative. Imagine if I had an article about 20 people who happened to be Republican & then tried to pass it off as something more than just 20 wacky Republicans?
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: ...his gay marriage bills ... shows bush as a man who is willing to piss on the founding fathers...
Which founding father was in favor of gay marriage?
Quote: what i said: ast i read the wiretapping was found to be illegal. and as pointed out above habeas corpus is part of the foundation of american justice. this along with his gay marriage bills and signing statements shows bush as a man who is willing to piss on the founding fathers and america's very essence.
you cut my quotes apart to make a joke but the fact is the gay marriage amendment is writing a ban on a right and a form of discrimination into the constitution. this pisses on the essence of the constitution's foundings. and the signing statements go against the founding father's intent of balance in the government. so you can cut up what i say to prove a non-existent point because you have no solid grounding other than being an asshole.
You can't make arguments that assumes "facts" or principles of law that don't actually exist.
You want to argue that public policy favors gay marriage, that's fine. I think there are many legitimate arguments to be made in that vein.
But the only way your argument about "the founding fathers" works is if you assume the founders intended there to be a right to gay marriage in the Constitution.
The Constitution is a law.
It is a basic principle of legal analysis that you should consider the intent of the drafters of a law when you need to figure out what the law means or what it covers.
At the time the constitution was drafted, there is no evidence whatsoever that the drafters intended it to be a protection of the right to gay marriage.
In fact, when you consider American society in the late 1700s, it is highly unlikely that the founders would have considered the constitution to protect any right to homosexual conduct.
Again, this does not mean that people can't reasonably disagree about whether or not gay marriage should be legalized. It does, however, indicate that there's no evidence that opposing it is "pissing" on the Constitution.
Quote: the G-man said: You can't make arguments that assumes "facts" or principles of law that don't actually exist.
You want to argue that public policy favors gay marriage, that's fine. I think there are many legitimate arguments to be made in that vein.
But the only way your argument about "the founding fathers" works is if you assume the founders intended there to be a right to gay marriage in the Constitution.
The Constitution is a law.
It is a basic principle of legal analysis that you should consider the intent of the drafters of a law when you need to figure out what the law means or what it covers.
At the time the constitution was drafted, there is no evidence whatsoever that the drafters intended it to be a protection of the right to gay marriage.
You completely misinterperate every post you read, it seems like.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: the gay marriage amendment is writing a ban on a right and a form of discrimination into the constitution. this pisses on the essence of the constitution's foundings.
The founding of the constitution establishes rights and freedom from discrimination/oppression. While the FF ment mostly only white, land-owning males, as history progresses the ideals of our constitution have encompassed all humans, ergo making a form of oppression part of America pisses on the [living] constitution.
Quote: Uschi said
The founding of the constitution establishes rights and freedom from discrimination/oppression. While the FF ment mostly only white, land-owning males, as history progresses the ideals of our constitution have encompassed all humans, ergo making a form of oppression part of America pisses on the [living] constitution.
But that's not the point.
If you want to argue that the constitution is an "evolving document", that's one thing. I disagree. But at least that argument involves eschewing the original intent of the founders in favor of perceived public policy.
However, if you invoke the founding fathers you are, by necessity, invoking THEIR original intent.
There's is nothing in history to indicate that supporting gay marriage was part of their original intent.
In fact, its more likely that the framers intended marriage to be a something that each state was wholly empowered to regulate as it saw fit.
Even today, in order to get married, you need a license.
The issuance of a state sponsored license tends to indicate that there is no right to marriage. You can't really license a right. Furthermore, the process of licensing, or regulation, by its very nature, involves some form of discrimination, in the sense that involves withholding the license from some, while granting it to others.
As I said, there are legitimate reasons to support gay marriage. But the U.S. constitution is actually one of the weaker ones.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: As a supporter of gay marriage, I nonetheless have to say, based on reading G-Man's post, that I side with him.
Thanks Jim.
This thread is long, but if Uschi (or Ray) were to read the entirety of it, they would see that, I actually have supported legislatively enacted gay marriage, just not judically enacted gay marriage.
My opposition is not to gay marriage, just to bad legal analysis.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: the gay marriage amendment is writing a ban on a right and a form of discrimination into the constitution. this pisses on the essence of the constitution's foundings.
pisses on the ESSENCE of the constitution's foundings
Quote:
es‧sence  /ˈɛsəns/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[es-uhns] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun 1. the basic, real, and invariable nature of a thing or its significant individual feature or features: Freedom is the very essence of our democracy. 2. a substance obtained from a plant, drug, or the like, by distillation, infusion, etc., and containing its characteristic properties in concentrated form. 3. an alcoholic solution of an essential oil; spirit. 4. a perfume; scent. 5. Philosophy. the inward nature, true substance, or constitution of anything, as opposed to what is accidental, phenomenal, illusory, etc. 6. something that exists, esp. a spiritual or immaterial entity. —Idioms 7. in essence, essentially; at bottom, often despite appearances: For all his bluster, he is in essence a shy person. 8. of the essence, absolutely essential; critical; crucial: In chess, cool nerves are of the essence.
i.e. understood as pissing on the base ideals contained in the [living] constitution, those facets which are immutable dispite the passage of time (and to be fair, these last two centuries have had a lot happen in the way of looking at things). pissing on the ESSENCE is not "pissing on the FF INTENT" as you seem to be reading.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: you cut my quotes apart to make a joke but the fact is the gay marriage amendment is writing a ban on a right and a form of discrimination into the constitution. this pisses on the essence of the constitution's foundings.
and the signing statements go against the founding father's intent of balance in the government.
so you can cut up what i say to prove a non-existent point because you have no solid grounding other than being an asshole.
The Gay Marriage issue has nothing to do with "political balance" and everything to do with social effectiveness. You know this because I hammered it into your skull only pages prior to the current line of palavor. However, it seems you're unable to survive more than three posts within these types of arguments without a whole bunch of ad hominem pot-shots that have nothing to do with anything. Your attempt at trying to use the Founding Fathers as a mouth piece is further proof of your idiocy. Gays aren't being "discriminated against," marriage simply does not work for its ratio. It was designed for straight couples; It's not some sort of private club. If you knew anything about the way it worked, you'd realize that it's a way for the government to insure a healthy population that grows steadily rather than extraneously.
Quote: Matt Kennedy said: You're pathetic, Davey. You are a fucking joke. You remind me so much of the "street preachers" I used to see on Market Street in San Francisco that would stand on the sidewalks delivering their "message" to the masses--- wild-eyed and obviously just bugshit crazy to the bone--- while reeking of urine and shit.
Those poor misguided bastards couldn't really help themselves. I think you're capable of doing better--- you just won't.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: the gay marriage amendment is writing a ban on a right and a form of discrimination into the constitution. this pisses on the essence of the constitution's foundings.
pisses on the ESSENCE of the constitution's foundings
Quote:
es‧sence  /ˈɛsəns/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[es-uhns] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation –noun 1. the basic, real, and invariable nature of a thing or its significant individual feature or features: Freedom is the very essence of our democracy. 2. a substance obtained from a plant, drug, or the like, by distillation, infusion, etc., and containing its characteristic properties in concentrated form. 3. an alcoholic solution of an essential oil; spirit. 4. a perfume; scent. 5. Philosophy. the inward nature, true substance, or constitution of anything, as opposed to what is accidental, phenomenal, illusory, etc. 6. something that exists, esp. a spiritual or immaterial entity. —Idioms 7. in essence, essentially; at bottom, often despite appearances: For all his bluster, he is in essence a shy person. 8. of the essence, absolutely essential; critical; crucial: In chess, cool nerves are of the essence.
i.e. understood as pissing on the base ideals contained in the [living] constitution, those facets which are immutable dispite the passage of time (and to be fair, these last two centuries have had a lot happen in the way of looking at things). pissing on the ESSENCE is not "pissing on the FF INTENT" as you seem to be reading.
jesus christ maybe i used the wrong word. the point is that constitutional ammendments are historically for adding rights. this is the first, to my knowledge, to specifically deny something to one group of people. the constitution has the great mechanism of allowing for change, of adding rights that were not considered at the time of its writing. such as the rights of women and the ban on slavery.
Quote: the point is that constitutional ammendments are historically for adding rights. this is the first, to my knowledge, to specifically deny something to one group of people.
Not true.
The 22d Amendment specifically denies someone the right to serve as President for more than two terms.
The 18th Amendment denied people the right to "manufacture, sale, or transport... intoxicating liquors."
I suppose one could also argue that the Sixteenth Amendment, which allows the government to impose the income tax, also denies us the right to our own money.
" IMO, there is NOTHING in the constitution about gay rights. However,"Beardguy continued.
"It does violate the policy that the USA has had for many decades now of protecting human rights in other countries. Perhaps it is time for this country to start protecting it's own."
Beardguy felt satisfied with what he'd typed and posted his message.
Quote: the G-man said: The 22d Amendment specifically denies someone the right to serve as President for more than two terms.
to one specific subsection of society?
Quote: The 18th Amendment denied people the right to "manufacture, sale, or transport... intoxicating liquors."
to one specific subsection of society?
Quote: The Eleventh Amendment limits the rights of people to sue states.
to one specific group of people?
Quote: I suppose one could also argue that the Sixteenth Amendment, which allows the government to impose the income tax, also denies us the right to our own money.
to one specific subsection of society?
the point, that everyone seems to miss, is my point is that the bush amendment is the first one to target one group of people and limit their rights.
doesn't matter what the founding fathers thought of gay rights, they probably hated gays, but they left the constitution and the government set up to allow change and evolution of society. writing this amendment is a big step backwards because it is, by definition, discrimination.
Quote: the G-man said: The 22d Amendment specifically denies someone the right to serve as President for more than two terms.
to one specific subsection of society?
Quote: The 18th Amendment denied people the right to "manufacture, sale, or transport... intoxicating liquors."
to one specific subsection of society?
Quote: The Eleventh Amendment limits the rights of people to sue states.
to one specific group of people?
Quote: I suppose one could also argue that the Sixteenth Amendment, which allows the government to impose the income tax, also denies us the right to our own money.
to one specific subsection of society?
the point, that everyone seems to miss, is my point is that the bush amendment is the first one to target one group of people and limit their rights.
doesn't matter what the founding fathers thought of gay rights, they probably hated gays, but they left the constitution and the government set up to allow change and evolution of society. writing this amendment is a big step backwards because it is, by definition, discrimination.
Quote: Pariah said:
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: you cut my quotes apart to make a joke but the fact is the gay marriage amendment is writing a ban on a right and a form of discrimination into the constitution. this pisses on the essence of the constitution's foundings.
and the signing statements go against the founding father's intent of balance in the government.
so you can cut up what i say to prove a non-existent point because you have no solid grounding other than being an asshole.
The Gay Marriage issue has nothing to do with "political balance" and everything to do with social effectiveness. You know this because I hammered it into your skull only pages prior to the current line of palavor. However, it seems you're unable to survive more than three posts within these types of arguments without a whole bunch of ad hominem pot-shots that have nothing to do with anything. Your attempt at trying to use the Founding Fathers as a mouth piece is further proof of your idiocy. Gays aren't being "discriminated against," marriage simply does not work for its ratio. It was designed for straight couples; It's not some sort of private club. If you knew anything about the way it worked, you'd realize that it's a way for the government to insure a healthy population that grows steadily rather than extraneously.
Marriage is not a right. It is a government contract by which the state can invest in the population's potential to thrive as much as possible.
At about 3:00 PM Eastern Time, the Supreme Court of New Jersey will be issuing a ruling in Lewis v. Harris, in which seven gay couples have sued the state, demanding marriage certificates.
Judging by the oral argument from February, which you can watch online, the plaintiffs have a very good chance of prevailing. Two of the seven justices asked no questions; if I'm reading between the lines of the others' questions correctly, the state can count on only one vote while the plaintiffs have two for certain and another two that seemed to be leaning in their direction.
New Jersey has a reputation for activist jurisprudence, which isn't surprising given that the state's constitution opens with a sweeping declaration of vaguely enumerated rights.
Given that, the case for gay marriage by judicial fiat isn't really such a stretch in light of declared "natural and unalienable rights, among which are those of ... pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness."
This could have profound implications, both politically and legally. Stay tuned.
We have two issues on Nov's ballot regarding this. One that would add a state distinction that "marriage is between one man and one woman" so that federal rulings have less impact. The other is for establishing a legal designation of "domestic partnerships" (or [southpark]"butt-buddies"[/southpark]) so single-sexed couples can have legal partnership rights and influence on their partner's health and post-mortem decisions. For the record I'm voting "No" and "Yes" respectively.
Here's the ruling in Lewis v. Harris, as paraphrased in the Clerk's syllabus:
Denying committed same-sex couples the financial and social benefits and privileges given to their married heterosexual counterparts bears no substantial relationship to a legitimate governmental purpose. The Court holds that under the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1 of the New Jersey Constitution, committed samesex couples must be afforded on equal terms the same rights and benefits enjoyed by opposite-sex couples under the civil marriage statutes. The name to be given to the statutory scheme that provides full rights and benefits to samesex couples, whether marriage or some other term, is a matter left to the democratic process.
In other words, gay couples in New Jersey are entitled to more recognition than they now get under New Jersey's Domestic Partnership Act, indeed to every right that comes with straight marriage-- but the state is not compelled to refer to gay unions as "marriage.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: Gay Couple Refuses To Pay Taxes Until Australia Recognizes Same-Sex Marriage by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
October 30, 2006 - 9:00 pm ET
(Sydney, Australia) A Sydney same-sex couple is refusing to file tax returns until the government allows them to submit a joint return as a married couple.
Australian Marriage Equality said the couple was legally married overseas and in past years had been allowed to file jointly but this year the Australian Tax Office changed its form, asking the sex of of spouses.
After submitting their return on line it was rejected. When they complained the men received a letter from the ATO saying that under the Income Tax Assessment Act of 1997 their marriage could not be recognized and that they were not entitled to name each other as spouse on their returns.
Australian Marriage Equality did not name the couple. Spokesperson Sharon Dane said the ATO decision was discriminatory.
"Same-sex couples should receive the same treatment as opposite-sex couples", she said.
The Tax Office says it is only following the law.
In 2004 the federal government passed a law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Earlier this year the Australian Capital Territory passed legislation giving same-sex couples most of the rights of marriage (story) but the bill was overturned by the federal government.
That action prompted the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to begin an investigation into inequities faced by same-sex couples. The commission has been holding hearings across the country.
Earlier this month at a stop in Brisbane the mother of a gay man told commissioners the government is imposing an apartheid-type situation on gay and lesbian couples. (story)
"The Federal Government is really persecuting the gays for something they can't help," Shelley Argent said. "It's like the South Africans. They persecuted the blacks for something they couldn't help."
Meanwhile the ACT government has announced plans to reintroduce a modified version of laws allowing for civil partnerships.
Public opinion has been slowly shifting in favor of recognizing same-sex relationships and Prime Minister John Howard now has suggested his government may look at ways of granting limited recognition to same-sex couples. But Howard said he has no intention of repealing the ban on gay marriage.
I've never understood the logic behind this, regardless of the cause. There's not a person alive who doesn't think that something their government does is unfair. But that's why we have elections and courts.
Should everyone with a beef against their government be excused from paying taxes?
Well, it seems these two gentlemen in Australia have caught their governments' attention by doing this. Sometimes, such action is nessecary to achieve a goal, or to at least draw attention to your cause.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: Gay Couple Refuses To Pay Taxes Until Australia Recognizes Same-Sex Marriage by 365Gay.com Newscenter Staff
October 30, 2006 - 9:00 pm ET
(Sydney, Australia) A Sydney same-sex couple is refusing to file tax returns until the government allows them to submit a joint return as a married couple.
Australian Marriage Equality said the couple was legally married overseas and in past years had been allowed to file jointly but this year the Australian Tax Office changed its form, asking the sex of of spouses.
After submitting their return on line it was rejected. When they complained the men received a letter from the ATO saying that under the Income Tax Assessment Act of 1997 their marriage could not be recognized and that they were not entitled to name each other as spouse on their returns.
Australian Marriage Equality did not name the couple. Spokesperson Sharon Dane said the ATO decision was discriminatory.
"Same-sex couples should receive the same treatment as opposite-sex couples", she said.
The Tax Office says it is only following the law.
In 2004 the federal government passed a law defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman. Earlier this year the Australian Capital Territory passed legislation giving same-sex couples most of the rights of marriage (story) but the bill was overturned by the federal government.
That action prompted the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission to begin an investigation into inequities faced by same-sex couples. The commission has been holding hearings across the country.
Earlier this month at a stop in Brisbane the mother of a gay man told commissioners the government is imposing an apartheid-type situation on gay and lesbian couples. (story)
"The Federal Government is really persecuting the gays for something they can't help," Shelley Argent said. "It's like the South Africans. They persecuted the blacks for something they couldn't help."
Meanwhile the ACT government has announced plans to reintroduce a modified version of laws allowing for civil partnerships.
Public opinion has been slowly shifting in favor of recognizing same-sex relationships and Prime Minister John Howard now has suggested his government may look at ways of granting limited recognition to same-sex couples. But Howard said he has no intention of repealing the ban on gay marriage.
I've never understood the logic behind this, regardless of the cause. There's not a person alive who doesn't think that something their government does is unfair. But that's why we have elections and courts.
Should everyone with a beef against their government be excused from paying taxes?
It's called Civil Disobedience. A method used effectively by Thoreau, MLK, and Gandhi.
But the purpose of civil disobedence was normally to get put in jail and make a public show. If you don't pay your taxes, typically all that happens is the files some paperwork and garnishes your property or wages. Hardly the same thing.
Further, as noted above, if we accept that civil disobedience justifies a gay rights activist not paying his taxes, we need to be prepared for it to justify some Iowa militiaman or KKK member not paying his.
What you fail to recognize, G-Man, is despite what their reasons are, they still have to pay the consequences as defined by law. And these people apparently don't have to go to jail to get attention to their cause since YOU were the one who posted the article about them and let all of us know about it. And the KKK or militia men can refuse to pay their taxes as civil disobedience, they'll still have to pay fines and fees later on, though. Right or wrong, free speech is still free speech.
Fair enough. I'm simply pointing out that if we start letting one special interest group get away with it we need to let every special interest group get away with it.
Quote: the G-man said: Fair enough. I'm simply pointing out that if we start letting one special interest group get away with it we need to let every special interest group get away with it.
Gays are not a " special interest" group, they are human beings who want the same rights that heterosexuals have.
Someone at the KKK could claim, not frivolously, the affirmative action is a form of reverse racial discrimination and, therefore, a violation of a white person's "civil rights."
Therefore, the KKK'er would be 'justified' in not paying his taxes, under the same theory as the gay Australians.
I don't the KKK doing it, so I don't support the gay activist either.
Quote: the G-man said: Fair enough. I'm simply pointing out that if we start letting one special interest group get away with it we need to let every special interest group get away with it.
Who said they're getting away with it? You're putting more into this situation than what's really going on.
Quote: the G-man said: Someone at the KKK could claim, not frivolously, the affirmative action is a form of reverse racial discrimination and, therefore, a violation of a white person's "civil rights."
Therefore, the KKK'er would be 'justified' in not paying his taxes, under the same theory as the gay Australians.
I don't the KKK doing it, so I don't support the gay activist either.
Irrelevant. The KKK is not seeking the right to marry and enjoy life as many Americans do, they seek to eliminate the rights of others.
KKK members can marry and they do and propagate, unfortunately. They have all the rights of other heterosexuals.
Gays and lesbians merely wish to enjoy the same rights as other Americans.
I just think that G-man doesn't really grasp the concept of civil disobedience. It's not trying to weasel out of anything. It's willing and non-violently disobeying the law and facing the consequences of that action. It's a symbolic gesture that makes a statement to hopefully bring about a discussion or inquiry into the issue in hopes of createing reform. For some reason, G-man thinks that public support or understanding for civil disobedience means no legal reprecussions. You'd think a lawyer would know better than that.
Quote: thedoctor said: It's called Civil Disobedience. A method used effectively by Thoreau, MLK, and Gandhi.
There's reasonable civil disobedience and then there's downright senseless idiocy. Those people you cite fought for rights. Marriage is not a right (for the thousandth time).
It's interesting that you think simply because people choose to blatantly go against the rules that they're performance is admirable.
Quote: thedoctor said: It's called Civil Disobedience. A method used effectively by Thoreau, MLK, and Gandhi.
There's reasonable civil disobedience and then there's downright senseless idiocy. Those people you cite fought for rights. Marriage is not a right (for the thousandth time).
It's interesting that you think simply because people choose to blatantly go against the rules that they're performance is admirable.
Where did I say that? Oh, that's right. I didn't. I simply pointed out a fact. Reading comprehension is fundamental.
Oh, and Thoreau didn't fight for rights. He refused to pay his taxes in protest to the Mexican-American war. Know your history.
Quote: thedoctor said: Where did I say that? Oh, that's right. I didn't. I simply pointed out a fact. Reading comprehension is fundamental.
I'm sorry if I don't know how to read. But I do know how to read between the lines.
Do the voices in your head tell you what they say?
Just in case you were actually wondering about my stance on gay marriages, I've recently come to the conclusion that I don't give a fuck. I don't really care about marriages in general. Straight or gay. And I don't find the gay couple's refusal to pay taxes admirable. I just find it an acceptable form of protest.
Fair enough regarding your opinion on gay marriage, but on protest.....
I could understand a big crowd of butt-buddies chanting "We're here! We're queer!" outside of city-hall. I mean, I don't like it, but I can understand it. Not paying taxes, however, seems to me like a horse of a different color.
Well, remember that one of the main reasons behind the Revolutionary War was that colonists didn't want to have to pay taxes to pay for the French and Indian Wars.
Key Evangelical Quits Amid Gay Sex Claim By CATHERINE TSAI, Associated Press Writer 1 hour ago
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The leader of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals, a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, resigned Thursday after being accused of paying for sex with a man in monthly trysts over the past three years.
The Rev. Ted Haggard, a married father of five who has been called one of the most influential evangelical Christians in the nation, denied the allegations. His accuser refused to share voice mails that he said backed up his claim.
Haggard also stepped aside as head of his 14,000-member New Life Church while a church panel investigates, saying he could "not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations."
"I am voluntarily stepping aside from leadership so that the overseer process can be allowed to proceed with integrity," Haggard said in a written statement. "I hope to be able to discuss this matter in more detail at a later date."
He also told KUSA-TV late Wednesday: "Never had a gay relationship with anybody, and I'm steady with my wife, I'm faithful to my wife."
The allegations come as voters in Colorado and seven other states get ready to decide Tuesday on amendments banning gay marriage. Besides the proposed ban on the Colorado ballot, a separate measure would establish the legality of domestic partnerships providing same-sex couples with many of the rights of married couples.
Mike Jones, 49, of Denver told The Associated Press he decided to go public with his allegations because of the political fight. Jones, who said he is gay, said he was upset when he discovered Haggard and the New Life Church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage.
"It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex," said Jones, who added that he isn't working for any political group.
Jones, whose allegations were first aired on KHOW-AM radio in Denver, claimed Haggard paid him to have sex nearly every month over three years. Jones also said Haggard snorted methamphetamine before their sexual encounters to heighten his experience.
Haggard and his attorney, Martin Nussbaum, did not return calls Thursday night from the AP.
Jones said he had advertised himself as an escort on the Internet and that a man who called himself Art contacted him. Jones said he later saw the man on television identified as Haggard.
He said that he last had sex with Haggard in August and that he did not warn him before making his allegations this week.
Jones said he has voice mail messages from Haggard, as well as an envelope he said Haggard used to mail him cash. He declined to make any of it available to the AP, but KUSA-TV reported excerpts from some of the alleged voice mails late Thursday.
"Hi Mike, this is Art," one call began, according to the station. "Hey, I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100 or $200 supply."
A second message, left a few hours later, began: "Hi Mike, this is Art, I am here in Denver and sorry that I missed you. But as I said, if you want to go ahead and get the stuff, then that would be great. And I'll get it sometime next week or the week after or whenever."
Jones said Haggard was referring to methamphetamine.
"There's some stuff on there (the voice mails) that's pretty damning," he said.
Haggard, who is about 50, was appointed president of the evangelicals association in March 2003. He has participated in conservative Christian leaders' conference calls with White House staffers and lobbied members of Congress last year on U.S. Supreme Court appointees after Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement.
After Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in 2004, Haggard and others began organizing state-by-state opposition. Last year, Haggard and officials from the nearby Christian ministry Focus on the Family announced plans to push Colorado's gay marriage ban for the 2006 ballot.
At the time, Haggard said that he believed marriage is a union between a man and woman rooted in centuries of tradition, and that research shows it's the best family unit for children.
"Homosexual activity, like adulterous relationships, is clearly condemned in the Scriptures," the evangelicals association says on its Web site. The Bible says homosexuality is a sin that "brings grave consequences in this life and excludes one from the Kingdom of God."
Haggard's resignation from the NAE seems unlikely to do lasting damage to the organization, an umbrella group for a diverse and independent-minded membership. At his own church, Haggard's decision to step aside _ if it became permanent _ would have a more profound effect.
"One would hope and pray that this matter would be resolved expeditiously and quickly and he can be restored back to being the pastor of the church and the leader of the NAE," said Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative Washington think tank.
New Life Church member Brooks DeMio, 44, said he thinks Jones is a liar and can't believe Haggard would engage in sex with a man.
"He loves the Lord, homosexuality is a sin and that's not Ted," DeMio said. "His desire is to serve other people and uphold the word of God. ... I don't know him well enough to give a complete character description, but I know him enough to know it's not true."
Carolyn Haggard, spokeswoman for the New Life Church and the pastor's niece, said a four-member church panel will investigate the allegations. The board has the authority to discipline Haggard, including removing him from ministry work.
"This is really routine when any sort of situation like this arises, so we're prepared," Carolyn Haggard said. "The church is going to continue to serve and be welcoming to our community. That's a priority."
___
Associated Press writers Dan Elliott in Denver and Rachel Zoll in New York contributed to this report.
Quote: thedoctor said: Well, remember that one of the main reasons behind the Revolutionary War was that colonists didn't want to have to pay taxes to pay for the French and Indian Wars.
But isn't that the difference? Revolt?
They stopped paying taxes because they didn't want to support a particular country. That's seems like more than just protest.
Quote: thedoctor said: Well, remember that one of the main reasons behind the Revolutionary War was that colonists didn't want to have to pay taxes to pay for the French and Indian Wars.
But isn't that the difference? Revolt?
They stopped paying taxes because they didn't want to support a particular country. That's seems like more than just protest.
They stopped paying taxes because they didn't want to pay taxes. Taxes that were to pay for a war fought to protect them. That protest led to rebellion. So if you approve of the protest of the colonists in the late 1700's which was definetly more violent as it involved vandalism, then you'd also have to approve of the protest of the Australian couple who are using a non-violent form of protest. Not their politics, but their use of non-violent protest. Otherwise, you're just splitting hairs due to your unacceptance of their reason for the protest.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: Key Evangelical Quits Amid Gay Sex Claim By CATHERINE TSAI, Associated Press Writer 1 hour ago
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - The leader of the 30 million-member National Association of Evangelicals, a vocal opponent of same-sex marriage, resigned Thursday after being accused of paying for sex with a man in monthly trysts over the past three years.
The Rev. Ted Haggard, a married father of five who has been called one of the most influential evangelical Christians in the nation, denied the allegations. His accuser refused to share voice mails that he said backed up his claim.
Haggard also stepped aside as head of his 14,000-member New Life Church while a church panel investigates, saying he could "not continue to minister under the cloud created by the accusations."
"I am voluntarily stepping aside from leadership so that the overseer process can be allowed to proceed with integrity," Haggard said in a written statement. "I hope to be able to discuss this matter in more detail at a later date."
He also told KUSA-TV late Wednesday: "Never had a gay relationship with anybody, and I'm steady with my wife, I'm faithful to my wife."
The allegations come as voters in Colorado and seven other states get ready to decide Tuesday on amendments banning gay marriage. Besides the proposed ban on the Colorado ballot, a separate measure would establish the legality of domestic partnerships providing same-sex couples with many of the rights of married couples.
Mike Jones, 49, of Denver told The Associated Press he decided to go public with his allegations because of the political fight. Jones, who said he is gay, said he was upset when he discovered Haggard and the New Life Church had publicly opposed same-sex marriage.
"It made me angry that here's someone preaching about gay marriage and going behind the scenes having gay sex," said Jones, who added that he isn't working for any political group.
Jones, whose allegations were first aired on KHOW-AM radio in Denver, claimed Haggard paid him to have sex nearly every month over three years. Jones also said Haggard snorted methamphetamine before their sexual encounters to heighten his experience.
Haggard and his attorney, Martin Nussbaum, did not return calls Thursday night from the AP.
Jones said he had advertised himself as an escort on the Internet and that a man who called himself Art contacted him. Jones said he later saw the man on television identified as Haggard.
He said that he last had sex with Haggard in August and that he did not warn him before making his allegations this week.
Jones said he has voice mail messages from Haggard, as well as an envelope he said Haggard used to mail him cash. He declined to make any of it available to the AP, but KUSA-TV reported excerpts from some of the alleged voice mails late Thursday.
"Hi Mike, this is Art," one call began, according to the station. "Hey, I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100 or $200 supply."
A second message, left a few hours later, began: "Hi Mike, this is Art, I am here in Denver and sorry that I missed you. But as I said, if you want to go ahead and get the stuff, then that would be great. And I'll get it sometime next week or the week after or whenever."
Jones said Haggard was referring to methamphetamine.
"There's some stuff on there (the voice mails) that's pretty damning," he said.
Haggard, who is about 50, was appointed president of the evangelicals association in March 2003. He has participated in conservative Christian leaders' conference calls with White House staffers and lobbied members of Congress last year on U.S. Supreme Court appointees after Sandra Day O'Connor announced her retirement.
After Massachusetts legalized gay marriage in 2004, Haggard and others began organizing state-by-state opposition. Last year, Haggard and officials from the nearby Christian ministry Focus on the Family announced plans to push Colorado's gay marriage ban for the 2006 ballot.
At the time, Haggard said that he believed marriage is a union between a man and woman rooted in centuries of tradition, and that research shows it's the best family unit for children.
"Homosexual activity, like adulterous relationships, is clearly condemned in the Scriptures," the evangelicals association says on its Web site. The Bible says homosexuality is a sin that "brings grave consequences in this life and excludes one from the Kingdom of God."
Haggard's resignation from the NAE seems unlikely to do lasting damage to the organization, an umbrella group for a diverse and independent-minded membership. At his own church, Haggard's decision to step aside _ if it became permanent _ would have a more profound effect.
"One would hope and pray that this matter would be resolved expeditiously and quickly and he can be restored back to being the pastor of the church and the leader of the NAE," said Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a conservative Washington think tank.
New Life Church member Brooks DeMio, 44, said he thinks Jones is a liar and can't believe Haggard would engage in sex with a man.
"He loves the Lord, homosexuality is a sin and that's not Ted," DeMio said. "His desire is to serve other people and uphold the word of God. ... I don't know him well enough to give a complete character description, but I know him enough to know it's not true."
Carolyn Haggard, spokeswoman for the New Life Church and the pastor's niece, said a four-member church panel will investigate the allegations. The board has the authority to discipline Haggard, including removing him from ministry work.
"This is really routine when any sort of situation like this arises, so we're prepared," Carolyn Haggard said. "The church is going to continue to serve and be welcoming to our community. That's a priority."
___
Associated Press writers Dan Elliott in Denver and Rachel Zoll in New York contributed to this report.
That's why you should never leave voice mails.
C'mon, Brother Ted. Join us. Lots of guys got married and fathered children and went to church and still liked men better and actually got with them and fucked.
Quote: thedoctor said: They stopped paying taxes because they didn't want to pay taxes. Taxes that were to pay for a war fought to protect them. That protest led to rebellion. So if you approve of the protest of the colonists in the late 1700's which was definetly more violent as it involved vandalism, then you'd also have to approve of the protest of the Australian couple who are using a non-violent form of protest. Not their politics, but their use of non-violent protest. Otherwise, you're just splitting hairs due to your unacceptance of their reason for the protest.
There's no minutia here.
There's a difference between revolution and civil protest. Just because I agreed with the American Revolution, that doesn't mean that I saw its prelude as as just protest. Effigy's and rioting crowds are one thing. Total lack of adherence to the state's governship is quite another.
Men like this Reverend get married either because of family pressures to do so, or they have a job in politics, business, or religion which compels them to have a wife and family. Very common scenario. When you get right down to it, they prefer men as sex partners.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado (CNN) -- Evangelical pastor Ted Haggard confessed on Sunday to a "lifelong" sexual problem, and said he was "a deceiver and a liar," in a letter read to his New Life Church.
"There is part of my life that is so repulsive and dark that I've been warring against it all of my adult life," he said in the letter.
Haggard apologized to his congregation and asked for their forgiveness in the letter read by pastor Larry Stockstill, a member of the board of overseers of New Life Church.
On Saturday, the board ousted Haggard from the 14,000-member church, which he founded more than 20 years ago, citing his "sexually immoral conduct."
Haggard had previously admitted that he bought methamphetamine and got a massage from Mike Jones, a former prostitute. Jones said the prominent pastor had paid him for sex over a three-year period. (Watch what led to Haggards firing -- 2:40)
Haggard, in an interview with CNN affiliate KUSA denied having sex with Jones and said he did not use the drug and threw it away.
In the letter read Sunday, Haggard took responsibility for his actions, saying "I am guilty of sexual immorality" and noted that "the things I did opened the door for additional allegations."
He asked the congregation to also forgive his accuser, who Haggard said has revealed "the deception ... that was in my life."
In a separate letter from Haggard's wife, also read by Stockstill, Gayle Haggard said while her heart is broken, she remains "committed to him until death do us part."
An overflow congregation responded to the announcement with a standing ovation.
That he bought meth...hey, he's stupid. That he says he threw it away? Sorry, you went that far, Ted. Count me among those who believe you used it.
That he paid for sex...now that's giving being gay a bad name. Chatrooms and sites like manhunt.net--no need to pay for sex anymore, Teddy. Even for an old hypocrite like you.
And while ole Ted may say that his gay side is "repulsive and dark," I'm betting the cock was still good and the orgasms nice and messy.
When the news announced the scandal they mentioned "the leader of a large curch organization in the Springs..." and I was hoping it was James Dobson. Captain New Life getting caught in his hateful lazy-people-church hypocracy is golden though. Mom is so so so pissed. I can't stop laughing.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: ...he paid for sex...now that's giving being gay a bad name. Chatrooms and sites like manhunt.net--no need to pay for sex anymore, Teddy. Even for an old hypocrite like you...
I'm guessing its sorta like something Charlie Sheen once said about why he, a movie star, paid for hookers from Heidi Fleiss.
Sheen said he didn't pay for the sex. He paid for the fact they'd leave when he was done.
Haggard probably paid because he figured it would buy silence.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: ...he paid for sex...now that's giving being gay a bad name. Chatrooms and sites like manhunt.net--no need to pay for sex anymore, Teddy. Even for an old hypocrite like you...
I'm guessing its sorta like something Charlie Sheen once said about why he, a movie star, paid for hookers from Heidi Fleiss.
Sheen said he didn't pay for the sex. He paid for the fact they'd leave when he was done.
Haggard probably paid because he figured it would buy silence.
Quote: Pariah said: I thought you said your mom was Catholic. Why would she be pissed at a denominational scandel?
Because "he has done a lot of good in this city." I asked for examples and she gave me, "megachurches." And I asked wtf a megachurch is and she said, "a church with a congregation of thousands." I asked why that was a good thing (because large mobs often times are BAD things) and she changed the subject like G-Man and I asked for a better example of the "many things" he did and she said something about small churches being part of the bigger New Life church and all these people finding god... so I countered with how so many of the New Lifers are hypocrytical ho-beasts that punch their 'get in heaven free' card each week and it is just fitting that the biggest of the ho-beasts was outted and things got confusing and we both gave up and I went to bed.
Quote: Uschi said (emphasis added): When the news announced the scandal they mentioned "the leader of a large curch organization in the Springs..." and I was hoping it was James Dobson. Captain New Life getting caught in his hateful lazy-people-church hypocracy is golden though. Mom is so so so pissed. I can't stop laughing.
I'm not especially surprised at your attitude, but what's the 'lazy-people-church' part about? You probably know more about that particular church than I've heard, being from that area.
And actually, it wouldn't happen to Dobson. Despite the amount of spite people on these boards may have toward him (largely on the basis of things said and written by random minor faces in an organization he founded but doesn't do nearly as much in anymore), I'm certain his actions are comparatively far more consistent with his beliefs than Haggard, whom I've been wary of for years.
Quote: Uschi said (emphasis added): When the news announced the scandal they mentioned "the leader of a large curch organization in the Springs..." and I was hoping it was James Dobson. Captain New Life getting caught in his hateful lazy-people-church hypocracy is golden though. Mom is so so so pissed. I can't stop laughing.
I'm not especially surprised at your attitude, but what's the 'lazy-people-church' part about? You probably know more about that particular church than I've heard, being from that area.
And actually, it wouldn't happen to Dobson. Despite the amount of spite people on these boards may have toward him (largely on the basis of things said and written by random minor faces in an organization he founded but doesn't do nearly as much in anymore), I'm certain his actions are comparatively far more consistent with his beliefs than Haggard, whom I've been wary of for years.
Lazy-people-church meaning those stamp-your-ticket Christians. The people that attend Church and sing and shit but as soon as they leave they're being little sluts or abusing shit and generally behaving un-Christ-like toward their fellow humans. But they still have the arrogance because THEY're going to HEAVEN.
I have a bit of a bias because Mom's thrown me into their midst a few times. Once, when she was convinced I was possessed by a demon spirit (turns out I was just really depressed. good one, Ma!) and took me to a Celebacy Rally. She dropped me off and shoved me in the door and left me there for five hours. I tried sneaking out thrice and the bastards caught me. ANYway, first we were locked in a small auditorium while a live band played too-loud Christian Rock at us. This was the impetus for my first and second escape attempt. Then we had these "classes" to "teach" us the Word of God (i.e. shit I learned when I was five in CCD) - in the group I was in, nobody knew ANY of the answers except me. I eventually stopped raising my hand and just answered the crappy trivia. Long(er) story short(er), it ended in a Mass where we all went up and recieved promise rings saying we would save ourselves for marriage (or, if we were already the loose little sluts I recognized from school, start fresh 'cause Jesus forgives everything) and signed a little card. It was queer as hell. I threw mine at my mom's car when she wasn't around later. The point, everyone in my school that attended the shitty thing because they wanted to wore their little celebicy rings, even at school, even screwing eachother in the closet in the Dungeon (boiler room / basement / freshmen locker room at the school).
That's the most personal of examples I can give for the church congregation being full of lazy and hypocritical arsehole whores.
And I know Dobson will never be found out for anything. He actually believes the shit he says.
Quote: Uschi said (emphasis added): When the news announced the scandal they mentioned "the leader of a large curch organization in the Springs..." and I was hoping it was James Dobson. Captain New Life getting caught in his hateful lazy-people-church hypocracy is golden though. Mom is so so so pissed. I can't stop laughing.
I'm not especially surprised at your attitude, but what's the 'lazy-people-church' part about? You probably know more about that particular church than I've heard, being from that area.
And actually, it wouldn't happen to Dobson. Despite the amount of spite people on these boards may have toward him (largely on the basis of things said and written by random minor faces in an organization he founded but doesn't do nearly as much in anymore), I'm certain his actions are comparatively far more consistent with his beliefs than Haggard, whom I've been wary of for years.
Lazy-people-church meaning those stamp-your-ticket Christians. The people that attend Church and sing and shit but as soon as they leave they're being little sluts or abusing shit and generally behaving un-Christ-like toward their fellow humans. But they still have the arrogance because THEY're going to HEAVEN.
Can't argue with personal experience. I know a lot of those. I also know a lot of people who look just as serious on Sunday morning, then go out... and actually live what they believe. There are most likely more of the first bunch than I've seen, and most likely more of the second bunch than you've seen. I really do commiserate with your negative experiences with Christianity, but I'd just like to maintain that the messenger is not always the message, and I'd like to encourage you to keep looking for the ones who really mean what they say.
Quote: And I know Dobson will never be found out for anything. He actually believes the shit he says.
What is it that you feel he's saying? Maybe you and I hear different parts of it. I hear it all the time because he (unlike many of the people attached to his foundation) is a member of my denomination. Are you sure the words that have been attributed to him - and obviously their intent - haven't somehow been taken out of context or outright altered, telephone-style, by all the people who relay them down the line to you? Just curious.
Israel Refuses to Ban Gay Pride Parade By MATTI FRIEDMAN, Associated Press Writer 56 minutes ago
JERUSALEM - Israel's attorney general refused to ban a gay pride parade in Jerusalem despite threats of violence from ultra-Orthodox Jews, instructing police and gay activists to try to work out a compromise, the police commander said Sunday.
A Justice Ministry statement said Attorney General Meni Mazuz ordered police to meet with gay activists "to work out a reasonable alternative proposal" for the march, set for Friday on a route through the middle of the city. The meeting is to take place Monday, gay activists said, and a compromise was likely.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews have rioted in Jerusalem nearly every night over the past week, burning garbage cans, blocking roads and assaulting police officers in an attempt to get the authorities to call off the march, approved months ago by the Supreme Court. Many religious Jews, Muslims and Christians see homosexuality as a sin and the march as an affront to the sanctity of the holy city.
Police said Sunday that the danger of violence was too great to allow the march to proceed, but left the final decision to Mazuz.
"We understand that the potential danger to life and bloodshed is greater than that to free speech," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
Ella Canetti, one of the organizers of the gay pride march, said they would meet police on Monday and were willing to be flexible.
"We are prepared to alter the route of our march to meet police concerns," she told The Associated Press. "According to what we understand, a modest gay pride march will take place in Jerusalem."
After meeting Mazuz, Jerusalem police commander Ilan Franco said, "It may be that there will be a march and a closing event at place which both sides decide is reasonable and minimizes potential damage and danger."
But it was unclear whether such a compromise would satisfy the ultra-Orthodox Jewish opponents.
At last year's march, an ultra-Orthodox man stabbed and wounded three participants.
There was some dissent Sunday among gay activists. Saar Nathaniel, a gay member of Jerusalem's City Council and one of the march's planners, suggested Sunday that gay activists cancel the march in return for ultra-Orthodox members of parliament supporting gay rights legislation.
A gay columnist in the liberal Haaretz daily called on organizers to show sensitivity for Jerusalem's special status as a city holy to three faiths and move the march to the more permissive Tel Aviv.
Jerusalem police said six policemen have been hurt in the clashes over the past week and 60 rioters have been arrested. Over the weekend, the disturbances spread outside Jerusalem to the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv, where rioters blocked one of Israel's main highways with burning tires.
Can't argue with personal experience. I know a lot of those. I also know a lot of people who look just as serious on Sunday morning, then go out... and actually live what they believe. There are most likely more of the first bunch than I've seen, and most likely more of the second bunch than you've seen. I really do commiserate with your negative experiences with Christianity, but I'd just like to maintain that the messenger is not always the message, and I'd like to encourage you to keep looking for the ones who really mean what they say.
Don't get me wrong, I respect people who live their faith. I know/have known a LOT of people that follow their religous moral structures as best as they can. I have met Zero New Lifers like that is all. And there are SOOO many here.
Quote:
Quote: And I know Dobson will never be found out for anything. He actually believes the shit he says.
What is it that you feel he's saying? Maybe you and I hear different parts of it. I hear it all the time because he (unlike many of the people attached to his foundation) is a member of my denomination. Are you sure the words that have been attributed to him - and obviously their intent - haven't somehow been taken out of context or outright altered, telephone-style, by all the people who relay them down the line to you? Just curious.
Well, some of the stuff is attributed to him via the newspaper (Colorado Springs Gazette) or the videos my mom bought of his and made us kids watch when I was in Jr High. One of the things that pisses me off the most is his stance on homosexuals and the insistance that they are misguided, confused, or deluded into believing they are gay. I don't like his "we cure you of being gay" programs (also see the post I made about Norman the dog that says Moo for more info). For the most part I can't give other examples. I split off many years ago and find I am happier not paying attention to him. So I don't remember everything I used to be pissed at. I'm sure Mom has the videos around here somewhere though...
Quote: Jim Jackson said: ...he paid for sex...now that's giving being gay a bad name. Chatrooms and sites like manhunt.net--no need to pay for sex anymore, Teddy. Even for an old hypocrite like you...
I'm guessing its sorta like something Charlie Sheen once said about why he, a movie star, paid for hookers from Heidi Fleiss.
Sheen said he didn't pay for the sex. He paid for the fact they'd leave when he was done.
Haggard probably paid because he figured it would buy silence.
Quote: Jim Jackson said: ...he paid for sex...now that's giving being gay a bad name. Chatrooms and sites like manhunt.net--no need to pay for sex anymore, Teddy. Even for an old hypocrite like you...
I'm guessing its sorta like something Charlie Sheen once said about why he, a movie star, paid for hookers from Heidi Fleiss.
Sheen said he didn't pay for the sex. He paid for the fact they'd leave when he was done.
Haggard probably paid because he figured it would buy silence.
I guess he'll be wanting his money back now.....
If Ted figured no one would ever find out about his gay side, then yeah, I can believe he's dumb enough to think one can "pay for silence."
South African Panel OKs Gay Marriage By CLARE NULLIS, Associated Press Writer Thu Nov 9, 4:17 PM
CAPE TOWN, South Africa - A parliamentary committee approved proposals for same-sex marriages in South Africa on Thursday, clearing the way for the passage of legislation that would be unique on a deeply conservative continent.
The compromise, reached after heated public debate, upset religious groups, traditionalists and even some members of the governing African National Congress while gay rights activists said it didn't go far enough.
"It's been a very difficult time. It was a major challenge," said Patrick Chauke, chairman of the Home Affairs Portfolio Committee, which spent weeks touring the country to gauge public opinion and received nearly 6,000 written comments.
The civil unions bill will go to a full session of parliament Tuesday. Despite the unease in the ANC ranks, it is expected to pass as lawmakers have been ordered to follow the party line and told there is little room for maneuver.
Denmark in 1989 became the first country to legislate for same-sex partnerships, and several other European Union members have followed suit. In the United States, only Massachusetts allows gay marriage. Vermont and Connecticut permit civil unions, and more than a dozen states grant lesser legal rights to gay couples.
In Africa, homosexuality is still largely taboo. It is illegal in Zimbabwe, Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Ghana and most other sub-Saharan countries.
South Africa recognized gay rights in the constitution adopted after apartheid ended in 1994 _ the first in the world to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. But the government long opposed attempts to extend the definition of marriage in court to include same-sex couples in the mostly Christian country.
Married couples currently have numerous rights still denied gay couples, including the ability to make decisions on each other's behalf in medical emergencies, and inheritance rights if a partner dies without a will.
South Africa's Constitutional Court ruled last year that the country's marriage legislation was illegal because it discriminated against same-sex couples. It gave the government until Dec. 1 to adopt new legislation.
The bill provides for the "voluntary union of two persons, which is solemnized and registered by either a marriage or civil union." It does not specify whether they are heterosexual or gay partnerships.
But it also says marriage officers need not perform a ceremony between same-sex couples if doing so would conflict with his or her "conscience, religion and belief." That could leave gay couples shopping for someone to perform their ceremony.
Gay rights groups welcomed the inclusion of the term "marriage" in the legislation but said they were disappointed that homosexual couples were being treated differently from heterosexual couples because of the opt-out clause.
"Everyone should be governed by one law," said Vista Kaupa of the Triangle Project, which provides support for gays and lesbians. "Marriage should be for everyone. There should be one encompassing umbrella for everyone."
Jonathan Berger of the AIDS Law Project said the wording implied that "something inherently problematic about same-sex marriage."
He predicted that the bill would be open to challenge on grounds that it does not comply with the Constitutional Court ruling for full equality before the law.
Marie Fourie and Cecelia Bonthuys, a lesbian couple from Pretoria, sued the government for not recognizing their October 2002 wedding. The government lost the case, as well as the appeals.
Chauke, who put aside his own religious convictions to steer the bill through the Home Affairs committee, said the final compromise was a "wonderful" product.
"We've arrived at the point where we've met the constitutional requirement that everybody is equal before the law," he told journalists.
The main opposition Democratic Alliance said it had "serious problems" with the bill and complained that it was rushed through the committee on the final day without a vote and without time for adequate debate.
"One of the problems is to call same-sex unions a marriage," Terius Delport said.
Steve Swart of the African Christian Democratic Party was visibly upset.
"It would be the first time that an African country has same-sex marriage. This we cannot accept," he said.
Actually, I know Jesus is not to blame for gay marriage NOT being passed in the USA, it is politics... the politicians want to remain in office, so they vote against gay marriage because many of the idiots that voted for them only did so in order to prevent gay marriage from ever happening in this country.
And THIS backwards attitude, in turn, is fueled by both fear and ignorance.
And by that one fucking line in the bible about homosexuality. A line, not written by GOD , but by a man who was most likely gay himself, fighting it and deeply ashamed of his own sexuality. And terrified to explore it and be himself.
They can rationalize it all they want. They can quote the bible all they want.
It all comes down to hate. And using the bible as an excuse to hate.
Is that what they think God wants of them?
That isn't what Jesus talked about.
He spoke of loving one another. Of being good and doing good deeds.
He did not say, " Love everyone except for queers."
Quote: It all comes down to hate. And using the bible as an excuse to hate.
I find this statement to be as narrow minded as you accuse the other side of being. I don;t hate you, Jerry. I think you're a good guy, I like reading your posts and if we ever hung out I think we'd get along fine. However I also believe in teh Bible. I don't think it's fair or productive to say anyone who dissagrees with you on this one issue is full of hate directed towards you.
I like you, too, WBAM. All I am saying is that there are plenty of people with big issues who do use the bible as an excuse to hate. Not you. No way! But there are people who use that one line in the bible as an excuse to hate.
I have always believed the Bible is an incredible tool for good!
But, that which can be used for good can also be used for evil purposes, ie, hating of gays.
I am in NO way implying that the bible is evil.
But I do think it was a truly misguided soul who wrote that abomination line.
And : I did not say or even imply that anyone who disagrees with with me is full of hate for me PERSONALLY, but gay is what I am, and when I see those lines of people in the news carrying signs that say things like, " Go to hell you gay Aids bastards" and " God hates Queers", well, um, I will take this personally because I am gay.
I realize there are different levels of acceptance. There are gray areas in this issue.
And I do have friends online and in real time who are worried that I will go to hell because I am gay. They do not hate me, but they can't get past that one line. Not all of them express such misgivings. They just accept me as I am, and I accept them as they are, too.
I believe in the bible, however, I don't agree with that one line.
Sorry, I know this post rambled a bit, but I like clarity. I don't like to be misunderstood, and I hope this explains how I feel in a non combative way.
Quote: And : I did not say or even imply that anyone who disagrees with with me is full of hate for me PERSONALLY, but gay is what I am, and when I see those lines of people in the news carrying signs that say things like, " Go to hell you gay Aids bastards" and " God hates Queers", well, um, I will take this personally because I am gay.
OK, There are definately hatefull people out there. Not just hatefull, but evil and anti-christ like. When I see someone holding one of those "God hates fags" signs I make sure not to stand within a hundred yards just incase God chooses to burn them to a crisp at that time and I'm sure they will burn to a crisp at some point. I would just warn you against painting with such a broad brush that you assume anyone who dissagrees with your lifestyle does so out of hate.
San Francisco Appeals Gay Marriage Order By DAVID KRAVETS, Associated Press Writer Tue Nov 14, 8:12 AM
SAN FRANCISCO - A month after an appeals court ruled against same-sex marriage, the city and about a dozen homosexual couples have filed an appeal to the California Supreme Court.
Gay marriage advocates hope to overturn the ruling that said limiting marriage to a man and a woman does not violate the constitutional rights of gays and lesbians.
If the high court takes the case, a decision on same-sex marriage is likely a year or more away. The justices have 90 days to announce their intentions.
In October, the 1st District Court of Appeal ruled in a 2-1 vote that, among other things, it was not the judiciary's role to define marriage _ since 61 percent of California voters in 2000 declared marriage as a union between a man and a woman under Proposition 22.
The appeals court also ruled that the state's existing marriage laws do not discriminate because gays and lesbians get most all the rights of marriage the state confers to heterosexual married couples.
The seven-member Supreme Court is not obligated to review the appellate court's decision, which overturned an earlier decision by a San Francisco trial judge. If it does not, the ruling stands.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom put the marriage debate in the national spotlight by allowing same-sex couples to get married at City Hall in 2004. California's justices halted the wedding spree and voided the 4,037 marriage licenses while sidestepping the core constitutional question, ruling the mayor did not have authority to make marriage law.
Since 2004, when Massachusetts became the first state to legalize gay marriage, advocates have seen California as one of their best hopes for expanding the marriage movement.
Today across the country, the gay marriage issue [has] galvanized conservative Christian groups to enter politics like never before.
Before now, the Christian right was not a political force in this mostly secular, liberal country. But it is coalescing with new clout and credibility, similar to the evangelical Christian movement in the United States in the 1980s, though not nearly on the same scale.
Today, half a dozen organizations like the Evangelical Fellowship of Canada work full time in Ottawa, four of which opened offices in the past year, all seeking to reverse the law allowing gay marriage.
They represent just some of the dozens of well-organized conservative Christian groups around the country and more than a hundred grass-roots campaigns focused on the issue. In recent months, religious groups have held rallies, signed petitions, drafted resolutions and stepped up their efforts to lobby politicians to overturn the law.
Conservatives: Keep Gay Marriage Out of the Courts By DAVID B. RIVKIN Jr. and LEE A. CASEY Published: November 17, 2006
Washington
CONSERVATIVES have consoled themselves since Election Day with the knowledge that many “conservative” social issues did well — including (and especially) the eight state “marriage amendments” on the ballot — even if the Republican candidates faltered.
These marriage measures, of which only Arizona’s was defeated, generally prevent recognition of gay marriages by defining marriage as a “union between a man and a woman” in the state constitutions. More than half of the states now have such constitutional provisions (some of which would also forbid same-sex civil unions), and conservatives need to reconsider whether that’s really what we want. There are, in fact, some very good reasons conservatives should oppose this approach.
The definition of marriage is, of course, of critical importance to individuals on both sides of the issue and to society at large. But at least since independence, the question of who may marry and under what conditions has been the province of the state legislatures. And it should have remained that way.
The justifications for stripping the legislatures of authority in this area and settling the matter in a state’s constitution are wanting. It’s true that courts in certain states — for example, Massachusetts — have interposed themselves in this debate, misconstruing “equal protection” guarantees as requiring recognition of gay marriages. But errant or aggressive judges can be corrected by amendments that simply deny the state courts authority over this issue, reserving the definition and regulation of marriage to the legislatures alone.
Moreover, the meaning of marriage, as important as it is, is no more crucial than many other issues of individual autonomy and morality that have also historically been decided by the legislatures. These include adoption and child-welfare laws, as well as a host of criminal and other regulatory measures of the greatest moment.
Indeed, cluttering state constitutions with the disposition of many difficult social issues — and this process will probably go on, and even accelerate, especially if all of the states choose to define marriage in their constitutions — is likely to empower the judiciary more. This paradoxical and unwelcome result would arise because some of the newly enshrined constitutional definitions and guarantees are sure to conflict with one another, leaving the courts the only venue for resolving the tension. Conservatives should find this outcome highly unpalatable.
At the same time, leaving the marriage issue to the state legislatures has many benefits. As Edmund Burke taught, time-tested institutions and practices should be changed only upon the clearest need, and then only to the extent necessary. If the courts in some states have trespassed on the legislatures’ traditional and legitimate authority over marriage, they can be checked without altering the otherwise established norm of legislative power in this area.
Also, allowing the issue to be decided by state legislatures would be in the best tradition of American federalism: the states act as laboratories of political change, and remain free to give divergent answers to difficult social questions. Operating within the federalist context, state legislatures are likely to enact different definitions of marriage, some allowing same-sex unions, others banning them. Significantly, the federal Defense of Marriage Act, signed by President Bill Clinton in 1996, already ensures that the choices of one state cannot be imposed on others. If that statute is ultimately found to be ineffective or unconstitutional, additional steps can be considered at the federal level to ensure that individual state choices are respected.
If state legislatures were free to define and re-define marriage, we would have genuinely political solutions to an especially difficult and incendiary issue. Very few people do not hold deep convictions regarding same-sex marriage. To enshrine the definition of marriage in a state’s constitution removes the issue from the give-and-take of the normal political process. That process rarely produces an absolute victory for any side, but it also rarely results in absolute defeat. The outcome is never final; the defeated party can rally, regroup and try again.
By contrast, a constitutional amendment resolves a policy issue with a sufficient finality to prompt a more or less permanent sense of injustice and bitterness on the losing side. Conservatives, religious conservatives especially, should understand these dynamics. In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court granted victory on constitutional grounds to the abortion-rights position in the abortion debate, and that decision has polarized American politics for nearly two generations. America does not need another such issue. The wave of marriage amendments — at least those that go beyond removing the issue from judicial resolution — should stop.
David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey are lawyers who served in the Justice Department under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.
Which you're entitled to. But the point of putting those issues on ballots was to let the people decide. Different states produced different results, but in each case the people decided.
What's the problem? allow people equal right to civil unions or what not! call it cheese or fartanism for all i care! let the church decide on what is and whom shall be married!
The people decided, but of course, those who decided against gay unions and gay marriage are hetero, and many of them just believe being gay is a sin, or immoral, or just wrong.
I want to see gay marriage pass in the USA before I die.
Since I am nearly 50, that only leaves 30 years or so, maximum.
You never know, Jerry. Zefram Cochrane could make his warp flight ahead of schedule, and your lifespan could be dramatically extended by Vulcan medical science!
Quote: sneaky bunny said: What's the problem? allow people equal right to civil unions or what not! call it cheese or fartanism for all i care! let the church decide on what is and whom shall be married!
This is it, right there. It is about the politicians wanting to stay in office, so they cater to the religious right which says, " Gay? Marry? No way, Jose!"
It is really about MONEY.
Politicians love their high paying jobs and cushy life styles.
Quote: Captain Sammitch said: You never know, Jerry. Zefram Cochrane could make his warp flight ahead of schedule, and your lifespan could be dramatically extended by Vulcan medical science!
I'm afraid I'd have to be extremely long lived, like my "Grampa" character before gay marriage passes in the USA.. and, if some have their way, Civil Unions would be Verboten, too.
Quote: sneaky bunny said: What's the problem? allow people equal right to civil unions or what not! call it cheese or fartanism for all i care! let the church decide on what is and whom shall be married!
No, there ought to be seperation of church and state.
Quote: sneaky bunny said: What's the problem? allow people equal right to civil unions or what not! call it cheese or fartanism for all i care! let the church decide on what is and whom shall be married!
No, there ought to be seperation of church and state.
There'd still be a seperation by allowing everyone a union of sorts and leaving the definition and allowance of marriage to the church.
Quote: sneaky bunny said: What's the problem?
allow people equal right to civil unions or what not!
call it cheese or fartanism for all i care!
let the church decide on what is and whom shall be married!
No, there ought to be seperation of church and state.
There'd still be a seperation by allowing everyone a union of sorts and leaving the definition and allowance of marriage to the church.
Sneaky, my problem with that really is this: No matter what gains Gays get in terms of rights... they can always be taken away again. It all boils down to :
Quote: Beardguy57 said: Sneaky, my problem with that really is this: No matter what gains Gays get in terms of rights... they can always be taken away again. It all boils down to :
A ) That ONE damn line in the bible.
B ) Money.
First of all: It's not "one damn line."
Second of all: You have just as much rights as a straight person (please bare in mind that marriage is not a right).
Third of all: I don't recall any of the court sessions or senate referendums in which the Bible was used as a factor.
Finally: What the hell does money have to do with anything aside from your childish attempt at sounding counter-culture?
Quote: Beardguy57 said: Sneaky, my problem with that really is this: No matter what gains Gays get in terms of rights... they can always be taken away again. It all boils down to :
A ) That ONE damn line in the bible.
B ) Money.
First of all: It's not "one damn line."
Second of all: You have just as much rights as a straight person (please bare in mind that marriage is not a right).
Third of all: I don't recall any of the court sessions or senate referendums in which the Bible was used as a factor.
Finally: What the hell does money have to do with anything aside from your childish attempt at sounding counter-culture?
First : It is MAINLY that " damn line."
Second : If Marriage is not a right, what is it, then?
Third : If The Bible is not used as a factor, then why are so many Christians and Catholics against Gay marriage, then?
Fourth : As I stated before, nearly all politicians are going to vote against gay marriage because they either got elected by taking a stance against gay marriage, or they know that if they campaign for it, they will damage their political career. Or end it.
Thus, Money comes into play.. Politicians love their big paychecks and the good life it brings, and thus, they do not want to give it up by voting for something that could cause their political career harm.
I'm going to leave that alone as we're discussing the legality of Gay Marraige not weather or not it's a Biblical principle.
Quote:
Second : If Marriage is not a right, what is it, then?
It's a governmentally recognised contract with restrictions.
If marraige were a human right then no restrictions could be placed on it, people could marry relitives or multiple partners. I'm not arguing that being gay is the same as incest or polygimy, I'm using those as examples of reasonable restrictions that are placed on the contract. What you're arguing for isn't that marraige be recognised as a human right with no restrictions, but rather that same sex unions be lifted as a restriction.
If I'm wrong and you are argunign that all restrictions be lifted, please correct me.
Quote: Third : If The Bible is not used as a factor, then why are so many Christians and Catholics against Gay marriage, then?
that's a false argument, but that logic the fact that most Christians and Catholics enjoy ice cream would make the Bible a factor in the decicion to enjoy ice cream. Having said that, the Bible may be a factor in some people voting the way they do, but the point the P was making is that the Bible is not cited in the laws that are written. There are people who believe the Bible that think government restrctions should be lifted for same sex marraige and there are people who do not believe the Bible who oppose same sex marraige.
Quote: Fourth : As I stated before, nearly all politicians are going to vote against gay marriage because they either got elected by taking a stance against gay marriage, or they know that if they campaign for it, they will damage their political career. Or end it.
regardless of weather or not you agree what you just described is polititions being responsible to those who elected them to vote for thier intrests. That's representitive government.
If marraige were a human right then no restrictions could be placed on it, people could marry relitives or multiple partners. I'm not arguing that being gay is the same as incest or polygimy, I'm using those as examples of reasonable restrictions that are placed on the contract. What you're arguing for isn't that marraige be recognised as a human right with no restrictions, but rather that same sex unions be lifted as a restriction. If I'm wrong and you are argunign that all restrictions be lifted, please correct me.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: First : It is MAINLY that " damn line."
And yuou can't even prove that.
Quote: Second : If Marriage is not a right, what is it, then?
It is an organizational technique used by the government to better regulate and stabalize the population growth of the state(s) and country's inhabitants. It just so happens that this particular technique only works if it involves two sexually compatible individuals.
Quote: Third : If The Bible is not used as a factor, then why are so many Christians and Catholics against Gay marriage, then?
We're speaking secularly. Not religiously. You can't prove that the Senate kept faith in mind when they came to a voting decision. The arguments against gay marriage span farther than things from the Bible.
Quote: Fourth : As I stated before, nearly all politicians are going to vote against gay marriage because they either got elected by taking a stance against gay marriage, or they know that if they campaign for it, they will damage their political career. Or end it.
Thus, Money comes into play.. Politicians love their big paychecks and the good life it brings, and thus, they do not want to give it up by voting for something that could cause their political career harm.
Money's the Bottom Line of any situation, why make a problem out of it for this particular argument?
Additionally, Wanna is correct in defining this situation as representative government.
Mass. Governor Wants Gay Wedding Vote By DAVID WEBER, Associated Press Writer Mon Nov 20, 4:34 AM
BOSTON - Gov. Mitt Romney said Sunday he would ask the state's highest court to order an anti-gay marriage amendment question onto the ballot if legislators fail to vote on the matter when they reconvene in January.
Romney said he would file a legal action this week asking a justice of the Supreme Judicial Court to direct the secretary of state to place the question on the ballot if lawmakers don't vote directly on the question Jan. 2, the final day of the session.
Romney, an opponent of gay marriage who decided not to seek re-election as he considers running for president, made his announcement to the cheers of hundreds of gay marriage opponents at a rally on the Statehouse steps.
People in favor of gay marriage staged a protest across the street.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in November 2003 that such marriages were legal. Since then, more than 8,000 same-sex couples have tied the knot in the state.
More than 170,000 people had signed a petition in support of the ballot question, which would define marriage as between only a man and a woman.
Romney has criticized lawmakers since they refused earlier this month to take up the question during a joint session, voting instead to recess until Jan. 2 and all but killing the measure.
"A decision not to vote is a decision to usurp the Constitution, to abandon democracy and substitute a form of what this nation's founders called tyranny, that is, the imposition of the will of those in power, on the people," Romney said earlier. "The issue now before us is not whether same-sex couples should marry. The issue before us today is whether 109 legislators will follow the Constitution."
Because the Legislature is in recess and did not adjourn, Romney has no legal authority to call lawmakers back into session.
Supporters of gay marriage defended lawmakers' procedural move.
"One of the tenets of the Constitution is that you do not put the rights of a minority up for a popularity contest," said Mark Solomon, campaign director of Mass Equality, a pro-gay marriage group. "It is one of the very principles this country was founded upon."
Messages seeking comment from legislative leaders were not immediately returned Sunday.
The Legislature grappled with various efforts to ban same-sex marriages even before the high court ruling in 2003. Lawmakers refused to vote on a citizens' initiative in 2002, and two years later voted down their own proposed amendment that would have banned gay marriage and legalized civil unions.
In the November elections, amendments to ban gay marriage passed in Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin. Only Arizona defeated such an amendment.
Vermont and Connecticut have legalized civil unions that give same-sex couples benefits similar to marriage. New Jersey's highest court has ordered the Legislature to allow either marriage or civil unions for same-sex couples.
MY Grampa started off his life as the younger son of the chief of his Cro - Magnon tribe during a brutal ice age where survival was a 24/7 thing. It was a primitive world. He hunted mammoths and was known for being the best hunter in his tribe.
When I write his complete origin, which I will do sometime hopefully in the near future, I will let you know about it.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: MY Grampa started off his life as the younger son of the chief of his Cro - Magnon tribe during a brutal ice age where survival was a 24/7 thing. It was a primitive world. He hunted mammoths and was known for being the best hunter in his tribe.
When I write his complete origin, which I will do sometime hopefully in the near future, I will let you know about it.
Read out of context, I sriously thought you'd gone completely nutbar here for a second...hahaha.
We're speaking secularly. Not religiously. You can't prove that the Senate kept faith in mind when they came to a voting decision. The arguments against gay marriage span farther than things from the Bible.
As much as I disagree with Mr. Beardguy's whole tact here...this is the only issue here. It is religious 'morality' that stands between homosexuality and the rest of the population. Nothing more. There is no other reasoning to deprive a group of people the same opportunity to fuck up commitments to eachother and exist on par with every other couple.
I'm not saying it's an irrelevant hurdle (I've realized far too much as of late), but it is the only one standing between equal rights. There are no other motivations behind people opposing gay marriage (and subsequent divorce) than those rooted in faith. Anything else brought to the table is merely an extension of religious adherence, and faulty at best.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: MY Grampa started off his life as the younger son of the chief of his Cro - Magnon tribe during a brutal ice age where survival was a 24/7 thing. It was a primitive world. He hunted mammoths and was known for being the best hunter in his tribe.
When I write his complete origin, which I will do sometime hopefully in the near future, I will let you know about it.
Read out of context, I sriously thought you'd gone completely nutbar here for a second...hahaha.
We're speaking secularly. Not religiously. You can't prove that the Senate kept faith in mind when they came to a voting decision. The arguments against gay marriage span farther than things from the Bible.
As much as I disagree with Mr. Beardguy's whole tact here...this is the only issue here. It is religious 'morality' that stands between homosexuality and the rest of the population. Nothing more. There is no other reasoning to deprive a group of people the same opportunity to fuck up commitments to eachother and exist on par with every other couple.
I'm not saying it's an irrelevant hurdle (I've realized far too much as of late), but it is the only one standing between equal rights. There are no other motivations behind people opposing gay marriage (and subsequent divorce) than those rooted in faith. Anything else brought to the table is merely an extension of religious adherence, and faulty at best.
Gay R.I. Couple Files for Divorce By RAY HENRY, Associated Press Writer 54 minutes ago
PROVIDENCE, R.I. - A lesbian couple married in Massachusetts has filed for divorce in Rhode Island, setting up a legal conundrum for judges in a state where the laws are silent on the legality of same-sex marriage.
Margaret Chambers and Cassandra Ormiston of Providence were married after the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court legalized gay marriage starting in 2004.
They filed for divorce in Rhode Island on Oct. 23, citing irreconcilable differences, Chambers' attorney, Louis Pulner, said Wednesday. Ormiston declined to comment.
Rhode Island Family Court Chief Judge Jeremiah Jeremiah Jr. has yet to decide whether his court has jurisdiction and said he believes it is the first filing for a same-sex divorce in the state. A preliminary hearing was scheduled for Dec. 5.
Massachusetts became the only state to allow same-sex couples to marry after the state Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to ban it.
Until recently, though, it was up in the air whether out-of-state couples could marry in Massachusetts. In September, a Massachusetts judge decided that nothing in Rhode Island law specifically banned gay marriage and said Rhode Island couples could legally marry there.
"Now the ultimate question is whether the state will recognize or determine whether it has jurisdiction to handle an out-of-state divorce when we don't have any case law that accepts or rejects same-sex marriage," Pulner said.
Rhode Island Attorney General Patrick Lynch said it is up to the courts and legislature to decide whether the state recognizes same-sex unions.
Courts nationwide could soon find themselves facing similar dilemmas, especially as more and more same-sex couples are married in Massachusetts, said Janet Halley, a professor at Harvard Law School who researches the topic. Marital status could potentially become an issue in insurance, benefit, child custody and property cases, among others.
Massachusetts is the only state that allows gay marriage. New Jersey's high court ruled in October that the state must offer gay couples the same rights as married couples, but it left it to lawmakers to decide by April whether to call the unions "marriages."
Two other states have civil unions that extend marriage-like rights to same-sex couples _ Vermont in accordance with a court order and Connecticut through a vote of its legislature.
In Connecticut, attorneys for eight gay couples filed an appeal Wednesday with the Supreme Court in a case arguing that the 2005 decision there to legalize same-sex civil unions rather than marriage violates the couples' basic constitutional rights. The lawsuit, dismissed by a lower court in March, says civil unions are inferior in status to marriage.
___
Associated Press Writer Stephanie Reitz in Hartford, Conn., contributed to this report.
Sidestepping state lawmakers as he runs to the right for the White House, Gov. Mitt Romney is calling on the state’s highest court to force a 2008 vote on gay marriage.
Groups Mixed on Mary Cheney's Pregnancy By DAVID CRARY, AP National Writer 4 hours ago
NEW YORK - Conservative leaders voiced dismay Wednesday at news that Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of Dick Cheney, is pregnant, while a gay-rights group said the vice president faces "a lifetime of sleepless nights" for serving in an administration that has opposed recognition of same-sex couples.
Mary Cheney, 37, and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, 45, are expecting a baby in late spring, said Lea Anne McBride, a spokeswoman for the vice president.
"The vice president and Mrs. Cheney are looking forward with eager anticipation" to the arrival of their sixth grandchild, McBride said.
Mary Cheney was an aide to her father during the 2004 campaign, and now is vice president for consumer advocacy at AOL. She and Poe moved from Colorado to Virginia a year ago to be closer to the Cheney family.
Family Pride, which advocates on behalf of gay and lesbian families, noted that Virginia last month became one of 27 states with a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
"Unless they move to a handful of less restrictive states, Heather will never be able to have a legal relationship with her child," said Family Pride executive director Jennifer Chrisler.
The couple "will quickly face the reality that no matter how loved their child will be. ... he or she will never have the same protections that other children born to heterosexual couples enjoy," Chrisler said. "Grandfather Cheney will no doubt face a lifetime of sleepless nights as he reflects on the irreparable harm he and his administration have done to the millions of American gay and lesbian parents and their children."
For years, Mary Cheney's openness about her sexual orientation had posed a dilemma for conservative activists who admire Dick Cheney's stance on many issues but consider homosexuality a sin.
Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America described the pregnancy as "unconscionable."
"It's very disappointing that a celebrity couple like this would deliberately bring into the world a child that will never have a father," said Crouse, a senior fellow at the group's think tank. "They are encouraging people who don't have the advantages they have."
Crouse said there was no doubt that the news would, in conservatives' eyes, be damaging to the Bush administration, which already has been chided by some leaders on the right for what they felt was halfhearted commitment to anti-abortion and anti-gay-rights causes in this year's general election.
Carrie Gordon Earll, a policy analyst for the conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family, expressed empathy for the Cheney family but depicted the newly announced pregnancy as unwise.
"Just because you can conceive a child outside a one-woman, one-man marriage doesn't mean it's a good idea," said. "Love can't replace a mother and a father."
The vice president's office declined to elaborate on the circumstances of Mary Cheney's pregnancy.
The news was welcomed by the president of the largest national gay-rights group, Joe Solmonese of the Human Rights Campaign.
"Mary and Heather's decision to have a child is an example that families in America come in all different shapes and sizes," he said. "The bottom line is that a family is made up of love and commitment."
"Just because you can conceive a child outside a one-woman, one-man marriage doesn't mean it's a good idea," said. "Love can't replace a mother and a father."
What about all the single parents? Widows and widowers, divorced people who raise a kid by themselves? Many do a fine job raising a child by themselves.
Canada Won't Reopen Gay Marriage Debate By ROB GILLIES, Associated Press Writer 4 hours ago
TORONTO - Canada's Parliament voted Thursday not to reopen the gay marriage debate, letting stand a law passed last year that legalized marriage for same-sex couples.
During the last election campaign, Conservative leader Stephen Harper _ now the prime minister _ had promised to hold a vote in the House of Commons on whether Parliament should reconsider the issue.
Harper's government, which draws most of its support from the conservative west, was seeking to appease its base, even though Christian activists acknowledged this week the law would stand.
"We didn't expect it to carry, but it was defeated by a higher margin than we thought," said Charles McVety, head of the Defend Marriage movement.
Twelve Conservative members of Parliament, including several members of Harper's Cabinet, joined Liberals and other opposition parties to defeat the motion to reopen the debate, 175-123.
Harper said the vote would likely put the issue to rest. "I don't see reopening this question in the future," he said after the vote.
Gay marriage became legal in Canada last year under the previous Liberal government in response to a series of court rulings that gave gay people the right to marry. Thousands of gay Canadians, as well as foreign visitors, have gotten married.
Laurie Arron, national coordinator for Canadians for Equal Marriage, which led the effort to legalize gay marriage, said Thursday's vote reflects a growing consensus among Canadians that it is time to move on. Last year's vote to allow gay marriage was 158-133.
"It's clear that this issue is now settled. The vote today was quite overwhelming," Arron said.
Same-sex marriage is legal in four other countries: Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain and South Africa. In the United States, only the state of Massachusetts allows gay marriage. Vermont and Connecticut permit civil unions, California grants similar status through a domestic-partner registration law, and more than a dozen states give gay couples some legal rights.
Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or
Under pressure from New Jersey's highest court to offer marriage or its equivalent to gay couples, the state Legislature voted yesterday to make New Jersey the third state to allow civil unions.
Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine said he would sign the measure, which would extend to same-sex couples all the rights and privileges available under state law to married people. The bill passed the Assembly 56-19 and the Senate 23-12.
Corzine has said he prefers civil unions to gay marriage and promised a thorough review of the bill to ensure it doesn't bring unintended consequences. He did not say how soon he might sign the bill.
Massachusetts is the only state to allow gay marriage. Vermont and Connecticut have civil unions and California has domestic partnerships that work similarly.
Among the benefits gay couples would get under New Jersey's civil union bill are adoption rights, hospital visitation privileges and inheritance rights.
Quote: Beardguy57 said: ...it is a human rights issue. It's as simple as that.
But it isn't that simple. If its a "human rights" issue then you're saying that marriage is a "human right" and, therefore, the government may not be able regulate it.
But if the government can't regulate marriage at all, then what's to stop marriages between parents and adult children, siblings, etc?
Understand: from a basic public POLICY point I think there is a lot of validity to a legislatively enacted gay marriage. But calling it a "human right" makes the issue more, not less, complicated in a lot of ways.
Sorry, G Man, I can't debate this issue right now! I'm on the phone talking to my congressman! I'm trying to get a bill proposed in which it states I can marry my right hand!
Seriously, G Man.....we have been over this one MANY times already.. I think you'd have to be gay to know where I am coming from....
Quote: Beardguy57 said: ...it is a human rights issue. It's as simple as that.
But it isn't that simple. If its a "human rights" issue then you're saying that marriage is a "human right" and, therefore, the government may not be able regulate it.
But if the government can't regulate marriage at all, then what's to stop marriages between parents and adult children, siblings, etc?
Understand: from a basic public POLICY point I think there is a lot of validity to a legislatively enacted gay marriage. But calling it a "human right" makes the issue more, not less, complicated in a lot of ways.
I think I agree, actually. It's not a rights issue so much as a 'common decency' issue. The rights can be accorded via a civil union. The equality (which I think is entwined in the desire to actually 'marry') aspect is up to the good graces of the public.
Benefits for Gay Couples Start in N.J. By GEOFF MULVIHILL, Associated Press Writer 3 hours ago
TEANECK, N.J. - Shortly after midnight, Steven Goldstein and Daniel Gross renewed their vows as New Jersey became the third state in the nation to offer civil unions for gay couples.
The law that took effect Monday was "a big giant step forward," said state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, a prime sponsor of the civil unions law, who hosted ceremonies for couples including Goldstein and Gross.
The civil unions, which offer the legal benefits but not the title of marriage, were granted automatically to the hundreds of gay New Jersey couples who had previously been joined in civil unions or married in other states or nations.
For Goldstein and Gross, that meant reaffirming their Vermont civil union. They would have had the rights in New Jersey even without holding the midnight ceremony.
Their civil union license _ No. 1 _ was completed at 12:09 a.m. Monday by Teaneck registrar Laura Turnbull.
Elsewhere across the state, a handful of town halls opened at 12:01 a.m. to accept license applications from couples who had not been joined previously. They must wait 72 hours before they can hold civil union ceremonies _ just like with weddings _ and several planned to exchange vows early Thursday.
Among those couples were Marty Finkle and Michael Plake of South Orange. A few dozen friends, Finkle's 17-year-old daughter and several local officials cheered as they filled out paperwork in their town hall.
Finkle and Plake also were among the first New Jersey couples to register in a domestic partnership in 2004. Domestic partnerships offered a handful of the benefits and obligations of civil unions.
Among the many new benefits under the civil unions law, gay couples gain the rights to adoption, child custody, visiting a hospitalized partner and making medical decisions. They also now have the right not to testify against a partner in state court.
However, the federal government and most states do not recognize the unions. That means, for instance, that a surviving member of a civil union would not be entitled to his deceased partner's Social Security benefits. And if a partner is hospitalized in another state, the other may not have an automatic visitation right.
New Jersey lawmakers hastily created civil unions in December, less than two months after a state Supreme Court decision held that gay couples had a right to the same benefits as married couples.
Gay rights activists in the state say they'll continue to press for full marriage rights through both political channels and lawsuits. Some social conservative groups, meanwhile, are pledging to block same-sex marriage by pressing for an amendment to the state constitution that prohibits such unions.
Forty-five states have legal or constitutional bans on same-sex marriages. Only Massachusetts allows gay couples to marry, while California offers domestic partnerships.
Goldstein, chairman of the gay rights group Garden State Equality, and Gross, a vice president at Goldman Sachs, held their ceremony behind a desk in a cramped office.
There were several kisses, a prayer reading, friends and journalists, but no music, no dancing and none of the breaking-of-the-glass that is traditional in Jewish weddings.
The couple did that in a Jewish wedding service in Canada in 2002 _ the first same-sex union featured in the wedding pages of The New York Times _ and promised even grander festivities if they eventually gain the right to marry in New Jersey.
As part of their ceremony, their rabbi, Elliott Tepperman, asked the people gathered: "Do you vow to continue your support for true marriage equality?"
"This was really all about receiving a piece of paper that had some recognition of our status," Gross said.
Among the many new benefits under the civil unions law, gay couples gain the rights to adoption, child custody, visiting a hospitalized partner and making medical decisions. They also now have the right not to testify against a partner in state court.
However, the federal government and most states do not recognize the unions. That means, for instance, that a surviving member of a civil union would not be entitled to his deceased partner's Social Security benefits. And if a partner is hospitalized in another state, the other may not have an automatic visitation right.
New Jersey lawmakers hastily created civil unions in December, less than two months after a state Supreme Court decision held that gay couples had a right to the same benefits as married couples.
Gay rights activists in the state say they'll continue to press for full marriage rights through both political channels and lawsuits. Some social conservative groups, meanwhile, are pledging to block same-sex marriage by pressing for an amendment to the state constitution that prohibits such unions.
Forty-five states have legal or constitutional bans on same-sex marriages. Only Massachusetts allows gay couples to marry, while California offers domestic partnerships
Gay Marriage Critic Tried on Lewdness By JEFF LATZKE, Associated Press Writer 2 hours ago
OKLAHOMA CITY - The lawyer for a former Baptist church leader who had spoken out against homosexuality said Thursday the minister has a constitutional right to solicit sex from an undercover policeman.
The Rev. Lonnie W. Latham had supported a resolution calling on gays and lesbians to reject their "sinful, destructive lifestyle" before his Jan. 3, 2006, arrest outside the Habana Inn in Oklahoma City.
Authorities say he asked the undercover policeman to come up to his hotel for oral sex.
His attorney, Mack Martin, filed a motion to have the misdemeanor lewdness charge thrown out, saying the Supreme Court ruled in the 2003 decision Lawrence v. Texas that it was not illegal for consenting adults to engage in private homosexual acts.
"Now, my client's being prosecuted basically for having offered to engage in such an act, which basically makes it a crime to ask someone to do something that's legal," Martin said.
Both sides agree there was no offer of money, but prosecutor Scott Rowland said there is a "legitimate governmental interest" in regulating offers of acts of lewdness.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Oklahoma has filed a brief claiming that Latham's arrest also violated his right to free speech.
Before his arrest, Latham had spoken against same-sex marriage and in support of a Southern Baptist resolution that called upon gays and lesbians to reject their lifestyle.
He has since resigned as pastor of the South Tulsa Baptist Church and stepped down from the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention, where he was one of four members from Oklahoma.
On Thursday Latham declined to talk to reporters at the non-jury trial.
Judge Roma M. McElwee said she would rule on the motion and issue a verdict in about two weeks. If convicted of the misdemeanor, Latham faces up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
Gov. John Lynch told The Associated Press on Thursday he will sign legislation establishing civil unions in New Hampshire. New Hampshire thus will become the fourth state to adopt civil unions and the first to do so without first having a court fight over denying gays the right to marry.
Good for him. I've always said that I have no objection to gay marriage if created by legislation (as opposed to judicial fiat). Glad to see that at least one state finally did it the right way.
I'd like to be happy with these new developments if I wasn't half - expecting an amendment to the constitution that forbade gays to marry or have equal rights in this country.
I have heard that states would each have the choice to enforce such a hypothetical amendment or not, is this so,G - Man?
N.H. Lawmakers Approve Civil Unions
By BEVERLEY WANG, Associated Press Writer
1 hour ago
CONCORD, N.H. - New Hampshire lawmakers voted Thursday to authorize civil unions and sent the measure to Gov. John Lynch, who announced last week that he would sign it.
"This legislation is a matter of conscience, fairness and of preventing discrimination," said Colin Manning, a spokesman for the Democratic governor. "It is in keeping with New Hampshire's proud tradition of preventing discrimination."
Three other states already offer civil unions for gay couples: New Jersey, Connecticut and Vermont. Neighboring Massachusetts in 2004 became the only state to allow gay marriage.
Unlike other states, there was no active court challenge to push New Hampshire to act on the issue.
In fact, the success of civil unions was an about-face from two years earlier, when a study panel recommended New Hampshire giving no meaningful consideration to extending legal recognition to gay couples.
That panel had concluded that homosexuality was a choice, and it endorsed a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to unions between a man and a woman. State lawmakers have defeated proposed constitutional bans on same-sex marriage two years in a row.
Sponsors of the civil unions bill called it a door to marriage in all aspects but name. Opponents argued it would lead to the collapse of traditional values.
"Let's just call it what it really is, no sugarcoating," said Republican Sen. Robert Letourneau, of Derry. "This creates same-sex marriage. There is no right to marriage in either the New Hampshire Constitution or the federal Constitution."
"We don't let blind people drive or felons vote, all for good and obvious reasons," he said.
Thursday's legislation, passed 14-10 along party lines in the Senate _ Democrats in favor, Republicans opposed _ will allow civil unions in New Hampshire starting Jan. 1.
Washington, Maine, California, New York and Washington D.C., recognize domestic partnerships. New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer this week pledged to introduce gay marriage legislation in the next few weeks.
Oregon Gov. Signs Domestic Partner Bill By BRAD CAIN, Associated Press Writer 49 minutes ago
SALEM, Ore. - Oregon on Wednesday joined a growing list of states prepared to offer gay couples at least some of the benefits of marriage.
Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed legislation creating "domestic partnerships" for gays and lesbians in the state starting Jan. 1. He also signed a bill that outlaws discrimination based on sexual orientation, effective the same date.
Kulongoski, a strong backer of both measures, said they would "transform our state from one of exclusion to one of complete inclusion." The measures had been attempted before but were always blocked by the Legislature until this year.
The domestic partnership law will enable same-sex couples to enter into contractual relationships that carry many of the benefits offered to married couples. The other law will ban discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered people in employment, housing and access to public accommodations.
So far, only Massachusetts allows gay couples to marry. Vermont, Connecticut, California, New Jersey, Maine and Washington have laws allowing either civil unions or domestic partnerships, and Hawaii extends certain spousal rights to same-sex couples and cohabiting heterosexual pairs. The New Hampshire Legislature also recently approved a civil unions measure that Gov. John Lynch has said he will sign.
Russian Police Detain Gay Activists By JIM HEINTZ, Associated Press Writer 34 minutes ago
MOSCOW - Police detained gay rights activists, among them European lawmakers, as they tried to present a letter to Moscow's mayor Sunday, a demonstration that also attracted a hostile crowd of people who punched and threw eggs at the activists.
The letter, signed by some 40 European lawmakers, appealed the city's ban on a march that would have taken place Sunday to mark the 14th anniversary of Russia decriminalizing homosexuality.
But police quickly grabbed about a dozen demonstrators and forced them into a bus, including the Russian gay rights movement leader Nikolai Alexeyev. Police then hustled away others, including German parliament member Volker Beck, as opponents threw eggs and shouted: "Moscow is not Sodom."
Marco Cappato, a European Parliament deputy from Italy, was kicked by one opponent as he spoke to journalists. Cappato began shouting: "Where are the police? Why don't you protect us?" and officers hauled him away as he struggled.
The gay rights activists appeared to number fewer than 100, while roughly that many police were present.
Cappato's office said he and Ottavio Marzocchi, an official with the Liberal Democrats in the European parliament, were attacked by what it described as "neo-Nazis" and detained by police; Italian news agencies said Cappato was later released.
A total of 31 people were detained and most of them were later released, Moscow police spokesman Yevgeny Gildeyev said. He said two Italians were detained for jaywalking and a German was taken away by police to prevent him from being beaten.
But Beck, who was later released, told The Associated Press police beat him and the others and took their passports away.
Beck said he would ask the German government to pressure Russia to release three Russians who he said would be detained until at least Monday. The German Foreign Ministry had no immediate comment on Beck's request.
Beck also denied the group was holding a demonstration, insisting they were only trying to hand over the letter.
Despite being decriminalized, homosexuality is still widely despised in Russia.
Many of the gay rights opponents Sunday carried icons or other insignia of the Russian Orthodox Church, and one man wore the garb of an Orthodox priest.
A woman in the headscarf typical of devout Orthodox believers repeatedly threw water from a bottle at Peter Tatchell, a British human rights activist, as he tried to speak. A young man in a camouflage T-shirt then punched Tatchell in the head and Tatchell was led away by police.
No gay rights opponents were seen taken away by police, though Gildeyev said a man was detained after attacking a Briton, presumably referring to Tatchell.
The only Russian lawmaker to publicly state support for the demonstrators came from an unexpected wing: Alexei Mitrofanov of the ultranationalist Liberal Democratic Party.
"How can one act in such a manner, assuming Russia wants to be a part of Europe?" Mitrofanov said at the scene, according to the Interfax news agency.
Yulia Volkova and Lena Katina of the Russian pop group Tatu briefly appeared, but quickly left as their car was pelted with eggs. The duo has attracted worldwide attention in recent years with suggestive performances, though the singers have said they are not lesbians.
Watchdog Backs Off `Teletubbies' Comment By Associated Press 3 hours ago
WARSAW, Poland - Poland's watchdog for children's rights was quoted as saying she would ask psychologists to investigate whether the TV "Teletubbies" character Tinky Winky is gay. On Tuesday, she backed away from the comments.
Ewa Sowinska, ombudsman for children's rights, said in the latest edition of a magazine that the purse-carrying character on the British Broadcastinhg Corp.'s "Teletubbies" children's show could promote homosexuality.
Journalists from the weekly "Wprost" mentioned claims the "Teletubbies" promote homosexuality, to which Sowinska replied that she had heard of the issue. The journalists then asked about Tinky Winky.
"I noticed that he has a purse, but I didn't realize he's a boy. At first I thought that must be a bother for him," Sowinska told the magazine in an interview her office approved before publication. "Later I learned that there could be some hidden homosexual undertones."
Sowinska said she would ask her office's psychologists to look into the allegations "and judge whether it can be shown on public television and whether the suggested problem really exists."
On Tuesday, Sowinska's spokeswoman Wieslawa Lipinska told The Associated Press that Sowinska "hasn't asked and won't ask" psychologists to investigate whether "Teletubbies" promote homosexuality.
"They are fictional characters, they have nothing to do with reality, and the bag and scissors and other props the fictional characters use are there to create a fictional world that speaks to children," Lipinska said. "We are not going to deal with this issue any more."
Sowinska is a member of the League of Polish Families party, which is militantly anti-gay rights and anti-abortion. The party is a junior member in the coalition government led by Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.
A similar controversy erupted in the United States in 1999 when a publication belonging to the evangelical leader, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, suggested that Tinky Winky was gay.
In a statement Tuesday, the BBC denied the allegations against the program.
"Children love to play with bags of all kinds and this fascination is reflected in Tinky Winky's favorite thing," the BBC said. "To suggest the series has a political agenda is simply not true."
N.H. Governor Signs Civil Unions Law By BEVERLEY WANG, Associated Press Writer 2 hours ago
CONCORD, N.H. - Gay couples in New Hampshire will be able to join in civil unions starting next year under a bill Gov. John Lynch signed into law Thursday.
"We in New Hampshire have had a long and proud tradition taking the lead and opposing discrimination," Lynch said. "Today that tradition continues."
Couples who enter civil unions will have the same rights, responsibilities and obligations as married couples. Same-sex unions from other states also would be recognized if they were legal in the state where they were performed.
Legislators who gathered for the bill signing packed the governor's chambers and overflowed into an adjoining sitting room. They snapped photos and burst into applause as he signed it.
"I've listened and I've heard all the arguments," said Lynch, a Democrat. "I do not believe that this bill threatens marriage. I believe that this is a matter of conscience and fairness."
Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson also attended the bill signing. He and his longtime partner plan to take advantage of civil unions.
Massachusetts alone among the U.S. states allows gay marriage. Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, Maine, California and Washington allow either civil unions or domestic partnerships, and Oregon will join the list with New Hampshire in January. Hawaii extends certain spousal rights to same-sex couples and cohabiting heterosexual pairs.
New Hampshire is the first state to embrace same-sex unions without a court order or the threat of one. Connecticut adopted civil unions two years ago while a lawsuit was pending.
The bill's success was a turnabout from two years ago, when a study panel recommended against any meaningful consideration of civil unions and endorsed a constitutional amendment to limit marriage to unions between a man and a woman.
But Democrats won control of the Legislature last fall for the first time in more than a century. Civil unions passed both Houses largely along party lines, and Lynch promised to sign it.
Dallas Could Elect Its First Gay Mayor By JEFF CARLTON, Associated Press Writer 2 hours ago
DALLAS - This conservative metropolis could become the nation's largest city to elect an openly gay mayor if a longtime city council member wins a runoff election later this month.
Ed Oakley's candidacy is the latest indication that Dallas' reputation as a conservative stronghold is giving way to more diversity. The city is already home to several gay elected officials, including the sheriff.
"Dallas is less and less the Dallas that people think it is," said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University. "And Dallas is less and less the Dallas that it used to be."
In the mayoral race, Oakley and former construction company CEO Tom Leppert emerged from a crowded 11-candidate field that included another openly gay man and a transgendered woman. Oakley and Leppert will be the only candidates in the June 16 runoff.
But if Oakley, 54, is on the edge of history, he doesn't talk about it. His sexuality hasn't figured prominently in the campaign. Oakley said his internal polling showed it had little impact on voters.
"I have never made this an issue, a part of what I am or who I am or what I have done to represent the community," said Oakley, a small business owner.
Dallas, with a population of 1.2 million, is home to a growing gay community with an estimated 120,000 lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered households.
The city has nondiscrimination policies covering sexual orientation and gender identity and offers health insurance to the domestic partners of city employees, measures praised as progressive by local gay-rights activists.
"I think some people don't realize that Dallas is very diverse: economically, ethnically, culturally," said Pete Webb, president of the Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance.
That has helped mute any controversy about Oakley's sexuality in a state where two years ago voters approved a ban on gay marriage by a 3-to-1 margin.
There also are other signals of political shifts. In November, Dallas County Democrats swept Republicans out of power, winning 42 judicial races and six countywide offices. Among the winners was District Attorney Craig Watkins, the first Democrat to hold the position in more than two decades.
The public hasn't seemed interested in Oakley's sexuality, but voters also have been disinterested in the election itself. Only about 13 percent of registered voters turned out in the initial election. Leppert received fewer than 20,000 votes and Oakley fewer than 15,000.
That has local gay activists hitting the pavement to support him. Jesse Garcia, president of the Stonewall Democrats of Dallas, said his group "has gone into our gay bars and stressed early voting."
"We are very excited," Garcia said. "We have ... to galvanize the troops and let them know not only can we make history but we can keep Dallas progressive."
The biggest city with an openly gay mayor is Providence, R.I., where Mayor David N. Cicilline leads a city of 177,000. San Diego, with a population of about 1.2 million, briefly had an openly gay mayor in 2005, when a councilwoman was appointed to the position after a former mayor resigned and his interim replacement was convicted of corruption.
Oakley's supporters say the thrice-elected city council member has high name recognition among voters and a long history of involvement in city politics. He's been judged "as an incumbent member of the city council ... and not as a gay candidate," Jillson said.
"I'm not discounting Oakley based on who he likes or doesn't like, and I don't think people view him being gay as limiting to his ability to make decisions," said Mark Jones, a businessman who was having lunch with black professionals and church leaders in South Dallas. "This is not a town where homophobia will affect people's decisions."
Brazil's Gay Pride Parade Draws Millions By STAN LEHMAN, Associated Press Writer 4 hours ago
SAO PAULO, Brazil - Millions of people packed the streets of Sao Paulo for what organizers said was the world's largest gay pride parade, dancing and waving rainbow flags in a carnival-like atmosphere to condemn homophobia, racism and sexism.
At least 3 million people filled the canyonlike Paulista Avenue, organizers said, surpassing last year's count of 2.5 million. The larger count was confirmed by a police spokesman who is not authorized to be quoted by name under department rules.
"This is the biggest parade on the planet," Tourism Minister Marta Suplicy said. "Our city is showing, once again, its respect for diversity."
In comparison, recent gay pride parades in New York and San Francisco have drawn tens of thousands of people, and world gay pride day celebrations in Berlin in 2004 attracted between 200,000 and 500,000 participants.
Parade organizer Nelson Matias Pereira said this year's participants are appealing for a "world where racism, sexism and homophobia, in all their forms, no longer exist."
Trucks blasting disco and electronic music rolled through the streets, followed by marchers carrying banners with slogans such as "Dignity for All," and "All Forms of Love Bring Us Closer to God."
"There is no question the prejudice we have suffered for years has diminished a lot," said one marcher, mechanic Sebastiao Pereira Rodrigues, who was wearing black leather shorts and a tight purple T-shirt. "But it's still there and we still a long way to go,"
A lesbian couple who married in Massachusetts cannot get divorced in their home state of Rhode Island, the state's highest court ruled Friday in a setback to gay rights advocates who sought greater recognition for same-sex relationships.
The Rhode Island Supreme Court, in a 3-2 decision, said the family court lacks the authority to grant a divorce because state lawmakers have not defined marriage as anything other than between a man and a woman. . . .
Cassandra Ormiston and Margaret Chambers wed in Massachusetts in 2004 after that state became the first to legalize same-sex marriages. The couple filed for divorce last year in Rhode Island, where they both live, citing irreconcilable differences.
They can't get divorced in Massachusetts either, because that state has a residency requirement. That means that... "till death do them part"?
That was their appeal. It's a state matter, so I see no way for any federal courts to get involved. The problem they're having is that old Rhode Island laws specifically refer to marriage in man-woman terms.
quote:Originally posted by Harpy: Klinton, I want to comment on what you said. Some of it was dead on, but some of it was a little off, IMO. First of all, not all species have homosexual tendicies because not all species are sexual (bacteria are asexual for the most part). And even amongst those that procreate sexually, some actually have no gender until mating (like snails -- the one that gives the other snail its genetic material is considered the 'male'). Many plants have both male and female sex parts.
I think you meant animal species, but snails and other species can't really be defined as male-female. Fish change sexes all the time. As you go up the evolutionary ladder, there is a greater difference in the genders of each species. This is called 'sexual dimorphism' in case you are a Trivial Pursuit fan.
And these more advance animals tend to act homosexual as more as a dominant issue. One bitch willl hump another to prove she is the alpha female. Monkeys show the same behavior. So personally, I would invest more in the idea of genetics than using animals as an example. Using animals lowers oneself to their level, and that is no good way to win an arguement.
I had mammals in mind as I said that....so I dunno where snails, bacteria and shit fit into the picture. And in terms of 'lowering onself' I think the human tendancy to look at ourselves as somehow superior to everything else on the planet is a huge error, and the catalyst for all sorts of cruelties on this planet (but that is really the subject for another discuission).
In a ruling hailed as historic by gay rights activists, an appellate court ruled Friday that New York must recognize same-sex marriages legally consecrated elsewhere.
This appears to be the first appellate ruling in the country mandating that a state must recognize the same-sex marriage of a couple legally wed elsewhere, according to officials with the New York Civil Liberties Union.
The judges noted in the ruling that “for well over a century” New York has recognized marriages solemnized elsewhere unless they were cases of polygamy or incest. The state, for instance, has recognized marriages that could not be consecrated in New York, such as common-law marriages valid in other states, the judges ruled.
Openly gay comedienne and daytime talk show host Ellen DeGeneres, having recently taken the unusual step of weighing in on the Lawrence King murder, again "went political" on today's episode of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, addressing the ongoing controversy surrounding leaked audio of a speech given by Oklahoma State Rep. Sally Kern to what she thought was a private group of Republicans.
The recording has sparked public outcry and support alike nationwide after its debut on YouTube and concurrent campaign by the Gay & Lesbian Victory Fund. Kern has since come out in person, and through the Oklahoma House of Representatives' media office, to stand by her statements and her First Amendment rights.
The speech, which accused gays of "infiltrating" government posts in order to indoctrinate children in public schools and otherwise further the "homosexual agenda," prompted DeGeneres to attempt a phone call to Kern, to audience applause, during the show's taping.
"I feel like there's some misinformation going on here," Ellen said after playing clips of the speech, "and--I think I need to call her."
The automated voice mail system indicated that Kern's inbox was full.
"I bet!" Ellen responds out loud, before opting instead to leave a message for the legislator via television broadcast.
"Hi! It's Ellen DeGeneres," she opens. "The gay one."
The entire clip, including the full message to Rep. Kern, can be viewed below, as broadcast on the Ellen DeGeneres Show on March 12, 2008.
Funny thing is that Sally Kern allegedly has a gay son. As does Alan Keyes, Brit Hume, Phyllis Schlafly..etc. etc.
Gay couples had to struggle mightily to win the right to marry or form civil unions. Now, some are finding that breaking up is hard to do, too.
In Rhode Island, for example, the state's top court ruled in December that gays married in neighboring Massachusetts can't get divorced here because lawmakers have never defined marriage as anything but a union between a man and woman. In Missouri, a judge is deciding whether a lesbian married in Massachusetts can get an annulment.
"We all know people who have gone through divorces. At the end of that long and unhappy period, they have been able to breathe a sigh of relief," said Cassandra Ormiston of Rhode Island, who is splitting from her wife, Margaret Chambers. But "I do not see that on my horizon, that sigh of relief that it's over."
Over the past four years, Massachusetts has been the only state where gay marriage is legal, while nine other states allow gay couples to enter into civil unions or domestic partnerships that offer many of the rights and privileges of marriage. The vast majority of these unions require court action to dissolve.
Gay couples who still live in the state where they got hitched can split up with little difficulty; the laws in those states include divorce or dissolution procedures for same-sex couples. But gay couples who have moved to another state are running into trouble.
Massachusetts, at least early on, let out-of-state gay couples get married there practically for the asking. But the rules governing divorce are stricter. Out-of-state couples could go back to Massachusetts to get divorced, but they would have to live there for a year to establish residency first.
"I find that an unbelievably unfair burden. I own a home here, my friends are here, my life is here," said Ormiston, who is resigned to moving to Massachusetts for a year.
It's not clear how many gay couples have sought a divorce.
In Massachusetts, where more than 10,000 same-sex couples have married since 2004, the courts don't keep a breakdown of gay and heterosexual divorces. But Joyce Kauffman, a member of the Massachusetts Lesbian and Gay Bar Association, said probably more than 100 gay divorces have been granted in Massachusetts, and possibly many more.
She said she suspects the divorce rate among gays is lower than that among heterosexual couples, because many of the same-sex couples who got married in Massachusetts had probably been together for years.
Vermont has dissolved 2 percent of the 8,666 civil unions performed there since they became legal in 2000. Those numbers do not include couples who split up in another state.
Chambers and Ormiston wed in Massachusetts in 2004 and filed for divorce in 2006. But the Rhode Island Supreme Court last winter refused to recognize their marriage. That means at least 90 other gay couples from the state who got married in Massachusetts would not be able to divorce in Rhode Island if they wanted to.
Getting a divorce could prove toughest in some of the 40 states that have explicitly banned or limited same-sex unions, lawyers say.
In Missouri, which banned gay marriage in 2001, a conservative lawmaker has urged a judge not to grant an annulment to a lesbian married in Massachusetts.
Oregon started allowing gay couples to form domestic partnerships this year. But to prevent problems similar to those in Massachusetts, lawmakers added a provision that allows couples to dissolve their partnerships in Oregon even if they have moved out of state.
The measure is modeled on California's domestic partnership system and represents a major change in the usual rules governing jurisdiction.
"It's a novel concept in the family law area," said Oregon lawyer Beth Allen, who works with Basic Rights Oregon, a gay rights group.
Same-sex couples can form civil unions in Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey and New Hampshire. They can enter into domestic partnerships or receive similar benefits in California, Oregon, Maine, Washington, Hawaii and the District of Columbia.
New York does not permit gay marriage, but a judge there has allowed a lesbian married in Canada to seek a divorce. In 2005, Iowa's Supreme Court upheld the breakup of a lesbian couple who entered into a civil union in Vermont.
Some Rhode Island lawmakers are pushing to legalize gay divorce. But Gov. Don Carcieri, a Republican who opposes gay marriage, is against the idea. So are church leaders in the heavily Roman Catholic state.
"Whatever name they want to give to it, it is a recognition of same-sex unions," said the Rev. Bernard Healey, a lobbyist for Catholic Diocese of Providence.
A lesbian couple who married in Massachusetts cannot get divorced in their home state of Rhode Island, the state's highest court ruled Friday in a setback to gay rights advocates who sought greater recognition for same-sex relationships.
The Rhode Island Supreme Court, in a 3-2 decision, said the family court lacks the authority to grant a divorce because state lawmakers have not defined marriage as anything other than between a man and a woman. . . .
Cassandra Ormiston and Margaret Chambers wed in Massachusetts in 2004 after that state became the first to legalize same-sex marriages. The couple filed for divorce last year in Rhode Island, where they both live, citing irreconcilable differences.
They can't get divorced in Massachusetts either, because that state has a residency requirement. That means that... "till death do them part"?
Or you could post that shit at Kamphausen's boards. Home of dumbshit comic geeks. I tried for ages to argue the gay marriage thing with some Christian fuckknob and the guy still refuses to grasp the basic concepts of reason and compassion.
I have a couple of questions? Do you really have a "friend" who wrote this or are you so spineless that you made your friend up? It's funnt that you call this the home of dumbshit comic geeks, and yet you Knoll nerds are so scared of differing views you wont approve membership of anyone who won't join in the clique mentality. Fact is, these boards are home to the NB's the most powerful force in the online world, you jealousy speaks volumes! You may now go back to you falling over each other for reaffirmation at the Knoll....we win again!
Is that the same Danny who was falling all over himself to get accepted by the NBs?
Or you could post that shit at Kamphausen's boards. Home of dumbshit comic geeks. I tried for ages to argue the gay marriage thing with some Christian fuckknob and the guy still refuses to grasp the basic concepts of reason and compassion.
I have a couple of questions? Do you really have a "friend" who wrote this or are you so spineless that you made your friend up? It's funnt that you call this the home of dumbshit comic geeks, and yet you Knoll nerds are so scared of differing views you wont approve membership of anyone who won't join in the clique mentality. Fact is, these boards are home to the NB's the most powerful force in the online world, you jealousy speaks volumes! You may now go back to you falling over each other for reaffirmation at the Knoll....we win again!
Is that the same Danny who was falling all over himself to get accepted by the NBs?
how can you be accepted by that which does not exist?
Just heard this on the radio and don't know how accurate it is, but thought it interesting.
Supposedly, the Obama victory is part of the reason that so many of those anti-gay marriage ballot measures passed. Obama's candidacy got out the vote, including the African American vote and, in general, African Americans tend to be opposed to gay marriage.
As a result, people who might have otherwise not showed up to vote against the gay marriage propositions came out in force.
For all the liberal demonization of Carrie Prejean for her very respectful expression of dissent from the politically correct liberal endorsement of gay marriage, no mention at all, NONE, is made of the fact there is virtually no difference between her expressed view, and that of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and any number of other prominent Democrats.
For conservatives who express lack of support for gay marriage, the liberal response is demonization, insults and slander beyond belief.
For liberal-Democrats who express the same opinion, it is ignored and virtually un-reported, and given a free pass.
For all the liberal demonization of Carrie Prejean for her very respectful expression of dissent from the politically correct liberal endorsement of gay marriage, no mention at all, NONE, is made of the fact there is virtually no difference between her expressed view, and that of Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and any number of other prominent Democrats.
For conservatives who express lack of support for gay marriage, the liberal response is demonization, insults and slander beyond belief.
For liberal-Democrats who express the same opinion, it is ignored and virtually un-reported, and given a free pass.
Take out all the wonder boyisms and I agree with this post.
Not really. I didn't expect much from Obama other than keeping the status quo. This was an election I didn't really worry about the gay rights stuff since I also felt McCain would have also done the same thing.
Gay Leaders Blame TV Ads, Obama for Loss in Maine: Gay activists were frustrated that Obama, who insists he staunchly supports their overall civil rights agenda, didn't speak out forcefully in defense of Maine's marriage law before Tuesday's referendum.
Winning with Marriage: The pundits say opposition to gay marriage is a losing issue. The voters disagree, again and again — most recently, last week in Maine
Local gay activist Albert M. Toney III has been charged with sexually assaulting a 17-year-old youth last month in the locker room of the YMCA.
A criminal complaint was issued June 28 charging Mr. Toney, 43, of 36 Fairview Ave., Holden, with two counts of indecent assault and battery, according to Central District Court records.
The 17-year-old told investigators he was standing in front of a fan in the locker room of the YMCA at 766 Main St. June 15 when Mr. Toney, who was nude, approached him from behind, grabbed his buttock and pressed himself up against him without his consent, according to a statement filed in court by police Sgt. John W. Lewis. . . .
A longtime gay activist and advocate for gay and lesbian youth, he is president of AK Consulting Services, an education/diversity training and consulting company.
He was active in the campaign for same-sex marriage rights in Massachusetts and was the first openly gay candidate to run for Worcester City Council.
If this story involved a Catholic priest, it might make headlines outside of Worcester, Mass.
Why the Evil Koch Bros. Must be Stopped. If the anti-union thing weren't enough, here are bigger and better reasons to stop the evil Kochs. They are trying to:
1. decriminalize drugs, 2. legalize gay marriage, 3. repeal the Patriot Act, 4. end the police state, 5. cut defense spending.
If you turn your ear towards the midwest you can almost hear MEM's brain cells popping.
I read that the Koch brothers had hired a PR firm.
They may be for gay marriage but that's hardly a big issue for most people compared to their wages and drinking water. Plus considering the elected officials that they've bought and paid for are not for gay marriage, it's really meaningless.
In historic vote, NY Senate passes same-sex marriage bill: The New York bill cleared the Republican-controlled state Senate on a 33-29 vote. The Democrat-led Assembly, which passed a different version last week, is expected to pass the new version with stronger religious exemptions and Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who campaigned on the issue last year, has promised to sign it. Same-sex couples can begin marrying begin 30 days after that.
No doubt NY Republicans did it to not alienate political support. If states individually want gay marriage, or abortion, or whatever, I think that is the people of that state's right. And those who don't like it can move to a state that shares their legal opinion. But needless to say, abortion was shoved down everyone's throat in 1973, and gay activists have voiced their intent to similarly leverage gay marriage. I have less of a problem with gay marriage if at some point it is voted for by a majority, rather than forced on the people by elites, and conversely (like border security and Proposition 8) where a handful of elites overturn the majority choice of millions of voters, when voting doesn't go the way liberals want. That is tyranny, not democracy.
I only oppose gay marriage because I see it as 1) not marriage (man-woman) as clearly defined for 6000 years by both religious and secular law, 2) the push for gay marriage shows every evidence --as voiced by the ACLU/gay community-- of being a legal beachhead to impose gay marriage on those who have a religious or personal objection to it 3) can also be used to make any religious mention of homosexuality "hate speech" and a crime punishable by fines or imprisonment.
My argument has not changed. The same evidence I cited in years prior is still there, about the stated goals of gays and liberals to use this as a weapon against Constitutionally protected religious freedom. Gays already have rights. They already have civil union, can live and work without persecution.
This is about gays and progressives building the momentum to stomp on others' rights and freedoms.
You've become a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of yourself.
You've become a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of a parody of yourself.
What you post manifests no intelligence. It's just the posting equivalent of vandalism.
impose gay marriage on those who have a religious or personal objection to it
You have to understand poor Wondy, he really believes a gaypist is gonna show up on his house now and homo-marry him. In the ass.
No, I just know what liberals have stated as their objectives, that they are pursuing. And dislike their tactics of slander, harassment, intimidation, and when all else fails, legislating from the bench.
New York is a liberal state, and it was a very close vote. But I seriously wonder if even a majority of New Yorkers want this. As I said, Proposition 8 was voted AGAINST in California (opposing gay marriage) and a liberal court just tossed it out.
I wonder how New York state liberals would feel if a conservative court was able to overturn this vote, and did.
I'm more concerned about the momentum they are building, to ram it down the throats of all 50 states.
If some states have it and some states don't, by will of the voters, so be it. When courts or even legislators make those elitist decisions for everyone, I don't recognize that as the will of the governed.
I personally would still like to see states decide on the basis of referendum and popular votes, but if elected representatives are voting on it the people are still represented at least a little. again, a state-by-state basis is still preferable to a federal-level decision IMO because it allows for the most accurate representation of the will of the people.
I personally would still like to see states decide on the basis of referendum and popular votes, but if elected representatives are voting on it the people are still represented at least a little. again, a state-by-state basis is still preferable to a federal-level decision IMO because it allows for the most accurate representation of the will of the people.
That would be the same as my crazy "embarassment to conservatives" opinion that I just posted above, that you just agreed with.
For all the partisan demagoguery of conservatives, and all the RKMB silliness here, it's still a very reasonable opinion. Will of the people, not the elites.
Except when the people vote against gay marriage ( or stricter immigration enforcement, or abortion) and then activist courts arbitrarily overturn it. Would that the rule of law cut both ways, whether the majority ruling is conservative or liberal.
It's the job of elected representatives to pass laws. Referendums are, more often than not, just a way for politicians to dodge their duties. New York did it right.
It's the job of elected representatives to pass laws. Referendums are, more often than not, just a way for politicians to dodge their duties. New York did it right.
I'm not sure I see your point.
It seems to me that majority popular vote is more precisely representative of the people.
We've seen time after time that our elected leaders are influenced by lobbyists, campaign finance, and other pockets of wealth that promote their own interests over those of the nation and its people.
Was Obamacare the duty of our Senate and Congress? Stimulus? Omnibus? Cap-and-Trade? No. It was clear influence-peddling for a hidden agenda, against the best interests of the nation and the popular will of American people.
It's the job of elected representatives to pass laws. Referendums are, more often than not, just a way for politicians to dodge their duties. New York did it right.
I'm not sure I see your point....
We have a representative form of government. We do so, in no small part, because we want our officials to have some discretion to study and consider the pros and cons of legislation before it becomes law. It's a way to limit the potential for "mob rule" and the tyranny of the majority over the weak and the innocent.
It's the job of elected representatives to pass laws. Referendums are, more often than not, just a way for politicians to dodge their duties. New York did it right.
I'm not sure I see your point....
We have a representative form of government. We do so, in no small part, because we want our officials to have some discretion to study and consider the pros and cons of legislation before it becomes law. It's a way to limit the potential for "mob rule" and the tyranny of the majority over the weak and the innocent.
Originally Posted By: WB
We've seen time after time that our elected leaders are influenced by lobbyists, campaign finance, and other pockets of wealth that promote their own interests over those of the nation and its people.
Was Obamacare the duty of our Senate and Congress? Stimulus? Omnibus? Cap-and-Trade? No. It was clear influence-peddling for a hidden agenda, against the best interests of the nation and the American people.
Add to that the shakedown intimidation tactics of Jesse Jackson, ACORN, and gay activist groups, where a tiny minority harasses and intimidates to ram through corrupt policy.
So WB what would you propose here? Honestly it seems like you don't have a problem in general with elected officials making laws before this. Is it just this issue and maybe a couple of others that you want treated differently?
So WB what would you propose here? Honestly it seems like you don't have a problem in general with elected officials making laws before this. Is it just this issue and maybe a couple of others that you want treated differently?
I propose that on heartfelt issues, like abortion and gay marriage or border security, where there is polarizing opinion, that the only way to legislate these things fairly is (1) by popular vote. (Where even a legislative vote like this one in New York state is unacceptable, because it no doubt is a political decision maneuvered behind the scenes, and not credibly representative of what the people of that state really want. It was 29 Democrats, who managed to leverage an additional 4 Republican votes, not an overwhelming consensus.)
And (2) where will of the people is upheld, whether popular opinion goes for the way of liberals or conservatives. It's an outrage to me that Proposition 8 knocked down gay marriage in Nov 2008 --in liberal-heavy California of all places-- and a higher court liberal judge just threw the law out, despite it being the clear popular consensus will of California voters.
As I said above, these changes in controversial social policy should clearly be will of the people, not the elites.
If states individually want gay marriage, or abortion, or whatever, I think that is the people of that state's right. And those who don't like it can move to a state that shares their legal opinion. But needless to say, abortion was shoved down everyone's throat in 1973, and gay activists have voiced their intent to similarly leverage gay marriage. I have less of a problem with gay marriage if at some point it is voted for by a majority, rather than forced on the people by elites, and conversely (like border security and Proposition 8) where a handful of elites overturn the majority choice of millions of voters, when voting doesn't go the way liberals want. That is tyranny, not democracy.
I propose that on heartfelt issues, like abortion and gay marriage or border security, where there is polarizing opinion, that the only way to legislate these things fairly is (1) by popular vote.
If you think ACORN, et al, is capable of stealing elections for public office why do you think they can't do it with referenda? For example, look at the "astroturf" going on in Wisconsin, where the unions and the DNC are trying to organize recall votes.
Quote:
...even a legislative vote like this one in New York state is unacceptable, because it no doubt is a political decision maneuvered behind the scenes, and not credibly representative of what the people of that state really want. It was 29 Democrats, who managed to leverage an additional 4 Republican votes, not an overwhelming consensus.
Actually, the polls I've seen show that a majority of New Yorkers support gay marriage. You need to remember that this is a liberal state. Even republicans here are often moderate to liberal.
So WB what would you propose here? Honestly it seems like you don't have a problem in general with elected officials making laws before this. Is it just this issue and maybe a couple of others that you want treated differently?
I propose that on heartfelt issues, like abortion and gay marriage or border security, where there is polarizing opinion, that the only way to legislate these things fairly is (1) by popular vote. (Where even a legislative vote like this one in New York state is unacceptable, because it no doubt is a political decision maneuvered behind the scenes, and not credibly representative of what the people of that state really want. It was 29 Democrats, who managed to leverage an additional 4 Republican votes, not an overwhelming consensus.)
Do you think there could ever be a consensus as to what constitutes a "heartfelt issue"? Also as G-man points out there are polls that show this law is actually representative of voters. That's why I think you had some republicans vote for it. They want to get elected again.
I propose that on heartfelt issues, like abortion and gay marriage or border security, where there is polarizing opinion, that the only way to legislate these things fairly is (1) by popular vote.
If you think ACORN, et al, is capable of stealing elections for public office why do you think they can't do it with referenda? For example, look at the "astroturf" going on in Wisconsin, where the unions and the DNC are trying to organize recall votes.
I never actually gave the Left credit for being able to rig a popular election. Unions are an estimated 7% of the private sector, and obviously much larger percent of the public sector (teachers, civil service, police, firefighters..) but ultimately still a minority of the total population. I give them credit for using their smaller numbers through organized intimidation tactics (a la ACORN and SEIU) to leverage an advantage over a less vocal and less organized majority.
The thought that they could rig a popular election is scary stuff. With all the federalizing of private sectors of the economy, you may be right that they now are a majority. But I see many of the people in these sectors resisting federal takeover, rather than going along with it. But you may be right. Unions, SEIU and so forth might be able to rig a popular election now. I may have under-estimated them.
Originally Posted By: the G-man
Quote:
...even a legislative vote like this one in New York state is unacceptable, because it no doubt is a political decision maneuvered behind the scenes, and not credibly representative of what the people of that state really want. It was 29 Democrats, who managed to leverage an additional 4 Republican votes, not an overwhelming consensus.
Actually, the polls I've seen show that a majority of New Yorkers support gay marriage. You need to remember that this is a liberal state. Even republicans here are often moderate to liberal.
I acknowledged that N Y is a liberal state, where no doubt many support gay marriage. The N Y Daily news poll you cited says 56% of New York staters support gay marriage. My point is that still leaves a large minority (44%) who do NOT support gay marriage. And that large minority will not feel represented by this vote.
The NY state gay marriage vote was supported by 29 Democrats and only 4 Republicans.
Quote:
In the end, 29 of 30 Democrats voted in favor of the bill, and four of 32 Republicans voted yes.
Obamacare was supported by a similarly "bipartisan" (i.e. very small Republican support) majority. Obamacare was leveraged through by people offered political favors for their votes. I question what favors or intimidation were used to leverage votes, both Democrat and Republican, in New York state.
Actually, the polls I've seen show that a majority of New Yorkers support gay marriage. You need to remember that this is a liberal state. Even republicans here are often moderate to liberal.
Originally Posted By: Wonder Boy
I acknowledged that N Y is a liberal state, where no doubt many support gay marriage. The N Y Daily news poll you cited says 56% of New York staters support gay marriage. My point is that still leaves a large minority (44%) who do NOT support gay marriage. And that large minority will not feel represented by this vote.
Assuming the polls are accurate, a referendum would have passed 56-44% in favor of gay marriage. So the "large minority" would still "not feel represented" by the vote.
Every election has a side that wins and a side that loses. There is simply no reason to assume that a referendum would somehow be "more fair" than an act of the duly-elected legislature.
Well, speaking as a voter, even if in the 44% minority, I still would feel it more legitimate if gay marriage, abortion, or whatever social issue, were voted into law by popular vote, rather than by court ruling, legislative vote, or presidential mandate.
I acknowledge your point that popular vote can be rigged too. But, perhaps naively, I see that as less likely and harder to pull off.
Well, in the specific case we're discussing of the New York state legislature...
Originally Posted By: article
In the end, 29 of 30 Democrats voted in favor of the bill, and four of 32 Republicans voted yes.
...it was legislative representatives, not the actual people, and the hidden backroom negotiations that led to just 4 Republicans approving to legalize gay marriage.
Again, if it was the clear will of the people, I wouldn't have a problem with it, I wouldn't question it. But it was a narrow margin of victory, and there is some question whether that is truly the will of the people, or just a few Republicans (and/or Democrats) caving in as part of some sleazy compromise, against the will of the people.
I don't know why they couldn't just do it on a popular ballot, either back a few months ago in the Nov 2010 election, or in the upcoming Nov 2012 election, so that it would have been the clear will of New York voters, as opposed to arguably being just the whim or compromise of a few elite legislators, that arguably flies in the face of what voters really want.
Again, it really bugs me that nationwide, liberal judges shoot down clear majority rulings in favor of more conservative mandates, such as Proposition 8 and Proposition 187, whereas a liberal vote like gay marriage in New York state is accepted as legitimate and gospel truth.
AUBURN — Marriage equality in New York passed another landmark Monday, as an Auburn Correctional Facility inmate married his boyfriend in the state’s first same-sex marriage ceremony behind bars.
The inmate, 31-year-old Ronald Cook, married 34-year-old Marc Rodriguez, a former Auburn inmate, in a simple civil ceremony Monday morning.
The two men met in the prison in 2002, Rodriguez said.
The romance developed slowly — Rodriguez, known in prison as “Sunshine,” has been openly gay since he was 12 years old, but Cook had never been in a same-sex relationship before.
“Sometimes it’s hard to maintain because you’ve got to keep it hidden,” Rodriguez said. “The officers have comments, but that goes with the territory of being gay.”
When Rodriguez was released in 2004 after a four-year sentence for robbery, he tore up his bus ticket to the Bronx, where he’s from, and instead moved to Syracuse to be nearer to Cook.
The two men had discussed getting married before marriage equality became the law this spring, Rodriguez said. They almost had to call it off after Rodriguez got in a car accident Sunday, but he showed up on time Monday with a nasty set of stitches on his nose and forehead.
They exchanged rings Monday -- diamonds for Rodriguez and a plain wedding band for Cook, on account of prison regulations.
Rodriguez bought Cook a pair of boots for a wedding present, but prison officials would not let him keep them, Rodriguez said.
The justice of the peace was Ray Lockwood. The former chairman of the Cayuga County Legislature has officiated many weddings behind bars, but never between two men.
I'm sure there were gay marriages in prison many times before this, but they just weren't officially recognized. If you know what I mean.
Another state that does it the right way (legislatively), and not by judicial fiat:
The Maryland legislature has passed and Gov. Martin O'Malley has signed a bill defining marriage to include same-sex couples. The legislation will take effect in January 2013 unless a proposed November referendum question overturns it. If the law remains intact, Maryland will become the eighth state with same-sex marriage.
Biden Endorses Same-Sex Marriage: This morning on Meet the Press, Vice President Joe Biden ignited controversy when he endorsed same-sex marriage, forcing a quick quasi-walkback by Obama campaign head David Axelrod.
Why would the Obama campaign have to "walk back" from Biden's comments unless "the One" opposes gay marriage?
It does conflict with the Muslim faith, I suppose.
It's also one that fully explores both sides of the issue, and I prefer not to toss all that out.
This editorial explores why gays/liberals are winning the argument in recent years: by obstructing debate on the issue, to hard-sell the gay/liberal perspective, through one-sided debate and intimidation:
Think of us as crew members on the starship Enterprise of the Star Trek TV show, boldly going where no one has gone before. This is what it feels like challenging the Homosexuality Is Normal Movement. It is extremely dangerous.
Homosexual activists attempt to humiliate and politically destroy anyone who dares even criticize their agenda. Meanwhile, the MSM (mainstream media) casts us who believe marriage should remain between one man and one woman as the aggressors, as hate-filled villains.
Have the Homosexuality Is Normal Movement stolen our kids? Despicably, while we were not looking, homosexual activists sneaked their agenda in the back doors of our elementary schools, indoctrinating our kids early. Unquestionably, lack of access to your child for indoctrination contributes to the Left's hatred for home schools and their relentless attempts to close them down.
Here is another example of homosexual activists' in-your-face, aggressive indoctrination of our kids. A Massachusetts charter school, grades 7-12, will host a production of the play "The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told," a retelling of the biblical story of Genesis with gay characters. Keep in mind that American schools have a cow when a kid brings a Bible or wears a t-shirt with religious, patriotic, or U.S. Military images. And yet, this school gleefully hosts a play which blasphemes Christianity while promoting homosexuality.
Our forty-year-old son and twenty-year-old granddaughter support homosexual marriage. Their attitude is What's the big deal? It is only fair that gays be allowed to marry. America's youths are parroting the liberals' argument that opposition to same-sex marriage is discriminatory and bigoted. According to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, support for gay marriage is at 65 percent among those 18 to 29 years old. The gay marriage approval rating is probably even higher among high school kids.
A twenty-something-year-old Christian youth pastor picked me up from the airport in California. Justifying his support of same-sex marriage, he said, "God does not care who we love." Wow, I could hardly believe my ears. This young man, who claimed to be a minister of God, chose to ignore the Bible and spout the liberal pop-culture spin.
From cooking shows to home improvement and everything in between, it has become difficult to watch TV without the Homosexuality Is Normal agenda being forced down your throat. If you do not believe that these people are outrageously aggressive, listen to this. The Green Street United Methodist Church will not perform heterosexual marriages until gays can marry.
I have dear friends and beloved relatives who are homosexual. I am loving and kind to their mates. My 85-year-old dad has been a Christian pastor over 50 years. Dad said he loves the homosexuals in his life, but they know where he stands on this topic, which is the biblical view.
Dad's tolerance is not enough to please the aggressive Homosexuality Is Normal Movement bullying America today. They seek to politically bend Dad's arm behind his back, forcing him to declare homosexuality normal, against his faith.
My point is, homosexual activists are extremely aggressive while portraying themselves as innocent victims of an intolerant society. In reality, we who believe in traditional values are the ones being bullied. The MSM gang vilifies anyone who dares to stand up for traditional marriage. Come hell or high water, they are going to make us embrace homosexuality as being normal by severely punishing those who refuse to comply.
And will someone please tell me why homosexual activists are so hell-bent on forcing Christian institutions to betray their faith by embracing the homosexual agenda? Homosexual activists have sued the Boy Scouts of America and launched a war on the Catholic Church.
No one is opposing homosexuals doing their own thing. Rather than aggressively trying to infiltrate the Boy Scouts and the Catholic Church, why not form their own Fabulous Scouts of America and the Church of If It Feels Good, Do It, and leave Christian institutions be?
Christian institutions are simply saying you cannot come into our house and force us to change the rules - especially when those rules come from God. And what is the MSM's response to Christian institutions defending their religious freedom? The MSM campaigns to brand the Boy Scouts of America and the Catholic Church intolerant haters. We are living in crazy, insidious, evil times.
The Homosexuality Is Normal Movement takes no prisoners - not even new Pope Francis. They have already begun finding fault with him because he is against gay marriage and gay adoption.
Question: will homosexual activists get away with branding the pope a hater?
The Homosexuality Is Normal Movement is not made up of passive, well-meaning victims simply seeking tolerance and their place in the sun. They are relentless, vicious, and hell-bent on forcing all of us, particularly Christians, to say their behavior is normal.
For an article that is supposed to be about gays being bullies, the writer probably should have included some examples. Not agreeing with you doesn't make me a bully or you a victim.
I agree he should have listed more specific examples. But we both know that "homophobe" and other labels, harassment and intimidation await anyone who opposes gay marriage.
This article discusses the slippery slope a U.S. Supreme Court ruling would create for Pedophelia, BDSM and other abberant and criminal sexual practices, that would ride in on the back of gay legislation:
An America that abandons thousands of years of tradition and common sense is an America that has set itself firmly on a path toward decline. That is the central issue of gay marriage that the Supreme Court will struggle to determine. A similar experience in social engineering gave us the federal protection of abortion and the murder of an entire generation of the unborn.
What we are witnessing is the tyranny of a determined minority, gays, lesbians, and transsexuals in America, barely three percent of the population, demanding that their particular sexual orientation should be codified in law by redefining marriage for everyone else. This isn’t about equality. It’s about special privileges and the destruction of marriage as solely between a man and a woman.
Imagine if the court had agreed with the early Mormon Church and established polygamy as the law of the land? In 1890, the Supreme Court ruled in The Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints v. United States that “the organization of a community for the spread and practice of polygamy is, in a measure, a return to barbarism. It is contrary to the spirit of Christianity and of the civilization which Christianity had produced in the Western world.”
The Tenth Amendment states that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.” If the Supreme Court strikes down the decision of voters in California to prohibit gay marriage, it will have to ignore the Tenth Amendment. At this point in time, 41 States have passed laws protecting traditional marriage.
As one observer noted, if gay marriage is deemed legal by the Supreme Court, what would prevent the North American Man/Boy Love Association from demanding that their claim that sex with children is valid?
A rational society must have rational laws and the Constitution, which limits the powers of the federal government, makes it clear that the states have the right to determine their own response to such issues. Throwing overboard centuries of English law and the Constitution to favor gays and lesbians opens the doors to an “anything goes” society.
As a March 27 Wall Street Journal editorial noted, “The Supreme Court wrapped up its second day of oral argument on a pair of gay marriage cases Wednesday, and the Justices on the left and right seemed genuinely discomfited by the radicalism of redefining the institution (of marriage) for all 50 states.” Make no mistake about it, the demand for gay marriage is radical and would transform our society from one that has respected thousands of years of tradition and practice to one that abandons a religious and cultural norm to one that undermines society.
The cases before the Supreme Court arrive at the same time the nation has reelected a President who made clear that his objective is to “transform” our society from one that became a superpower based as much on its moral leadership as on its military and economic strength. The result thus far has been to impose a huge debt that will impact generations to come, undermines our ability to project strength, and threatens the value of the dollar. The Obama administration is currently trying to deprive Americans of the Second Amendment right to own firearms in the event a tyrannical government should occur.
The result, not surprisingly, has been an increase in the use of nullification by the states as they pass laws making it clear they do not intend to implement Obamacare as in the case of Indiana, South Carolina, and others. Six state legislatures already have bills filed that would prohibit cooperation with any attempt to indefinitely detain people without due process under a provision of the NDAA.
Several states, including Wyoming, will consider blocking any federal actions violating the Second Amendment. Florida, Indiana, and Missouri will look at legislation prohibiting spying by domestic drones. The Tenth Amendment Center has developed a legislative tracking page on its website because of this growing movement to resist federal mandates.
Sexual mores, the devaluation of our currency, and the general decline of moral values has plenty of precedent in history, most notably the decline of the Roman Empire. America fought a Civil War over the moral issue of slavery, ending it. It granted the right to vote to women. It stumbled badly with Prohibition, but abandoned it. All central governments tend to over-reach.
The Supreme Court’s decision on abortion is now being resisted as states begin to pass legislation to limit this practice in order to protect the lives of the unborn.
The President and other politicians who favor gay marriage, supported by a liberal media, will not have the last word. This is not about equality. It is about fundamental morality and, should America abandon that, it will cease to be a great nation no matter what path other nations may take.
Actually "traditional" marriage has evolved all along. Sometimes it's allowed for polygamy and for most of it's history it was about women being property.
Actually "traditional" marriage has evolved all along. Sometimes it's allowed for polygamy and for most of it's history it was about women being property.
Actually "traditional" marriage has evolved all along. Sometimes it's allowed for polygamy and for most of it's history it was about women being property.
But, seriously, I've said all along that my opposition is only to judicially imposed gay marriage. MEM's point is not inconsistent with legislatively created gay marriage. In fact, it tends to support my position, insofar as legislatures, not courts, are supposed to be the branch of government that takes evolving mores into account.
Missouri man arrested at hospital for refusing to leave gay partner By David Edwards Thursday, April 11, 2013 8:50 EDT Topics: power of attorney ♦ Roger Gorley ♦ WDAF
122K Email 122KEmailA gay man was arrested at a hospital in Missouri this week when he refused to leave the bedside of his partner, and now a restraining order is preventing him from any type of visitation.
Roger Gorley told WDAF that even though he has power of attorney to handle his partner’s affairs, a family member asked him to leave when he visited Research Medical Center in Kansas City on Tuesday.
Gorley said he refused to leave his partner Allen’s bedside, and that’s when security put him in handcuffs and escorted him from the building.
“I was not recognized as being the husband, I wasn’t recognized as being the partner,” Gorley explained.
He said the nurse refused to confirm that the couple shared power of attorney and made medical decision for each other.
“She didn’t even bother to look it up, to check in to it,” the Lee’s Summit resident recalled.
In a 2010 memorandum, President Barack Obama ordered hospitals that receive Medicare or Medicaid funding to allow visitation rights for gay and lesbian partners.
For its part, Research Medical Center insisted that it does not discriminate based on sexual orientation.
“We believe involving the family is an important part of the patient care process,” the hospital said in a statement. “And, the patient`s needs are always our first priority. When anyone becomes disruptive to providing the necessary patient care, we involve our security team to help calm the situation and to protect our patients and staff. If the situation continues to escalate, we have no choice but to request police assistance.”
Gorley cannot currently visit his partner at all due to a restraining order issued after his arrest on Tuesday.
Watch this video from WDAF, broadcast April 11, 2013.
I get the feeling that (unsourced) article is not telling the whole story.
It says that a family member of Allen's would not let Gorley in. And that the hospital (in their statement) implies Gorley "[became] disruptive to providing the necessary patient care," so they "involved [their] security team to help calm the situation and to protect [their] patients and staff" by removing Gorley. Their version.
They could have been mean-spiritedly discriminating against Gorley. Gorley could also have been creating a disruption that got him kicked out. And I've never seen Missouri as a place that endorsed or recognizes gay marriage.
For all my dissent from your opinion on these matters, M E M, and my broader dissent from gay marriage, I don't endorse keeping a gay man out of the hospital where he could give encouragement and comfort to his gay friend. And I seriously doubt many hospitals would similarly exclude gay friends, particularly if, as the article says, he has power of attorney for Allen. G-man could better extrapolate if power of attorney applies in a state that doesn't recognize gay spouses.
Sorry that is where I got the article and it's been updated with more details. It does look like Gorley didn't deserve being removed. His agitation was from being tole that he had to leave. That would agitate anybody though.
G-man could better extrapolate if power of attorney applies in a state that doesn't recognize gay spouses.
While the laws of each state vary, Power of attorney is a contractual relationship where the principal grants to the agent (the "attorney") the right to act in the principal's stead. Assuming no undue influence or fraud, the principal can name anyone he or she wants as his or her agent. Whether or not the parties are in a romantic relationship, or whether the state recognizes gay spouses is otherwise irrelevant. POA has nothing to do with marital status.
However, POA may not be the same as a health care proxy. In some states, POA does not override health care privacy or create the power to make medical decisions. In such case, the agent needs to execute a separate document, typically known as a health care proxy. Again, however, whether the state recognizes gay marriage would be irrelavent to the validity of the proxy.
Where gay marriage tends to come into play is when there is no POA or HCP and the state does not recognize the gay partner as next of kin. However, even that is not always gay specific. Similar problems may arise where opposite sex couples aren't married and when one is hospitalized.
The kids these days on the right are full of a great libertarian notion that “hey, let’s just get the government out of marriage.”
“Rock on,” say other libertarians.
They then all smugly self-congratulate themselves, pat themselves on the back, and move on to other issues.
What they ignore is that the left will never take marriage out of the hands of the government. The left cannot. But it goes beyond that. The left cannot take marriage out of government because for so long it has been government through which marriages were legitimized to the public and the left must also use government to silence those, particularly the religious, who refuse to play along.
Let’s ignore, for the sake of this post, that the Democracy of the Dead has settled for us that in society marriage should be between a man and woman as the best way to propagate the species.
The left has done an admirable job in secular society making the case that gay marriage merely allows a class of people to be happy and have what everyone else has.
The front on which the gay rights movement has failed is the religious and, in particular in the United States, the Christian front.
From Matthew 19:4-6:
“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’? So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
The Christian Left would prefer to view Matthew 19 as a passage on divorce, which is discussed. But they willfully ignore Christ’s definition of what a marriage is — one man and one woman united to become one.
As much as many would ignore, obfuscate, or try to confuse the beginning of Matthew 19, Christ makes it very clear. The Creator made a male and a female and the two become one. That is marriage in Christianity, despite what a bunch of progressive Christians who have no use for the Bible would have the world believe.
Therein lies the problem for the gay rights movement.
As long as there are still Christians who actually follow Christ and uphold his word, a vast amount of people around the world — never mind Islam — will never ever see gay marriage as anything other than a legal encroachment of God’s intent.
So those Christians must be silenced. The left exerted a great deal of energy to convince everyone that the gay lifestyle is an alternative form of normal. It then has exerted a great deal of energy convincing people that because the gay lifestyle is just another variation of normal, gay marriage must be normalized.
Meanwhile, those Christians are out there saying it is not normal and are refusing to accept it as normal because of silly God dared to say marriage is a union between a man and woman.
Any Christian who refuses to recognize that man wants to upend God’s order will have to be driven from the national conversation. They will be labeled bigots and ultimately criminals.
Already we have seen florists, bakers, and photographers suffer because they have refused to go along with the cultural shift toward gay marriage. There will be more.
Once the world decides that real marriage is something other than natural or Godly, those who would point it out must be silenced and, if not, punished. The state must be used to do this. Consequently, the libertarian pipe dream of getting government out of marriage can never ever be possible.
Within a year or two we will see Christian schools attacked for refusing to admit students whose parents are gay. We will see churches suffer the loss of their tax exempt status for refusing to hold gay weddings. We will see private businesses shut down because they refuse to treat as legitimate that which perverts God’s own established plan. In some places this is already happening.
Christians should, starting yesterday, work on a new front. While we should not stop the fight to preserve marriage, and we may be willing to compromise on civil unions, we must start fighting now for protections for religious objectors to gay marriage.
Churches, businesses, and individuals who refuse to accept gay marriage as a legitimate institution must be protected as best we can. Those protections will eventually crumble as the secular world increasingly fights the world of God, but we should institute those protections now and pray they last as long as possible.
The left cannot allow Christians to continue to preach the full gospel. We already see this in, of all places, Canada. Gay marriage is incompatible with a religion that preaches that the unrepentant are condemned, even of a sin the world has decided is not one. The religious freedom will eventually be ended through the judiciary. We should work to extend that freedom as long as we can.
Now many of you have read through this and you are shaking your head in denial. “No way this is possible,” you say. But then just a decade ago no one seriously considered gay marriage as possible. And we are already seeing signs we’re headed in this direction. It’s coming. Get ready.
Libertarians will have to decide which they value more — the ability of a single digit percentage of Americans to get married or the first amendment. The two are not compatible.
Following the Canadian legislative path, rendering any criticism whatsoever of gays to be a hate-crime.
An abbreviated version of this interview with Michael O’Brien appeared in the August 15, 2004, edition of Our Sunday Visitor. The interviewer is Thomas Szyszkiewicz. Reprinted with permission.
The Canadian Parliament recently passed Bill C-250 which amends the federal hate crimes law to include speech against sexual orientation. Some Canadian groups have complained about it, saying even the Bible could be seen as hate literature. What's wrong with what was passed?
O’Brien: A number of aspects of the new law are profoundly disturbing. For one thing, there already exists in Canadian law abundant protection of human rights, including protection against discrimination on grounds of "sexual orientation." What is distinctive about the new law is the criminalization of negative criticism of homosexuality as such.
While the bill was in formation in Parliament two crucial amendments proposed by the conservative opposition party were defeated. The first was to ensure that religious pastors and teachers would retain full freedom to teach traditional Judeo-Christian view on these matters. The second was an attempt to make a distinction in law between homosexual persons and homosexual activities. The Church does not condemn homosexuals as persons; it condemns sinful activities--activities that are not only an offense against God, but are destructive of the person, as well as society in the long run. In rejecting these two amendments, Parliament simply decreed that henceforth any public criticism of homosexual activity is a hate crime against homosexual persons, punishable by jail sentences.
Has there yet been any practical effect to what has been passed?
O’Brien: The ink is still wet on the document, and there has been little time to bring many law suits. For the time being we’re in the eye of the storm, a temporary calm. I think there is a widespread drawing back as journalists, teachers, and pastors ponder their options. At the same time activist homosexual groups are bombarding a number of pro-family, pro-life organizations in this country with mockery and threats, planning strategies (in open forums) for silencing all opposition, warning that those who don’t keep silent on homosexuality will go to court, and to jail. The high level of emotional violence in homosexual activist strategy is at times quite shocking. They seem consumed with hatred and determined to bring about an entire social revolution in their favor.
I should add that during the past two years a number of significant "human rights" law suits have been brought against traditional Christians, litigation that predates the new hate crimes law. The courts generally have sided against the churches and individuals who do not want to cooperate with the "gay agenda." For example, a printing company that declined to print Toronto’s annual gay pride day literature was sued under the human rights law, fined heavily, and forced to print the material or close their business. A Catholic school was coerced by a court order to admit an openly homosexual teenage boy and his older male lover to the school prom; the court also refused the school board permission to cancel the prom. A daily newspaper that published an advertisement page of Biblical quotes regarding homosexuality was fined. Such incidents are multiplying.
Is this another slippery slope issue? How far can this reach in terms of what alleged crimes might be committed or who might be protected by it?
O’Brien: Potentially very far. The law can be used primarily to further intimidate the timid and to punish the outspoken. We now have Thought Crime in Canada, just as Orwell predicted. Few people believe this could be the beginning phases of an Orwellian 1984 or alternatively a softer form of totalitarian government such as Huxley’s Brave New World. But the elements of State-enforced social reconstruction are now in operation. We should also consider the fact that in just over one generation we have been shifted from a society in which homosexual activity was a crime under the then existing law, to a society in which homosexual activity has become a government-protected and fostered activity, while voicing criticism of it has become the crime. I see this as a prime example of the new totalitarianism. Clearly, we have now arrived at a situation in which "some of us are more equal than others", as Orwell predicted.
In its hate propaganda provisions the law states that in order to be found guilty of an indictable offense, a person must communicate statements in a public place which "incite hatred against an identifiable group" in such a way that there will "likely be a breach of the peace." The courts have already proven their startling subjectivity on homosexual issues. A breath of protest from a Christian is a hate crime, while aggressive disruption of Christian gatherings by gay militants are often overlooked and go unprosecuted.
A whiff of Germany in the early 1930’s is discernible in the atmosphere. Of course, glancing about our streets we do not see any concentration camps or marching jackboots. But will the prisons some day hold Christian inmates whose only crime is speaking the truth? And as for jackboots, activist homosexual groups have behaved like Nazi hooligans of the late1920’s and early 1930’s, for example their recent outrageous behavior at Archbishop Adam Exner’s residence in Vancouver.
Many of the terms in the new law are largely undefined, such as "sexual orientation," "inciting hatred," "a likelihood of breach of the peace" and thus there is an ambiguity so broad that one could drive a battleship through it. It will be left to the courts to do the dirty work of interpreting, condemning, and imprisoning. They have already proved themselves quite willing to do so, and the new law offers them added incentives.
Some European countries have similar laws. What has happened with those?
O’Brien: They have been used fully and without hesitation to punish traditional Christians for their beliefs. In England, Ireland, Sweden, Belgium, Spain and other countries, Catholic and Protestant pastors, bishops, and cardinals have been prosecuted under similar hate crimes laws. For example, Cardinal Varela of Madrid is on trial in Spain for preaching against homosexuality in a homily he gave in the Madrid Cathedral on the feast of the Holy Family. (see the Washington Post article, 01/03/04). Reverend Ake Green, the pastor of a Pentecostal church in Sweden, was recently sentenced to one month in prison by a Swedish court for a sermon he preached last year citing Biblical references to homosexuality. Cardinal Gustaaf Joos of Belgium is facing a lawsuit under Belgian discrimination laws for his comments in a magazine regarding the nature of homosexuality and the Catholic Church’s teaching on the subject.
We might do well to recall that Pope John Paul II has warned repeatedly that democracy is not immune from totalitarianism. In his encyclicals Centessimus Annus, Familiaris Consortio, and Evangelium Vitae, for example, as well as in other writings and speeches, he has stated that grave threats to genuine freedom are already at work in the democracies.
In The Gospel of Life he says that when "democracy contradicts its own principles, it effectively moves towards a form of totalitarianism." When the right to speak the truth is violated, when the rights and responsibilities of the family and Catholic institutions are invaded by the State, when the suppression of vaguely defined "crimes" becomes a growth industry fostered by mindless legalisms, the human community is "betrayed in its very foundations." The Holy Father goes on to say that in a nation where some individuals are held to be deserving of defense and others are denied that dignity, "the process leading to the breakdown of a genuinely human co-existence and the disintegration of the State itself has already begun." (EV n.20) In Centessimus Annus he writes, "As history demonstrates, a democracy without values easily turns into open or thinly disguised totalitarianism."
Perhaps I should point out here that in the Western nations where democracy is being eroded, the worst of the destruction has been brought about, by and large, through "Catholic" politicians, people who are "personally opposed, but...." Where, then, does the slippery slope end? Were there Catholic politicians in Nazi Germany who were "personally opposed" to some of Hitler’s more negative programs in the beginning of his regime, but went along with it for "the good of the people"? Will our leaders find themselves saying one day in the not too distant future, "Well, I’m personally opposed to concentration camps, but...." Of course the camps would not be called by such a repulsive term––you can be sure that a government psychologist would come up with comforting terms like "Social Rehabilitation Center" or "The Tolerance Project". Far-fetched? Perhaps. But how far-fetched did our present situation appear only one generation ago?
In your book, Landscapes With Dragons: The Battle for Your Child's Mind (Ignatius Press, 1998), you have a chapter entitled, "Are Christians Intolerant?" in which you raise several interesting points. One of those is that a mother "who fiercely protects her little ones from predators...suffers from a bias against rattlesnakes and wolves" or a doctor "who has seen an epidemic ravage a people...is prejudiced against deadly viruses." But this is not how the rest of the world views intolerance or even how Christians necessarily view it, is it? Mostly intolerance is seen as an evil thing in which the Christian is judging, not simply the external actions someone takes, but the interior disposition of the mind, heart and soul. How does this image get changed?
O’Brien: The Christian view must always be this: I love the carrier of this Tuberculosis or AIDS virus as a person, but I do not love his virus. I want to protect him as a person but I do not want to protect his virus, for it is his virus that is killing him, and threatens to kill others as well. I will do what is reasonable to help him find healing, if he so wishes, but I will not allow his virus to invade my family, my body, my mind, my children’s education, and if at all possible my government. And I maintain my right to say to him that he is in danger.
Tragically, throughout forty years of massive propaganda from media, especially through the entertainment industry, we have been bombarded with gross caricatures of repressive moralists and vicious "fundamentalists", while the image of the immoral or amoral hero has been exalted in the name of "freedom." As a result, people who "love the sinner but hate the sin" are now commonly considered to be dangerous sociopaths while those who promote and protect the deadly virus of sin are considered to be enlightened. We have suffered a cultural revolution of epic proportions (one that is far from over), and most people hardly realize what has happened, nor how grave the consequences will be.
For the culture to change requires evangelization, yet I observe two things: 1) Catholics aren't out evangelizing as we should - we tend to shrink from such a thing, and 2) evangelization is itself considered an act of intolerance since it challenges one's way of life. In light of such an atmosphere, how does one go about changing the culture?
O’Brien: I think it begins with one’s own interior conversion. Speaking the truth will be effective to the degree that we speak in the spirit of love. Hatred and contempt have no place in the Christian heart, nor in our efforts at evangelization. At the core of one’s being––what the Catechism of the Catholic Church calls "the heart"––we must recognize elements of fear, anger, lack of mercy. Whenever we see these impulses arise within us, we should invoke the extraordinary and specific graces of Christ to dispel them with mercy, so that His presence within us may speak and be made present to others. Genuine mercy never undermines Truth. False compassion, by contrast, usually betrays truth on some level and generates other evils.
With the growth of genuine Love there will be accompanying growth in courage. "Perfect love casts out fear," Jesus says. Too seldom have we relied on grace. Too long have we relied on strategies and public relations programs, as if the spread of the Gospel were dependent on such devices. In the end this kind of pseudo-knowledge or ersatz "wisdom" will fail us. Indeed it has failed us. It has proven itself practically useless and in fact counterproductive during the recent crises in the Church in America. Now is the time for courage and bold witness. If we do not yet have it within us, we need only ask Our Lord for it. He will give us all that we need. Then, if we respond, things around us will change. Potentially the whole character of the West can change for the better, if Catholic Christians would only become who we are.
There is a lot of talk today about the whole political climate and religious involvement in it - even in Canada there have been some bishops who have spoken out on pro-abortion politicians receiving Communion. This kind of "intolerant" talk is taken by the media as a political ploy. How does the Church effectively get her voice heard if it is shut down by simply declaring her to be "intolerant"?
O’Brien: We simply must stop being distracted and intimidated by media polemics and name-calling. It so often infects us with compromise, a fear-based approach to evangelization. We must rediscover confidence in the living Jesus and the full power of the Holy Spirit, exactly what Christ always calls us to be.
As I grow older, having raised six children, I’ve learned a few things about fathering. It has been a long trial and error process, and perhaps the most important thing I’ve learned along the way is the crucial connection between human fatherhood and spiritual fatherhood, and through this the connection to our Father in Heaven. Whenever we opt for a superficial "democratic" model in the life of the Church or the family, something basic to human nature (and to society) is lost. Such a model of family or "church" may seem compassionate in the short run, but it almost always fosters a long range cruelty. Fathers, especially shepherds of flocks of the Lord, must exercise their authority in love. In love, yes, but with firmness and clarity. The time for nuanced policy statements is over.
The time for lack of consequences is over. The time for courageous witness to Christ is long overdue. This means that all those who have responsibility for other souls must become "signs of contradiction" in opposition to the spirit of this age, because its culture is devouring human lives and societies at an unprecedented rate.
What has been the reaction of the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops? Is there any danger of the Church getting in trouble with the Canadian authorities based on this new law?
O’Brien: Before the law was passed in Parliament, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops departed from its customary qualified and careful statements to our government, and issued forthright warnings about the dangers of the new hate crimes law. Their words had little or no effect. I suspect that legislators had simply grown comfortable with regular mild-mannered position statements from the CCCB, and were well accustomed to ignoring them. There is a hard lesson to be learned here.
The "tolerance" of clearly evil legislation displayed by ecclesial bureaucracy is now showing its bad fruits. In fearing to offend, they have failed to resist a terrible offense against the human community. By seeking to save some things they have brought us closer to losing everything. The large majority of Catholics in this country remain uncatechized, unevangelized, and in dissent from the teachings of the Church. Decade after decade they vote for politicians who promote clearly evil laws, often in ignorance, and usually without suffering any discernible consequences. What is the cause of this ignorance?
It should be noted that courageous bishops and pastors have not been lacking among us. Since the nineteen sixties, a small minority of bishops have fought a relentless battle for truth, in a spirit of love. The good news is that there are more and more shepherds like them. In increasing numbers they are standing up and speaking as "signs of contradiction" to the culture of death. I expect that some of them may be in prison one day, as is the case in some countries.
How are the smaller Protestant churches dealing with this?
O’Brien: Much the same as we Catholics are. The evangelical churches especially have been concerted in their resistance to a number of government violations of moral law. The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, for example, has been a strong voice of protest in the debates over several questionable new laws.
What would happen if a bishop or priest from outside of Canada were to say something to violate that law?
O’Brien: It’s only my guess, but at the least he would be conducted to the border and told never to return, and his Canadian hosts could be charged under the new laws.
Is there any chance, with the elections that recently occurred that this law will be overturned?
O’Brien: Short of divine intervention, none. In last month’s national election the country returned the government to power for five more years, albeit with a few less seats. Our population is more than 50% baptized Catholic. Almost all of the past seven Prime Ministers and their Ministers of Justice have been "practicing Catholics". Personally opposed, but.... It is our present Prime Minister, apparently a practicing Catholic, who ensured the passage of the hate crimes law, against widespread popular protest. Why, then, did his party win the election? Because Canadians almost always vote for security and comfort over principle. They have failed to understand that when the moral foundations of a nation are destroyed, great evils are to follow, and in the end there will be no security of any kind. I pray that Americans learn from our mistakes.
What hope, short of the Lord's return, do you see for changing Western culture?
O’Brien: Immense hope. God is full of surprises. It is not unthinkable that a great grace, a great illumination of conscience, is coming for the world. It has happened before. New saints may arise among us, and new movements that will call us back to a vital, dynamic faith. We should never retreat into a ghetto, never despair of the world. But neither should we be lulled into a false peace with the evil that is at work in it.
Catholics can be neither facile optimists nor gloomy pessimists. We are called by Christ to a kind of Christian realism, which means that we must always keep before the eyes of the heart the ultimate victory of the Lord. Each of us must play his part in this, carrying the cross of present trials with the Resurrection in our eyes.
Given the Many examples given from Canadian law begun in 2004, and of other nations in Scandanavia implementing similar laws, and the push to implement similar laws in the U.S., remind me again who is intruding on whose rights.
Not just Christians, but ANYONE who criticizes gays in any way, scientists conducting objective research who might find evidence that homosexuality is not inborn. Psychologists who treat homosexuality as a curable compulsive disorder, and have successfully treated thousands out of homosexuality. And tens of millions of Christians who are just reading scripture from their Bibles, as it has existed for 2,000 years. That are suddenly being told they cannot even publicly read.
The Bible on which our Declaration, Constitution and founding principles are based on. The Bible on which 78% of the population identify as the source of their Christian faith. Banned. Censored. Punished by fines or imprisonment. And now they want to implement similar hate-crime "protections" in the United States.
YOU work and presumably have a good-paying job, M E M. You have been open about being in a gay relationship and living with your partner. And without intruding on your personal life, you've posted photos of yourself with your significant other, out together in a public park, not looking the slightest bit persecuted. I don't see that you have any restrictions on your life. As I've pointed out for years, gay white men, far from persecuted, are the highest wage-earning demographic. Where is your life "restricted"?
It seems to me that the current legislation is less about gay "rights", and more about stomping on free speech and religious freedom.
In polar opposition to the First Amendment...
Congress shall make no law regarding establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
... gays/secularists have made THEIR beliefs the state religion, and all dissent will be fined/imprissoned/intimidated into submission.
So much for "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."
Wow, looks like MN will be the next state to let the gays marry! It passed in the House and that's where it would have had the most trouble. Never thought it would happen this fast.
I find this funny as it's a catch 22 for the hardline conservatives. It's a plus for gay marriage, which they hate, while also being a plus for states' rights, which they love.
As this is announced, President Obama is beginning his tour of Africa, in the nations of Senegal and Tanzania, both of which treat homosexuality as a crime punished by imprisonment.
I find this funny as it's a catch 22 for the hardline conservatives. It's a plus for gay marriage, which they hate, while also being a plus for states' rights, which they love.
States' rights only seem to be a principle if it coincides with what the person wants. I think there are plenty of conservatives who either support gay marriage or fall into the "don't care" category btw.
Some dancing nanners are called for in celabration...
Perkins started this thread about 10 years ago. Back when McCain and Obama were duking it out in 2008 I just felt good that at least the status quo would be maintained whoever won. It seems like in the last year a switch has been flipped and all of sudden gay marriage exists in MN and is federally recognized!
April 10, 2013 (Mercatornet) - A recent report by polling company Pew Research appears to show that there has been growing support for same-sex marriage over the last 10 years. This is unsurprising, given factors such as the media bias on the issue (see last week’s CNN segment with Piers Morgan and Ryan Anderson for just one example), President Obama and Vice-President Biden supporting it, and the growing number of celebrities and public figures in favour.
According to the report, 14% of Americans have changed their minds and now support same-sex marriage. These people were asked to give reasons for why they changed their minds.
The most common reason given (32% of those who changed minds) was that they know someone who is homosexual. Republican Senator Rob Portman, who a few weeks ago said he supported same-sex marriage because of his son who is homosexual, is an example of this. But this is hardly a reason for supporting same-sex marriage. Firstly, many homosexuals oppose same-sex marriage, and secondly the issue is not whether or not we should love homosexuals, but rather what marriage is, and whether or not same-sex marriage is beneficial for society.
The rest of the reasons given were almost all just meaningless platitudes. They ranged from “I’ve grown more open” to “it’s inevitable,” “the world is different now,” and “I believe in equal rights.”
What is common to all these reasons is that they are so superficial. It is significant that nothing along the lines of “I’ve thought about the meaning of marriage and realised it is unjust not to allow same-sex couples to marry” or “I’ve realised same-sex marriage would benefit society” made the list. This just goes to show that support for same-sex marriage tends to be based more on emotion rather than reason. This is cause for hope among supporters of traditional marriage, as we know that there is no intellectual drive behind growing support for same-sex marriage. All that is required is to turn public opinion around again is to convert the intellectual case for traditional marriage into accessible, understandable arguments.
Another interesting thing to note from the report was that the wording of questions in opinion polls matters on this topic. “Do you think it should be legal or illegal for gay and lesbian couples to get married?” saw 58% of people respond in the affirmative, whereas when the question was phrased “Do you favor or oppose allowing gays and lesbians to legally marry?” under 50% of people said yes. Obviously, it is ridiculous to suggest the issue is about whether or not same-sex marriage should be illegal, as no one is arguing that people who get dressed up and participate in a same-sex wedding should go to jail. What is being debated is the legal definition of marriage.
Note that both of the above questions are skewed towards same-sex marriage anyway, as they focus on the issue from the perspective of same-sex couples, and not on marriage itself. If the question was “Do you support redefining marriage to be between any two consenting adults?” or “Are you satisfied with the traditional definition of marriage?” the responses would likely be very different.
This also applies to questions surrounding same-sex parenting. The Pew Research poll asked respondents if they supported the statement “Same-sex couples can be as good parents as heterosexual couples” to which 63% of respondents agreed. But this statement is completely unclear. It could mean that the best same-sex parents can be as good as the worst heterosexual parents, it could mean that on average same-sex couples are as good parents, it could mean in theory same-sex parents can be as good parents, and so on. The responses are problematic and for all intents and purposes meaningless.
The results would likely be very different if the question was, for example, “Do you think mother and fathers contribute different things to a child’s upbringing?” or “Do you think ideally a child should be raised by its biological mother and father?”
This is seen in polling around the world. Depending on how opinion poll questions are phrased, different conclusions about social attitudes can be drawn. This is because the concept of same-sex marriage is a complex issue and there are such different ways of looking at it.
It is important that we remain sceptical of opinion polls which appear to show that the marriage debate is over. It is even more important that we continue to ignore people who claim same-sex marriage is inevitable, as attempts to stifle rational debate on such an important issue deserve no respect.
Aug. 27, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Few people doubt that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hopes to become president in 2016. Unfortunately for him, he may have just signed away any chance of that.
On Monday, Christie signed A3371, a draconian piece of legislation that bars licensed [psych] therapists from helping children overcome unwanted same-sex attractions, behavior or identity. This law bans help for minors even when – as is so often the case – those same-sex attractions arise from childhood sexual abuse by the likes of a Jerry Sandusky.
This law will prohibit minors and their parents from receiving counseling they desire and will force counselors to violate ethical codes because they will not be able to help clients reach their own counseling goals. This law would enslave children – whether abused or not – to a subjectively determined sexual identity that they reject.
The connection between homosexual abuse and “gay identity” is undeniable. Consider this: Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found that homosexual men are “at least three times more likely to report CSA (childhood sexual abuse)” than heterosexual men.
Moreover, the Archives of Sexual Behavior – no bastion of conservatism – determined in a 2001 study that nearly half of all gay-identified men were molested by a homosexual pedophile: “46 percent of homosexual men and 22 percent of homosexual women reported having been molested by a person of the same gender. This contrasts to only 7 percent of heterosexual men and 1 percent of heterosexual women reporting having been molested by a person of the same gender” noted the study.
For obvious reasons, this politically motivated law has been dubbed the “Jerry Sandusky Victimization Act.” Liberty Counsel, one of the fastest growing civil rights law firms in the country, has stepped in to protect New Jersey children, parents and licensed therapists. We’ve filed suit to block the law, as we’ve already blocked a similar law in California.
In his signing statement, Gov. Christie wrote: “Government should tread carefully into this area and I do so here reluctantly. I have scrutinized this piece of legislation with that concern in mind. However, I also believe that on issues of medical treatment for children we must look to experts in the field to determine the relative risks and rewards.”
Beyond the fact that Christie and the New Jersey Legislature have just violated the First Amendment rights of New Jersey parents, children and counselors, there remains another problem with his assertion. It’s not true. As with any form of therapy, the “experts” are all over the board on the issue of change therapy.
For instance, both New Jersey Democrats and Christie cited the American Psychological Association, or APA, as justification for this gross infringement on the right of self-determination. Although, no doubt, the highly liberal APA supports this and similar Sandusky Laws for political reasons, the group’s own task force on change therapy – led entirely by members who themselves are “gay”-identified or known political activists – has had to admit, nonetheless, that homosexuality itself “refers to feelings and self-concept.”
The [APA] taskforce confessed that such therapy has shown “varying degrees of satisfaction and varying perceptions of success.” It acknowledged within its own skewed, very limited “study” that some people had “altered their sexual orientation. … [P]articipants had multiple endpoints, including LGB identity, ex-gay identity, no sexual orientation identity, and a unique self-identity. … Individuals report a range of effects from their efforts to change their sexual orientation, including both benefits and harm.”
Reports of “both benefits and harm”? Exactly what might be expected from any form of therapy.
But that’s for adults.
Here’s the kicker: The APA also acknowledged that there is no evidence whatsoever that change therapy harms minors. Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, addressed this, the most outrageous aspect of the law: “The very report that the governor cited for signing this law also admitted that there is absolutely zero research – none – regarding the effect of change therapy with minors.”
Get that? Gov. Christie just signed into law a bill purporting to prevent harm to minors from change therapy, citing, as the reason, an APA report that admits there is neither research nor empirical evidence to suggest that change therapy harms minors.
Is your head swimming? It should be.
The governor is one of three things. He is either: 1) ill-informed, 2) politically motivated or 3) stupid.
I don’t know, I guess he could be 4) all of the above.
Meanwhile, there are many experts outraged over this gross overreach by Christie and other New Jersey liberals.
Dr. Nicholas Cummings, former president of the APA, wrote in USA Today: “Contending that all same-sex attraction is immutable is a distortion of reality. Attempting to characterize all sexual reorientation therapy as ‘unethical’ violates patient choice and gives an outside party a veto over patients’ goals for their own treatment. A political agenda shouldn’t prevent gays and lesbians who desire to change from making their own decisions.”
Dr. Cummings has testified to personally helping hundreds of formerly homosexual clients achieve the change they desired.
Things get more sinister yet. On Wednesday, New Jersey Assemblyman Tim Eustace, who sponsored the bill and is openly homosexual, bombastically compared change therapy to “beating a child” and suggested that the government take children seeking change away from their parents. He told Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, “What this does is prevent things that are harmful to people. If a parent were beating their child on a regular basis we would step in and remove that child from the house. If you pay somebody to beat your child or abuse your child, what’s the difference?”
Mat Staver responded on the same program: “It is shocking to hear the law’s sponsor threaten parents that the state will remove their children from them if they provide the counsel they need and which helps them. This is the ultimate nanny state,” he said.
I’ll take it a step further, and I think I speak for many Christian fathers. None of my three children suffer from unwanted same-sex attraction, but if any of them did and they decided to seek change therapy to reconcile their feelings with their faith, Mr. Eustace and the rest of his Gaystapo would be extremely ill-advised to crest my front porch with designs on taking my children.
Is this George Washington’s America, or Joseph Stalin’s Russia? ____________________________________
Matt Barber (@jmattbarber on Twitter) is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action
... Gay rights groups say the practice of conversion therapy is damaging to young people because it tells them that it's not acceptable to be whoever they are.
Some social conservatives framed the debate as a parental rights issue, saying a ban on the counseling would limit the ability of parents to do what they think is best for their children.
The idea of conversion therapy is an old one that has increasingly drawn criticism for its methods. Last year, four gay men sued a Jersey City group for fraud, saying its program included making them strip naked and attack effigies of their mothers with baseball bats.
Lawmakers heard horror stories from some during hearings on the ban, including Brielle Goldani of Toms River, who testified she underwent electric shocks and was given drugs to induce vomiting after being sent to an Ohio camp at age 14 to become straight.
It was CRYSTAL clear that many of these people seeking counseling out of homosexuality are doing so out of their OWN DESIRE to rid themselves of confused homosexual feelings, brought on by homosexual MOLESTATION OR ASSAULT at a young age, that has traumatized and confused their sexual identity.
These are people fully conscious that their homosexuality is not natural or inborn, but brought on by the trauma of a sexual assault.
Back in the early 1990's, I actually met a guy at my church who was in this situation. At age 11, he was raped by two gay men at a public park, that confused his sexual identity in his teen years, and for a while was involved in anonymous sex at gay clubs, and at the time I met him was finally dealing with and pulling himself out of it.
Again:
Quote:
This law will prohibit minors and their parents from receiving counseling they desire and will force counselors to violate ethical codes because they will not be able to help clients reach THEIR OWN COUNSELING GOALS. This law would enslave children – whether abused or not – to a subjectively determined sexual identity that they reject.
The connection between homosexual abuse and “gay identity” is undeniable. Consider this: Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found that homosexual men are “at least three times more likely to report CSA (childhood sexual abuse)” than heterosexual men.
Moreover, the Archives of Sexual Behavior – no bastion of conservatism – determined in a 2001 study that nearly half of all gay-identified men were molested by a homosexual pedophile: “46 percent of homosexual men and 22 percent of homosexual women reported having been molested by a person of the same gender. This contrasts to only 7 percent of heterosexual men and 1 percent of heterosexual women reporting having been molested by a person of the same gender” noted the study.
Loud and clear.
As detailed in my last link, MANY people have gone through this therapy, and been counseled out of homosexuality, from which they feel their lives improved, as detailed by multiple studies, and even acknowledged by the CDC.
It is one thing for Christians/conservatives to believe what they want, while gays can believe what they want, and both have the right to their own beliefs, and free practice of them.
But increasingly, pro-gay legislation is devoted to smothering the rights of those who won't endorse what they believe. And gays have absolutely no problem with stifling others' beliefs, even as they bemoan a lack of freedom.
They should re-read the First Amendment. But then... why bother, when it is clear what they wanted all along is a Political Correctness/Social Marxist utopia in the first place, and to destroy our Constitutional republic as we know it?
Increasingly, I think gays and other progressives are not even Americans, but an enemy fifth column trying to destroy us from within. The brethren of Saul Alinsky and William Ayers.
This article on the same subject, of a Christian-owned small photography studio being forced against their will by a court ruling to photograph a lesbian "commitment ceremony", that further explaains the oppressive ramifications on Christians/conservatives.
It is a state court decision that could have national reach. In the words of Red State’s Erik Erickson, “You will be made to care.”
The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a Christian wedding photographer violated the state’s human rights law by refusing to photograph a same-sex commitment ceremony.
New Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that photographer Elaine Huguenin violated a lesbian couple’s rights by refusing to photograph their commitment ceremony.
This shouldn’t be the end of the matter, said Ken Klukowski, the director for Center for Religious Liberty at the conservative Family Research Council.
“This decision would stun the framers of the U.S. Constitution, is a gross violation of the First Amendment, and should now be taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court to reaffirm the basic principle that the fundamental rights of free speech and the free exercise of religion do not stop at the exit door of your local church, and instead extend to every area of a religious person’s life,” he said in a written statement.
Klukowski added, “Rather than live-and-let-live, this is forcing religious Americans to violate the basic teachings of their faith, or lose their jobs.”
The Albuquerque-based photography studio Elane Photography did not want to photograph the ceremony between Vanessa Willock and Misti Collinsworth because studio co-owner Elaine Huguenin said it would violate her Christian beliefs and that the company only photographs traditional marriages.
The majority opinion for the court stated that the studio violated the rights of the lesbian couple “in the same way as if it had refused to photograph a wedding between people of two different races.”
.
A Rasmussen poll found that 85 percent of Americans believe a photographer has the right to turn down a same-sex wedding job.
The state of New Mexico does not recognize gay marriage or civil unions, hence the couple was having a “commitment ceremony.”
The opinion further stated that the New Mexico Human Rights Act does not violate the photographer’s First Amendment because it “does not compel Elane Photography to either speak a government-mandated message or to publish the speech of another.”
Attorney Jordan Lorence, with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal firm specializing in religious liberty cases, said the ruling prioritizes gay rights over religious liberty.
“Government-coerced expression is a feature of dictatorships that has no place in a free country,” Lorence said. “This decision is a blow to our client and every American’s right to live free.”
But Amber Royster, the executive director of Equality New Mexico, called this an important victory.
“What it came down to is this was a case about discrimination,” she told Fox News. “While we certainly believe we are all entitled to our religious beliefs, religious beliefs don’t necessarily make it okay to break the law by discriminating against others.”
Royster said forcing a business that offers services to the public to abide by discrimination laws does not violate the First Amendment – and does not pit gay rights against religious rights.
“It’s about discrimination,” she said. “It’s not religious rights versus gay rights. We have a law on the books that makes it illegal to discriminate against LGBT persons. It makes it illegal for business to do that and this business broke the law by discriminating against this couple.”
So... gay marriage is illegal in New Mexico... but it is illegal for Christian photographers to decline to photograph that illegal ceremony? What's wrong with this picture?
The Department of Defense classified Catholics and Evangelical Christians as religious extremists similar to Al-Qaeda, according to training materials obtained by the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty.
The Pentagon also considered the [far-Left Soros funded propaganda site] Southern Poverty law Center’s “hate group” list a “reliable source” for determining extremism and labeled “Islamophobia” as a form of religious extremism.
The revelations come just days after Judicial Watch discovered a separate Pentagon training document that depicted the Founding Fathers as extremists and conservative organizations as hate groups.
The Chaplain Alliance uncovered in more than 1,500 pages of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request after a U.S. Army training instructor told a Reserve unit based in Pennsylvania that Catholicism, Evangelical Christianity, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Sunni Muslims, and the Ku Klux Klan were examples of extremism.
PENTAGON CALLS FOUNDING FATHERS EXTREMISTS
CHECK OUT THE ARMY’S LIST OF DOMESTIC HATE GROUPS
“The materials we obtained establish that the U.S. military violated its appropriate apolitical stance and engaged in a dishonorable mischaracterization of multiple faith groups,” said Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance, an organization that represents thousands of military chaplains.
The documents show an unknown number of equal opportunity officers were trained at Fort Jackson, SC, using information obtained from the SPLC.
The training material was made public after a soldier who attended the briefing alerted Chaplain Alliance.
“He considers himself an Evangelical Christian and did not appreciate being classified with terrorists,” Crews said. “There was a pervasive attitude in the presentation that anything associated with religion is an extremist.”
The soldier “produced the slides based on EO Leader’s Course Program of Instruction obtained from the Soldier Support Institute at Fort Jackson, South Carolina,” the document reads.
In addition to the slide presentation, the Reserve unit was also shown a video provided by the SPLC and Teaching Tolerance. The trainer told her superior officers she showed the video because it was part of the “EO [Equal Opportunity] Advisor course curriculum.”
Crews is calling on the Pentagon to stop relying on the Southern Poverty Law Center or any other group that considers mainline religious organizations to be extremist or terrorist groups.
“Men and women of faith who have served the military faithfully for centuries shouldn’t be likened to those who have regularly threatened the peace and security of the United States,” Crews said. “The materials we have received verify that the military views the Southern Poverty Law Center as a reliable source for Equal Opportunity briefings.”
The Pentagon did not return calls seeking comment. Last April, spokesman George Wright told Fox News the training briefing in Pennsylvania was an “isolated incident not condoned by the Department of the Army.”
There seem to be a lot of "isolated incidents" in the U.S. military in the last 6 months.
And yet no one is ever disciplined for these "isolated incidents" that have a consistent pattern of singling out Christians in the military for discriminatory treatment. Giving the impression that this is endorsed at a high level, and testing the limits in an orchestrated way to probe what level they can get away with discriminating against Christians and driving them out of the military.
Quote:
“This slide was not produced by the Army and certainly does not reflect our policy or doctrine,” he said. “It was produced by an individual without anyone in the chain of command’s knowledge or permission.”
And yet... no one was disciplined or fired, or even named.
Quote:
The Army said the slide was removed, the presenter apologized and they considered the matter closed.
“Mr. Wright’s response is accurate but incomplete,” Crews told Fox News. “Yes, the one offensive slide was deleted, but how many other EO officers continue to use the SPLC as a source for training materials?”
Opposition to the governor’s decision is largely coming from the religious right and other social conservatives who are erroneously invoking the First Amendment’s right to free speech. Indeed, limiting parental choice in their children’s may seem to be an infraction of the First Amendment, but in this case it is clear that since it is illegal to subject a child to any form of abuse, this ill-founded and scientifically damaging form of counseling should be banned immediately.
The American Psychiatric Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Medical Association, and even the World Health Organization have all publicly opposed conversion therapy, also known as “reparative therapy, because it causes “serious and long term harm.” In other words, patients can suffer from substance abuse, declining self-esteem, severe depression, and even suicidal thoughts.
In this CRS report For Congress summarizing the major exceptions to the First Amendment, it states under the “Speech Harmful to Children” section that “it is recognized that there is a compelling interest in protecting the physical and psychological well-being of minors,” and that it must be accomplished by “narrowly drawn regulations without unnecessarily interfering with First Amendment freedoms.”
To come to his decision, Gov. Christie has used both scientific evidence and the limit of his legal powers. He is at once honoring the principle of free speech (reasonably regulating it to apply only to those under legal age), and acting upon a very serious public health concern for that same age-group.
Those against Christie's decision must consider other, similar laws that protect children from abuse and damage — ones that limit not only the decisions of parents but also of children themselves.
Take underage drinking. Regardless of parental consent, it is illegal in most circumstances for anybody under the age of 21 to purchase or consume any alcohol due to the harmful side effects youthful drinking can lead to. The government — as it can with the issue of reparative therapy for gay adolescents — takes choice out of the hands of children who are not yet mentally, emotionally, or physical developed enough to fully understand the consequences of their decisions and out of the hands of parents as a means of promoting general public welfare based on scientific facts.
Governor Christie hasn’t interfered with anybody’s right to free speech or imposed on a professional’s ability to delivery therapy, he has only halted the disastrous effects of a damaging pseudo-science aimed at “altering” the sexual identities of minors who are often forced into it anyway.
Pope Francis faulted the Roman Catholic church for focusing too much on gays, abortion and contraception, saying the church has become "obsessed" with those issues to the detriment of its larger mission to be "home for all," according to an extensive new interview published Thursday.
The church can share its views on homosexuality, abortion and other issues, but should not "interfere spiritually" with the lives of gays and lesbians, the pope added in the interview, which was published in La Civilta Cattolica, a Rome-based Jesuit journal.
“We have to find a new balance, otherwise even the moral edifice of the church is likely to fall like a house of cards, losing the freshness and fragrance of the Gospel," Francis said in the interview.
"The church has sometimes locked itself up in small things, in small-minded rules,' Francis said. "The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials."
The 12,000-word interview ranges widely, touching upon the pope's personal faith, the role of women and nuns in the church, Latin Mass and even the pope's favorite artists.
"He's very open honest and candid like we have not seen in a pope before. He critiques people who focus too much on tradition, who want to go to time in the past that does not exist anymore," said Fr. James Martin of America Magazine, which published an English translation of the interview. "He reminds people that thinking with the church, in obedience, does not just mean thinking with the hierarchy, that church is a lot bigger than its hierarchy."
In the interview, Francis does not come out in support of gay marriage, abortion rights or contraception, saying that church positions on those issues are "clear," but he added that the "the proclamation of the saving love of God comes before moral and religious imperatives.”
“A person once asked me, in a provocative manner, if I approved of homosexuality,” he said to Jesuit priest Fr. Antonio Spadaro, who conducted the interview for La Civilta Cattolica. “I replied with another question: ‘Tell me: when God looks at a gay person, does he endorse the existence of this person with love, or reject and condemn this person?’ We must always consider the person.”
The comments on gays and lesbians follow up on remarks Francis made aboard the papal airplane in July when asked about gay priests. "Who am I to judge?" the pope then said, in a quote that made international front-page headlines. In Thursday's interview, Francis clarified that those comments were about all gay people and not only priests.
Francis, 76, also touched upon where he falls within the political and theological spectrum of Catholics. Because of what he said was a purposeful avoidance of talking about sexuality and reproductive issues during the first six months of his papacy, some critics have said the pope has shifted from being more outspoken on conservative issues when he was a Jesuit province superior in Argentina and later was the Archbishop of Buenos Aires. The pope, who was appointed to the jesuit leadership position when he was 36, said his youthful lack of experience made him too authoritarian of a leader.
“But I have never been a right-winger," he said.
To which the Huffington Post, of course, gave no counterbalancing conservative Christian perspective or opinion.
I would argue such an unwillingness to take a stance is the death of the church, not expand its membership.
I think there will be some sort of new southern strategy but you'll never see somebody like the last republican President use it like Bush did. Perhaps in the future you'll even be posting about how Harvey Milk being a republican.
As I've said before, gay marriage and other Political Correctness can be imposed on an unwilling public, but we will never accept it in our hearts.
The fact that a few sheep's-clothed "conservatives" surrender on the issue doesn't change what hundreds of millions know to be a mockery of true marriage.
And I would advise the Pope to read his own holy book:
GENESIS 18 and 19 (destruction of Sodom and Gommorah) LEVITICUS 20:13 ("A man shall not lay with a man, the way he does with a woman...") ROMANS 1:18-32 (homosexuality a manifestation of society that has "given themselves over to a depraved mind" and are on the edge of self-destruction.)
And affirming the above in the New Testament:
1 CORINTHIANS 6:9-11 2 PETER 2:1-12 JUDE v5-10
and there are thousands of psych professionals who still treat homosexuality as a compulsive --and curable-- disorder.
Add to that, far from desiring objective study of the subject, how gay activists try to harass and intimidate into silence any who even ask the question of whether homosexuality might not be inborn.
The Pope's strategy of surrender on gay marriage and abortion belies that the facts, both in the church's own Bible, and in the known facts on these issues. If he only had the courage to stand for these issues, instead of caving in to nebulous perception of liberal-dominated public opinion.
You might recall conservatives fretting that a recognition of gay marriage could soon lead to legalizing polygamy and incest. Those concerns were typically scoffed at by liberals.
Advocacy groups for polygamy and individual liberties on Saturday hailed a federal judge's ruling that key parts of Utah's polygamy laws are unconstitutional, saying it will remove the threat of arrest for those families.
U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups said in the decision handed down Friday that a provision in Utah law forbidding cohabitation with another person violated the First Amendment right of freedom of religion.
You might recall conservatives fretting that a recognition of gay marriage could soon lead to legalizing polygamy and incest. Those concerns were typically scoffed at by liberals.
Advocacy groups for polygamy and individual liberties on Saturday hailed a federal judge's ruling that key parts of Utah's polygamy laws are unconstitutional, saying it will remove the threat of arrest for those families.
U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups said in the decision handed down Friday that a provision in Utah law forbidding cohabitation with another person violated the First Amendment right of freedom of religion.
This ruling has no connection to the theory that you had previously put forth. The judge did not rule either bigamy nor polygamy legal. He just said that the state of Utah can't make people shacking up together who aren't married to each other illegal. You still can't be legally married to more than one person. Using the legalization of gay marriage doesn't seem to be a factor in this case as much as is just the right of the people to keep and overbearing government out of their private business.
I still don't get the correlation between the two. Historically and even currently some of the places that have the strongest anti-gay laws are just peachy keen with having multiple wives.
If the respective implications of both involves changing the parameters of the original format of marriage, then they correlate. I'm sure you have a victim complex, but not all issues relating to a given marriage's antecedents revolve around your feelings of oppression.
Originally Posted By: thedoctor
Why would I be changing my mind? And from what to what?
From whatever you believe now to whatever you may or may not believe later.
Looks like you're just trying to fabricate a 'gotcha' moment like G-man attempted. The only thing that I put forth in my comment was that G-man's previous Carnac prediction that the gay marriage issue would be used to allow polygamy didn't pan out in the situation within the article he posted. If I thought that it had, then, naturally I would have an opposite view of what I posted. There's nothing there for you despite you trying to create something.
If the respective implication of both involves changing the parameters of the original format of marriage, then they correlate. I'm sure you have a victim complex, but not all issues relating to a given marriages antecedents revolve around your feelings of oppression.
...
I'm from MN where there's marriage equality so your victim comment doesn't even apply. Neither is the correlation substantive. As noted places that hate the gays the most can be very friendly with polygamy.
"I'm surrounded by people who want to keep the gay man down!!"
But, once again, you ignored the point: "If the respective implications of both involves changing the parameters of the original format of marriage, then they correlate."
Same-sex marriage: Two of the same gender.
Polygamy: More than two.
That is a substantive change in parameters.
Originally Posted By: thedoctor
Looks like you're just trying to fabricate a 'gotcha' moment like G-man attempted. The only thing that I put forth in my comment was that G-man's previous Carnac prediction that the gay marriage issue would be used to allow polygamy didn't pan out in the situation within the article he posted. If I thought that it had, then, naturally I would have an opposite view of what I posted. There's nothing there for you despite you trying to create something.
I'm not trying to create anything. You've already alluded to skepticism towards the idea that changing the institution of marriage in one respect won't create precedent for changing it in another. Therefore, the mentality of your post is that it cannot be principally changed by such means. As such, I have doubts that the article would have held any relevance to you whatsoever.
Looks like you're just trying to fabricate a 'gotcha' moment like G-man attempted.
Originally Posted By: Pariah
I'm not trying to create anything. You've already alluded to skepticism towards the idea that changing the institution of marriage in one respect won't create precedent for changing it in another. Therefore, the mentality of your post is that it cannot be principally changed by such means. As such, I have doubts that the article would have held any relevance to you whatsoever.
And there it is. Thank you for being so predictable.
Gay couples marry in Utah after judge overturns ban
SALT LAKE CITY - A federal judge struck down Utah's same-sex marriage ban Friday in a decision that brings a nationwide shift toward allowing gay marriage to a conservative state where the Mormon church has long been against it.
The decision set off an immediate frenzy as the clerk in the state's most populous county began issuing marriage licenses to gay couples while state officials took steps to appeal the ruling and halt the process.
Cheers erupted as the mayor of Salt Lake City led one of the state's first gay wedding ceremonies in an office building about three miles from the headquarters of the Mormon church. Dozens of other couples were lined up to get marriage licenses.
Deputy Salt Lake County Clerk Dahnelle Burton-Lee said the district attorney authorized her office to begin issuing the licenses but she couldn't immediately say how many had been issued. ...
Actually it seems where there's the most polygamy you also have the most anti-gay laws. Polygamists are more likely to be on your side with being against gays being married.
You might recall conservatives fretting that a recognition of gay marriage could soon lead to legalizing polygamy and incest. Those concerns were typically scoffed at by liberals.
Advocacy groups for polygamy and individual liberties on Saturday hailed a federal judge's ruling that key parts of Utah's polygamy laws are unconstitutional, saying it will remove the threat of arrest for those families.
U.S. District Judge Clark Waddoups said in the decision handed down Friday that a provision in Utah law forbidding cohabitation with another person violated the First Amendment right of freedom of religion.
This ruling has no connection to the theory that you had previously put forth. The judge did not rule either bigamy nor polygamy legal. He just said that the state of Utah can't make people shacking up together who aren't married to each other illegal. You still can't be legally married to more than one person. Using the legalization of gay marriage doesn't seem to be a factor in this case as much as is just the right of the people to keep and overbearing government out of their private business.
Actually it seems where there's the most polygamy you also have the most anti-gay laws. Polygamists are more likely to be on your side with being against gays being married.
I'm not against gay marriage. You know that. My concern has always been today it should be legislatively enacted. You also know that.
It has been noted previously in the mainstream press that polygamists believe that the gay marriage precedents can be used to strike down laws prohibiting bigamy.
As such, there is reason to believe that the polygamists will find this ruling useful as well
SALT LAKE CITY - Utah state lawyers have again turned to a Denver-based federal appeals court in their bid to put a stop to gay couples getting married, saying the state should not be required to abide by one judge's narrow view of a "new and fundamentally different definition of marriage."
About 700 gay couples have obtained wedding licenses since U.S. District Judge Robert J. Shelby on Friday declared Utah's gay marriage ban unconstitutional, but lawyers for the state are trying every legal avenue to halt the practice. Shelby on Monday denied their bid to temporarily stop gay marriage while the appeals process plays out, and they then quickly went to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Utah is the 18th state where gay couples can wed, and the sight of same-sex marriages occurring just a few miles from the headquarters of the Mormon church has provoked anger among the state's top leaders.
"Until the final word has been spoken by this Court or the Supreme Court on the constitutionality of Utah's marriage laws, Utah should not be required to enforce Judge Shelby's view of a new and fundamentally different definition of marriage," the state said in a motion to the appeals court.
It is estimated that nearly two-thirds of Utah's 2.8 million residents are members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and Mormons dominate the state's legal and political circles. The Mormon church was also one of the leading forces behind California's short-lived ban on same-sex marriage.
The legal wrangling over the topic will likely continue for months. The 10th Circuit could rule as soon as Monday evening or Tuesday on whether to temporarily halt the weddings. But the same court likely will hear the full appeal of the case several months from now.
People began lining up Sunday night at the Salt Lake County clerk's office in the hopes of getting licenses amid the uncertainty of the pending ruling by Shelby. Couples then got married once every few minutes in the lobby to the sound of string music from a violin duet.
They anxiously eyed their cellphones for news on Shelby's decision, and a loud cheer erupted once word spread that he wouldn't be blocking weddings. "We feel equal!" one man shouted; his partner called it "this magic happening out of the clear blue."
Adam Blatter said he was in a panic to get married Monday morning before a judge could halt the issuance of licenses. He and his partner, Joseph Chavez, were elated when it became clear their wait was worthwhile, and they were shocked that it was happening in a state long known as one of the most conservative in the country.
"We expected Utah to be the last place we could get married," Blatter said.
Even if the 10th Circuit grants a stay, the marriage licenses that already have been issued probably will remain valid, said Carl Tobias, a constitutional law professor at Virginia's University of Richmond who has tracked legal battles for gay marriage. It's not entirely certain, however, because Utah's situation has unfolded differently than those of other states, and there's no direct precedent, he said.
Not all counties are issuing the licenses. In Utah County, one of the most conservative in the state, County Clerk Brian Thompson made a conscious decision to defy the judge's ruling and not grant marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples. He said he wants to see if the appeals court grants the stay first.
"I totally understand the position I'm in," he said, "but I have a responsibility as elected official to proceed with caution."
The appeals court already has rejected two previous requests from the state due to procedural issues, but it has not yet considered the case based on merits.
The Mormon church said Friday it stands by its support for "traditional marriage" and hopes a higher court validates its belief that marriage is between a man and woman.
In court Monday, Utah lawyer Philip Lott repeated the words "chaotic situation" to describe what has happened in Utah since clerks started allowing gay weddings. He urged the judge to "take a more orderly approach than the current frenzy."
"Utah should be allowed to follow its democratically chosen definition of marriage," he said of the 2004 gay marriage ban.
In explaining his decision, Shelby said the state made basically the same arguments he had already rejected.
Adding to the chaos is the fact that Utah Attorney General John Swallow stepped down about a month ago amid a scandal involving allegations of bribery and offering businessmen protection in return for favors. The state has been relying on an acting attorney general, and Gov. Gary Herbert appointed a replacement Monday who will serve until a special election next year.
Peggy Tomsic, the lawyer for the same-sex couples who brought the case, called gay marriage the civil rights movement of this generation and said it was the new law of the land in Utah.
"The cloud of confusion that the state talks about is only their minds," she said.
Shelby said in Friday's ruling that the constitutional amendment that Utah voters approved violates gay and lesbian couples' rights to due process and equal protection under the 14th Amendment. He said the state failed to show that allowing same-sex marriages would affect opposite-sex marriages in any way.
Legal scholars speculate that the case could someday be reviewed by the U.S. Supreme Court if the justices decide they want to weigh in on whether state same-sex marriage bans violate the U.S. Constitution.
Tobias said that's a real possibility, but far from imminent. It will depend on what the appeals court decides and what happens with other court challenges in Nevada, Pennsylvania and Virginia, he said.
It sounds to me like this was a coordinated attack on Utah's marriage law. Where a gay rights organization planned to file their opposition to Utah's defined marriage law, while the same organization had hundreds of couples lined up to marry to generate publicity.
It probably was the same in other states, but I just noticed the apparent coordinated method of attack.
There is no purpose for two gay men (or lesbians) to marry, other than to undermine traditional marriage and Christianity. No other reason.
A coordinated attack by Social Marxists, on one of the three pillars of Western culture. (An attack on marriage/the family, the other two pillars being the Christian church, and Western nationalism/government institutions/rule of law).
Uh huh. And you ignored the fact that mutual affection does not necessitate marriage, and thus does not establish its precedent. As such, your answer was incorrect.
In which case: What does this fixation on a cultural aspect of marriage tell you about your--and most other homosexuals'--perception of the institution itself?
Marriage is necessitated by social/moral objectives, but the question is what establishes a precedent for it. I believe that if you think this one over, you might understand the true motivation behind your desire to have homosexuals associated with marriage.
I don't think so. My motivation isn't that complicated. I love my guy and have been happy spending my life with him. It's even better having it legally recognized with the legal benefits.
They [homosexuals] get married for the same reasons other couples get married WB even if you refuse to recognize it.
Marriage in every culture is a religious institution, a ceremony before God, where one man and one woman publicly before those present vow lifelong commitment to each other.
As said in GENESIS 2:24-25, the two in marriage as man and wife "become one flesh" in their children.
Also, as is repeatedly referred to in the Bible throughout, and especially in REVELATION, the Church (consisting of all Christian believers) is referred to as "the Bride" and Jesus as "the Bridegroom". Marriage is a manifestation of lifelong faithfulness and commitment between man and woman, that manifests the same commitment of each believer to God. And as I said, also manifests the commitment between the Church as a whole and Jesus the messiah. As contrasted with the False Prophet and the Whore of Babylon, which increasingly looks like the whole of Social Marxism/Political Correctness that has waged war for decades on Christianity, that Gay organizations are clearly and vocally a part of.
Beyond that, the Bible has outright declared homosexuality immoral and evil (I've listed most of the verses within the last page) so there is no mistaking that "gay marriage" is somehow compatible with religious faith, certainly not Christian or Jewish faith, for those who know their Bible. Likewise not compatible with Muslim religion. And from what I've seen, there is no endorsement of homosexuality in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. I've had a great many friends from China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Pretty much the only safe place in the world for homosexuals is the secularist West of Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. As we've seen in recent months, even Russia has doubled down in their rejection of homosexuality.
So the notion that Christianity, or any other significant culture or religion, endorses gay marriage, or that it is "the same" is clear deceit and a non-starter from the outset. Only in the whitewashed world of Political Correctness, that outlaws the truth as "hate speech".
Gays don't have children, there is no two becoming "one flesh". Gay marriage is not a covenant that manifests a larger commitment to God, or commitment to the Church. Quite the opposite, in every political movement by gays for 40 years, they clearly are the antichristian soldiers of Social Marxism and the AntiChrist, to drive Christianity out of our culture.
There is no logical reason for gays to seek marriage and twist the definition of marriage, a twisted definition that the Bible and the Christians who follow it (and Jews, and Muslims) recognize as a scripturally cited evil, and a homosexual movement that is part of an organized war on their religious faith.
Within a secularist framework of non-religious state-recognized civil union there might be the slightest rationalization. But gays seeking a wedding for "the same reasons as other people" is complete hypocrisy.
Marriage is necessitated by social/moral objectives, but the question is what establishes a precedent for it.
You're saying that mutual affection establishes precedent for marriage, but marriage has never required a prerequisite of affection. And, for that matter, marriage has never been a requirement for people who share affection. The synthesis between Marriage and affection was an expressly cultural development.
If your interpretation for the precedent of marriage's practice is dependent upon a purely cultural aspect of the institution, then what does that tell you about you--and homosexuals in general--assigning so much importance to the ritual?
I already did eight posts ago: "Marriage is necessitated by social/moral objectives."
In which case: "You're saying that mutual affection establishes precedent for marriage, but marriage has never required a prerequisite of affection. And, for that matter, marriage has never been a requirement for people who share affection. The synthesis between Marriage and affection is an expressly cultural development.
If your interpretation for the precedent of marriage's practice is dependent upon a purely cultural aspect of the institution, then what does that tell you about you--and homosexuals in general--assigning so much importance to the ritual?"
Don't bother stalling. You and I both know the implications of fixating on the cultural aspects of marriage rather than its mechanics. If you're too scared and/or humiliated to acknowledge them, then say so, but don't bother pleading ignorance.
I'm not stalling but trying to understand. I would point out that you're the one losing ground in the marriage equality battle. I'm fine if you can't defend what your saying.
You're saying that mutual affection establishes precedent for marriage, but marriage has never required a prerequisite of affection. And, for that matter, marriage has never been a requirement for people who share affection. The synthesis between Marriage and affection was an expressly cultural development.
If your interpretation for the precedent of marriage's practice is dependent upon a purely cultural aspect of the institution, then what does that tell you about you--and homosexuals in general--assigning so much importance to the ritual?
Stop running from reality MEM. Just take a moment to consider why you hold this perception of marriage and you will achieve ultimate clarity.
Reality is gay marriage is becoming legal in more and more places. If you can't or won't explain your position than maybe your position isn't all that solid? You brought up ...
Originally Posted By: Pariah
Marriage is necessitated by social/moral objectives.
I'm curious how you apply that to heterosexuals vs gay couples. To me both sides want the same thing out of a marriage but what would fall into "necessitated"?
Reality is gay marriage is becoming legal in more and more places. If you can't or won't explain your position than maybe your position isn't all that solid?
Hehe. Typical MEM: 'the majority is on my side, so everything you say is invalid.'
You're already aware of my position. If you weren't, you'd feel more inclined to answer the question instead of avoiding analysis of the contemporary mindset that attracts homosexuals to the concept of matrimony regardless of the fact that affection doesn't necessitate marriage.
This really isn't that difficult, but I'll make it a lot simpler for you: If marriage and affection aren't interdependent, but homosexual couples seek to get married as a matter of course anyway, then what does that say about you--and homosexuals in general--assigning so much importance to the ritual?
Clearly, if my position isn't all that solid, then the integrity of your own position won't be jeopardized by considering the question.
Quote:
I'm curious how you apply that to heterosexuals vs gay couples.
The morality that spawned marriage does not correspond with sexually indiscriminate couplings. The process of marrying fails to meet its intended goal of family building mergers if the format doesn't satisfy the man-woman parameters. Marriage has no purpose otherwise.
...Their dubious campaign slogan of "two consenting adults" obviously sounds good, but it's marvelously tangent from the point of "one man, one woman". Why stop at two? Why consenting? Why adults? Why human?
Unlike the traditional model for the institution of marriage, their parameters for the ritual fail to establish a social objective. Generally, and overwhelmingly, one man and one woman will always trend growth, families, and population stability. A same-sex coupling will not trend any of those things without a third party--which defeats the purpose entirely. As such, the social objective of a homosexual coupling could not possibly be families. The only other reason is relationships, but that has nothing to do with the state or the institution of marriage. One could argue that more cohesive and loving relationships are good for society in general, but it's not a government responsibility to reinforce a relationship.
So by all accounts, there really is no reason to limit the proposition to "two consenting adults". And as the mentality of that slogan is reinforced in our society, people will begin to understand how squishy and meaningless it is, and they will simply move on to other protocols for marriage and relationships. Could be polygamy, could be pedophilia, could be bestiality. With a phrase so lacking in integrity on a political or philosophical basis, the sky's the limit.
If marriage existed solely as an affectionate bond, then why do you think its institution would involve the state?
Your own interest in marriage is more concerned with its religious origins than you'd care to admit. You'd realize that if you just answer the question.
"If marriage and affection aren't interdependent, but homosexual couples seek to get married as a matter of course anyway, then what does that say about you--and homosexuals in general--assigning so much importance to the ritual?"
Here, I'll give you a hint: if same-sex couples feel the need to get married (just like the "straights"), even though affection doesn't necessitate marriage, what does that say about the homosexual community's perception of marriage?
They [homosexuals] get married for the same reasons other couples get married WB even if you refuse to recognize it.
Marriage in every culture is a religious institution, a ceremony before God, where one man and one woman publicly before those present vow lifelong commitment to each other.
As said in GENESIS 2:24-25, the two in marriage as man and wife "become one flesh" in their children.
Also, as is repeatedly referred to in the Bible throughout, and especially in REVELATION, the Church (consisting of all Christian believers) is referred to as "the Bride" and Jesus as "the Bridegroom". Marriage is a manifestation of lifelong faithfulness and commitment between man and woman, that manifests the same commitment of each believer to God. And as I said, also manifests the commitment between the Church as a whole and Jesus the messiah. As contrasted with the False Prophet and the Whore of Babylon, which increasingly looks like the whole of Social Marxism/Political Correctness that has waged war for decades on Christianity, that Gay organizations are clearly and vocally a part of.
Beyond that, the Bible has outright declared homosexuality immoral and evil (I've listed most of the verses within the last page) so there is no mistaking that "gay marriage" is somehow compatible with religious faith, certainly not Christian or Jewish faith, for those who know their Bible. Likewise not with Muslim religion. And from what I've seen, there is no endorsement of homosexuality in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. I've had a great many friends from China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Pretty much the only safe place in the world for homosexuals is the secularist West of Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. As we've seen in recent months, even Russia has doubled down in their rejection of homosexuality.
So the notion that Christianity, or any other significant culture or religion, endorses gay marriage, or that it is "the same" is clear deceit and a non-starter from the outset. Only in the whitewashed world of Political Correctness, that outlaws the truth as "hate speech".
Gays don't have children, there is no two becoming "one flesh". Gay marriage is not a covenant that manifests a larger commitment to God, or commitment to the Church. Quite the opposite, in every political movement by gays for 40 years, they clearly are the antichristian soldiers of Social Marxism and the AntiChrist, to drive Christianity out of our culture.
There is no logical reason for gays to seek marriage and twist the definition of marriage, that the Bible and the Christians who follow it (and Jews, and Muslims) recognize as a scripturally cited evil, and a homosexual movement that is part of an organized war on their religious faith.
Within a secularist framework of non-religious state-recognized civil union there might be the slightest rationalization. But gays seeking a wedding for "the same reasons as other people" is complete hypocrisy.
It is a complete lie to say gays "want to marry for the same reasons as everyone else".
Others marry out of religious faith as part of a Christian (or other religious) culture. Gays only pursue it as a legal precedent to undermine Christianity and traditional marriage.
Sorry but you're not really making sense. Just lay it out on the table and we'll do an autopsy.
If you just participate in the analysis, you wouldn't be so confused.
But again: we both understand the implications of a purely cultural attraction to marriage. You're just dodging because you don't want to help lead up to the inevitable conclusion of exactly why you assign so much importance to matrimony.
It is a complete lie to say gays "want to marry for the same reasons as everyone else".
Others marry out of religious faith as part of a Christian (or other religious) culture. Gays only pursue it as a legal precedent to undermine Christianity and traditional marriage.
Gays do get married for reasons just like everyone else WB and it has nothing to do with undermining anything. People in love like to get married lots of times, even us gays. Some adopt some already have kids. Some get married in churches. Gay or straight it seems to work when it's about love and building something out of it. Hope you get to understand that some day.
It is a complete lie to say gays "want to marry for the same reasons as everyone else".
Others marry out of religious faith as part of a Christian (or other religious) culture. Gays only pursue it as a legal precedent to undermine Christianity and traditional marriage.
Gays do get married for reasons just like everyone else WB and it has nothing to do with undermining anything. People in love like to get married lots of times, even us gays. Some adopt some already have kids. Some get married in churches. Gay or straight it seems to work when it's about love and building something out of it. Hope you get to understand that some day.
The links I provided of 1) the suppression of religious freedom (forcing a NM photography studio to photograph a lesbian ceremony against their will, and the examples of Canadian gay laws to likewise force churches against their beliefs to marry gays), and 2) the stated strategy of the political Left to undermine and destroy our institutions from within, prove the lie of what you allege that gays "want the same things" as other couples who marry.
Other couples marry out of both love and religious faith. Gays seek "marriage" as a way to undermine Christianity and conservative institutions, and to advance the cause of the gay/cultural-marxist Left, at the expense and opression of any who disagree with them. For anyone who believes in Christianity and the Bible, it is clear that gays advocate policy to destroy Christianity.
Heterosexual couples marry in ceremonies before a God that gays lobby at every political turn to destroy.
It is a complete lie to say gays "want to marry for the same reasons as everyone else".
Others marry out of religious faith as part of a Christian (or other religious) culture. Gays only pursue it as a legal precedent to undermine Christianity and traditional marriage.
Gays do get married for reasons just like everyone else WB and it has nothing to do with undermining anything. People in love like to get married lots of times, even us gays. Some adopt some already have kids. Some get married in churches. Gay or straight it seems to work when it's about love and building something out of it. Hope you get to understand that some day.
The links I provided of 1) the suppression of religious freedom (forcing a NM photoggraphy studio to photograph a lessbian ceremony against their will, and the examples of Canadian gay laws to likewise force churches against their beliefs to marry gays), and 2) the stated strategy of the political Left to undermine and destroy our institutions from within, prove the lie of what you allege that gays "want the same things" as other couples who marry.
Other couples marry out of both love and religious faith. Gays seek "marriage" as a way to undermine Christianity and conservative institutions, and to advance the cause of the gay/social-marxist Left, at the expense and opression of any who disagree with them. For anyone who believes in Christianity and the Bible, it is clear that gays advocate policy to destroy Christianity.
Heterosexual couples marry in ceremonies before a God that gay lobby at every political turn to destroy.
This doesn't resemble anything remotely like reality to me. Sorry but if you want to keep gays from getting married that's your problem. I love my guy. Simple as that.
And I want to vomit at the thought. Simple as that.
You ignore reality to deny the facts. Gay legal actions have oppressed the rights of christians and suppressed Christianity in a number of case examples I've cited. Your point is that gays "marry for the same reasons" as everyone else. I've repeatedly proven that a blatant lie.
Gays at every turn are part of the liberal/progressive forces pushing to destroy and root out the Christian religion that most men and women in the U.S. "marry for".
I like to think love triumphs over hate. It's been nice having these talks since MN recognized gay marriage. You have no power to intrude on my life any more. Thanks for helping more moderate people see how hateful your position actually is btw.
I like to think love triumphs over hate. It's been nice having these talks since MN recognized gay marriage. You have no power to intrude on my life any more. Thanks for helping more moderate people see how hateful your position actually is btw.
The intolerance and hate clearly comes from the Left.
It is you on the Left who are venomously intolerant of Christians and other conservatives, and far from "multiculturalism" try to leverage us out of having political representation, or even existence! EVERY mass killing in the last few years in the U.S. has been a left-winger. It is also the Left (Prometheus here being a prime example) who fantasize about a "second revolution to exterminate those who won't evolve into the 21st century".
And as also demonstrated in the gay/Left's attempts to shut down conservative free speech in the Chick-Fil-A and Duck Dynasty controversies.
Republicans are content to voice their dissenting view, in an open dialogue. Democrats and the Left are the ones who attempt to bully and end all free speech by conservatives. If not end our very existence, in bloody fantasies, that are all too frequently violently fulfilled.
Virginia's Attorney General will not defend state's gay marriage ban
By: News Desk [Share on Facebook]
Virginia's Attorney General said Thursday that he will not defend the state's ban on same-sex marriage and will instead side with the plaintiffs. Creative Commons photo courtesy of Flickr user Photo Phiend
Virginia's new Attorney General said Thursday that he will not defend the state's ban on gay marriage.
"I cannot and will not defend laws that violate Virginians' rights," Democratic Attorney General Mark Herring said in an interview with NPR's Steve Inskeep. "The commonwealth will be siding with the plaintiffs in this case and with every other Virginia couple whose right to marry is being denied." ...
Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer expected to veto 'religious freedom' bill By Dana Bash, CNN Chief Congressional Correspondent updated 3:00 PM EST, Tue February 25, 2014 Watch this video CEO: Arizona is a welcoming state STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Bill would allow business owners to deny service to gay and lesbians based on religious objections Some lawmakers who know Gov. Jan Brewer believe she'll reject the measure Businesses pressure her to reject the bill pushed by group opposed to abortion, same-sex marriage
(CNN) -- All signs indicate Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer will likely veto politically-charged legislation that supporters say promotes religious freedom and opponents contend discriminates against gays and lesbians.
Brewer did not signal her intention either way in an exclusive interview with CNN on Monday at the National Governors Association meeting in Washington.
"I can assure you, as always, I will do the right thing for the state of Arizona," she said.
But some Arizona Republicans who know her well say they are confident those comments mean Brewer will almost surely reject the bill that is generating nationwide controversy.
The Republican-led measure would allow Arizona business owners to deny service to gay and lesbian customers as long as they assert their religious beliefs.
Brewer is scheduled to return to Arizona on Tuesday, and a source tells CNN those familiar with her thinking say she will likely spend at least one full business day in the state before acting.
"I'm going to go home, and when I receive the bill, I'm going to read it and I'm going to be briefed on it. We have been following it. And I will make my decision in the near future," Brewer told CNN.
She has until Saturday to sign or veto the bill. If she does nothing, it automatically becomes law.
Arizona GOP sources say Brewer considers herself a pro-business governor -- someone who above all else wants to protect and promote Arizona's economic interests.
They say she knows full well there will be economic consequences for the state if it has a law on the books perceived to effectively codify discrimination.
"I have a history of deliberating and having an open dialogue on bills that are controversial, to listen to both sides of those issues, and I welcome the input, and information that they can provide to me. And certainly I am pro-business, and that is what's turning our economy around, so I appreciate their input, as I appreciate the other side," Brewer said.
Business leaders in Arizona and around the country, including the chief executive of American Airlines, have urged Brewer publicly and privately to veto the bill.
Approval also is likely to trigger lawsuits.
The bill was pushed by the Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative group opposed to abortion and same-sex marriage.
The group argues the proposal protects people against increasingly activist federal courts.
Brewer vetoed a similar bill last year, arguing that the state legislature should focus on more pressing issues, such as a Medicaid expansion plan she was promoting.
Sources say she is concerned about this bill taking away from other issues she is now pressing, such as overhauling Arizona's child protective services system.
While I'm sympathetic to the idea that people have a religious right, as well as a right to contract, under which they can choose who, and who not, to do business with, It seems to me that bigots only hurt themselves by not accepting business from people.
I would point out that being "gay" is not a proven biological condition. There is just as much evidence that being homosexual is a choice, and that tens of thousands of people have been psychologically treated for homosexuality as a disorder, been cured of it, and are now living normal heterosexual lives. I've posted many example cases earlier in this topic.
People of religious faith are arguably not "bigoted" toward gays, but wanting to let them live happier and more fulfilling lives by avoiding the dysfunctional "lifestyle choice" of homosexuality. I know two homosexuals in my own family, and the point where they chose that lifestyle, despite acceptance of the entire family, marks the point of their descent into alcoholism, depression, psychological counseling and prescribed anti-depressants. Prior to their descent into "the lifestyle" they were happy and fun people. And that partly explains my hostility toward the gay mindset, because homosexuality took two of my favorite people and turned them into people I barely recognize.
Beyond that, "gay rights" is a constructed weapon to attack religious freedom, and those who disagree with homosexuality have every right to oppose what cannot even be proven to be a legitimate biological/psychological condition.
Well I can't speak for the two gays in your family WB but personally there was the fake me that my family got before I came out. Looking back it wasn't really fair to them or myself but out of fear that's what I did for many years. Maybe I was lucky that my drug of choice was mostly comic books.
My cousin I've known about as a lesbian since 1989.
My other gay/homosexual relative since about 1995 (I can't recall the exact date). I asked his father what he thought about his son being gay about a year or so after, and his response was "Well, I'd prefer if my son wasn't gay, but he's still my son" and didn't love his son any less.
But I see your point, because some (not many that I've seen, but some) parents rift with their children at the revelation, and I guess until you break the news, you really don't know for sure if it will cause a rift.
I think it's significant to note that despite my hardline views on homosexuality, I don't love my gay family members any less, and have never avoided or discriminated against gay co-workers or other gays I cross paths with.
I still think people who feel strongly enough about it should be able to refuse certain gay business or gay employees if they feel strongly enough to take that stance based on their beliefs. Just like a Jew or Muslim shouldn't be forced to eat pork. My own preference is interaction, rather than shutting them out. But I understand why, say, conservative Christian photographers should want to not photograph a gay wedding service, or a catholic school should not want a gay teacher, and I think they should have the right to say no to gays in those or similar circumstances.
I think the Arizona law was not well thought out enough, and opened itself up to interpretation as anti-gay, despite that it was intended to address gay/secularist/state discrimination against First Amendment religious freedom.
And despite there are an increasing number of cases of discrimination toward those of religious faith:
February 26, 2014 (Heritage) - Editor’s note: Amid the heated debate over Arizona’s SB 1062 law, which aims to protect religious liberty, it’s worth looking back at some of the ways that religious beliefs have come under attack in the public square in recent years. The language in this post that is quoted originally appeared in a National Review Online article by Ryan T. Anderson and Leslie Ford. Kelsey Harris also contributed to this article.
1. Elane Photography
Elane Huguenin and her husband, Jon, run Elane Photography, a small business in Albuquerque, N.M.
Back in 2006, the couple declined a request to photograph a same-sex ceremony because of a difference in beliefs. Elane explained:
“The message a same-sex commitment ceremony communicates is not one I believe.”
Elane Photography never refused to take pictures of gay and lesbian individuals, but it did decline to photograph a same-sex ceremony. Meanwhile, other photographers in the Albuquerque area were more than happy to photograph the event — and Elane has no problem giving them that business.
But in 2008, the New Mexico Human Rights Commission ruled that the Huguenins had discriminated based on sexual orientation. The commission ordered them to pay $6,637.94 in attorneys’ fees.
At the end of 2013, the New Mexico Supreme Court upheld the Human Rights Commission. It concluded that under the state’s sexual-orientation and gender-identity law, “the First Amendment does not protect a photographer’s freedom to decline to take pictures of a same-sex commitment ceremony even when doing so would violate the photographer’s deeply held religious beliefs.”
Elane Photography has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review of its case.
2. Sweet Cakes by Melissa
When Rachel Cryer and Laurel Bowman asked the Oregon bakery Sweet Cakes by Melissa to bake a wedding cake for their same-sex commitment ceremony in 2013, Sweet Cakes declined the request.
The bakery owners consistently served all customers on a regular basis, but making a cake for Cryer and Bowman would have required them to facilitate and celebrate a same-sex relationship — which would violate their religious belief that marriage is the union of one man and one woman.
It’s a value derived from their very-open Christian beliefs. Check out this picture the bakery shared on their Facebook wall.
P.S. — Oregon law defines marriage as being between one man and one woman, too.
But the lesbian couple filed a complaint under the Oregon Equality Act of 2007, which prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation. In January, the agency issued a ruling that held that the Sweet Cakes by Melissa violated Oregon’s sexual-orientation law when by refusing to bake the cake.
As the story gained local media attention, the owners, Melissa and Aaron Klein, immediately faced threats, vicious protests, and boycotts.
Fearing for their safety, the Kleins closed Sweet Cakes by Melissa in September 2013.
3. Masterpiece Cakeshop
Meet Jack Phillips, who owns Masterpiece Cakeshop in Colorado.
He declined to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding reception for these guys.
In 2012, the couple received a marriage license in Massachusetts and asked Phillips to bake a cake for a reception back home in Denver. But because of his faith, Phillips declined to create a wedding cake:
“I don’t feel like I should participate in their wedding, and when I do a cake, I feel like I am participating in the ceremony or the event or the celebration that the cake is for.”
But the American Civil Liberties Union disagrees. They “filed a complaint against Masterpiece Cakeshop with the state, alleging violations of Colorado’s public-accommodation law. Administrative Law Judge Robert N. Spencer ruled against the bakery on December 6, 2013, concluding that Phillips violated the law by refusing service to the two men ‘because of their sexual orientation.’”
Phillips’ response: objection.
He said he’d happily sell the couple his baked goods for any number of occasions, but baking a wedding cake would force him to express something that he does not believe, violating his freedom to run his business in step with his faith.
“It’s just the wedding cake, not the people. Not the lifestyle. … We’d close down the bakery before we compromise our beliefs.”
4. Arlene’s Flowers
Barronelle Stutzman owns Arlene’s Flowers and Gifts in Washington State.
Her longtime customers Roger Ingersoll and Curt Freed requested she arrange the flowers for their same-sex wedding ceremony.
Stutzman responded that she “could not accept the job because of her ‘relationship with Jesus Christ’ and her belief that marriage is between one man and one woman.”
But the couple filed a complaint and Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed suit “against Stutzman, contending that she had violated the state’s sexual-orientation law.”
Now Stutzman faces $2,000 fine, a court order, and outrage from local residents. Here’s a Facebook page with 626 supporters.
[Boycott Arlene’s Flower’s Facebook Page]
As these cases show, religious liberty and discrimination are almost certainly matters that both courts and citizens will tackle and struggle with in the upcoming years.
In each of these cases, they had no reservations about providing business to gay customers, they just didn't want to bake specific cakes, prepare flower arrangements, or provide photography, in the specific case of gay marriage that they did not endorse.
Isn't that the right of any private business owner, to refuse specific business if they choose to?
At any rate, these cases lay out specific cases the Arizona law attempted to address, to protect the rights of people of religious faith, to not be forced to do things that oppose their beliefs.
I like to think love triumphs over hate. It's been nice having these talks since MN recognized gay marriage. You have no power to intrude on my life any more. Thanks for helping more moderate people see how hateful your position actually is btw.
Even as the Obama administration denounced what it called anti-gay legislation in Arizona and the president sat out the Sochi Olympics because of Russia’s crackdown on same-sex couples, the State Department allowed an Islamic preacher who called for the death penalty for homosexuals into the country for a tour of hate.
Sheikh Mohammad Rateb al-Nabulsi was issued a visa for a 17-city tour of US mosques to raise money and support for the Syrian uprising. He arrived New Year’s Day.
The radical Syrian cleric has made no secret of his virulent anti-gay views. Appearing April 28, 2011, on al Aqsa TV, the official network of the Hamas terrorist organization in Gaza, al-Nabulsi said: “Homosexuality involves a filthy place and does not generate offspring. Homosexuality leads to the destruction of the homosexual. That is why, brothers, homosexuality carries the death penalty.”
In addition to his anti-gay pronouncements, Sheikh al-Nabulsi has publicly endorsed holy war against Westerners and Jews as well as suicide bombings against Israel, America’s democratic ally in the region.
Asked whether al-Nabulsi’s televised remarks calling for killing homosexuals and Jews should have banned him from travel to America, a second State Department official, specializing in visa requests, pointed to Section 212(a)(3) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, which covers a broad range of terrorist-related activity, including promoting the use of violence and incitement. Nonetheless, the visa was issued.
Gay activists will act like the world is coming to an end if a baker somewhere doesn’t bake them a wedding cake. But this? You hear crickets.
George Will today on Fox News Sunday expanded well on that, saying that gays "are essentially winning the political battle, but being sore winners. That they can go to a majority of bakers and get a gay wedding cake, but use the hammer of government to vindictively pursue lawsuits against the few that won't."
Personally I would prefer spending my money where it was wanted but I also never understood the group that actually spends time and money trying to keep the gays from getting married.
Except that the gay community prefers to spend so much money where it ISN'T wanted, harassing and attempting to outlaw the beliefs and traditions of those who don't share your pro-gay beleifs.
Two posts from mid-December of last year, that lay out the issue quote clearly, M E M :
Originally Posted By: Wonder Boy
The gay marriage issue is just one offensive in a larger movement:
They [homosexuals] get married for the same reasons other couples get married WB even if you refuse to recognize it.
Marriage in every culture is a religious institution, a ceremony before God, where one man and one woman publicly before those present vow lifelong commitment to each other.
As said in GENESIS 2:24-25, the two in marriage as man and wife "become one flesh" in their children.
Also, as is repeatedly referred to in the Bible throughout, and especially in REVELATION, the Church (consisting of all Christian believers) is referred to as "the Bride" and Jesus as "the Bridegroom". Marriage is a manifestation of lifelong faithfulness and commitment between man and woman, that manifests the same commitment of each believer to God. And as I said, also manifests the commitment between the Church as a whole and Jesus the messiah. As contrasted with the False Prophet and the Whore of Babylon, which increasingly looks like the whole of Social Marxism/Political Correctness that has waged war for decades on Christianity, that Gay organizations are clearly and vocally a part of.
Beyond that, the Bible has outright declared homosexuality immoral and evil (I've listed most of the verses within the last page) so there is no mistaking that "gay marriage" is somehow compatible with religious faith, certainly not Christian or Jewish faith, for those who know their Bible. Likewise not with Muslim religion. And from what I've seen, there is no endorsement of homosexuality in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. I've had a great many friends from China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. Pretty much the only safe place in the world for homosexuals is the secularist West of Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. As we've seen in recent months, even Russia has doubled down in their rejection of homosexuality.
So the notion that Christianity, or any other significant culture or religion, endorses gay marriage, or that it is "the same" is clear deceit and a non-starter from the outset. Only in the whitewashed world of Political Correctness, that outlaws the truth as "hate speech".
Gays don't have children, there is no two becoming "one flesh". Gay marriage is not a covenant that manifests a larger commitment to God, or commitment to the Church. Quite the opposite, in every political movement by gays for 40 years, they clearly are the anti-Christian soldiers of Social Marxism and the AntiChrist, to drive Christianity out of our culture.
There is no logical reason for gays to seek marriage and twist the definition of marriage, that the Bible and the Christians who follow it (and Jews, and Muslims) recognize as a scripturally cited evil, and a homosexual movement that is part of an organized war on their religious faith.
Within a secularist framework of non-religious state-recognized civil union there might be the slightest rationalization. But gays seeking a wedding for "the same reasons as other people" is complete hypocrisy.
Obviously it doesn't matter for your side how many people you bother. Trying to keep all gays from getting married vs a handful of legal cases of gays suing a public business. Jan Brewer when she vetoed this law said there hadn't been a single legal case in AZ that it would have pertained too.
I was on ebay, and ran across these trashy novels. A sampling of what's on ebay, along with old S-F pulp magazines and other vintage trash fiction novels of the era on any given day. In the 50's and 60's, lesbianism was fodder for many a tittilating trash fiction novel, directed at a male readership, one of many male fantasies catered to in such books. For the guy who fantasizes about being the salami in that sandwich! They're fun to look at, and make fun of. I've even seen there's a seller on ebay who takes some of the more outlandish covers and sells the reproduced covers on cigarette cases.
Black pastors in Detroit are outraged that some are comparing homosexual rights to the Civil Rights movement.
In March a federal judge overturned the 2004, voter-approved amendment to the Michigan Constitution that defines marriage as one man and one woman. Approximately 2.7 million voters approved the measure but Judge Bernard Friedman ruled that the marriage law is not "rational."
"We will not follow men who would rather believe a lie than the truth," says Dr. Randolph Thomas, senior pastor of Greater Bethlehem Church in Detroit.
Thomas is also president of the 100-member Baptist Pastors Fellowship of Detroit and Vicinity, which proclaims on its website the belief in "one man, one woman, for life." The website also proclaims that homosexuality is not a "valid alternative lifestyle" but is condemned by the Bible as sin.
"We cannot and we will not endorse anyone who blatantly blasphemes the Word of God and leads people in the wrong direction," Thomas tells OneNewsNow. Pastor Stacy Swimp says the pastors are offended by the comparison of marriage redefinition to Black civil rights struggles.
"They're trying to equate it with the historical struggles of black Americans," he suggests. "And we're saying that is not only untrue but it's absolutely an insult."
The pastors are allowed to file an amicus brief in the 6th District court, and they are calling on others who live in the same district to join them in the legal filing. The Gospel Herald reports the pastors are working with the Thomas More Law Center to file the amicus brief.
The Department of Defense classified Catholics and Evangelical Christians as religious extremists similar to Al-Qaeda, according to training materials obtained by the Chaplain Alliance for Religious Liberty.
The Pentagon also considered the [far-Left Soros funded propaganda site] Southern Poverty law Center’s “hate group” list a “reliable source” for determining extremism and labeled “Islamophobia” as a form of religious extremism.
The revelations come just days after Judicial Watch discovered a separate Pentagon training document that depicted the Founding Fathers as extremists and conservative organizations as hate groups.
The Chaplain Alliance uncovered in more than 1,500 pages of documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request after a U.S. Army training instructor told a Reserve unit based in Pennsylvania that Catholicism, Evangelical Christianity, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Sunni Muslims, and the Ku Klux Klan were examples of extremism.
PENTAGON CALLS FOUNDING FATHERS EXTREMISTS
CHECK OUT THE ARMY’S LIST OF DOMESTIC HATE GROUPS
“The materials we obtained establish that the U.S. military violated its appropriate apolitical stance and engaged in a dishonorable mischaracterization of multiple faith groups,” said Ron Crews, executive director of the Chaplain Alliance, an organization that represents thousands of military chaplains.
The documents show an unknown number of equal opportunity officers were trained at Fort Jackson, SC, using information obtained from the SPLC.
The training material was made public after a soldier who attended the briefing alerted Chaplain Alliance.
“He considers himself an Evangelical Christian and did not appreciate being classified with terrorists,” Crews said. “There was a pervasive attitude in the presentation that anything associated with religion is an extremist.”
The soldier “produced the slides based on EO Leader’s Course Program of Instruction obtained from the Soldier Support Institute at Fort Jackson, South Carolina,” the document reads.
In addition to the slide presentation, the Reserve unit was also shown a video provided by the SPLC and Teaching Tolerance. The trainer told her superior officers she showed the video because it was part of the “EO [Equal Opportunity] Advisor course curriculum.”
Crews is calling on the Pentagon to stop relying on the Southern Poverty Law Center or any other group that considers mainline religious organizations to be extremist or terrorist groups.
“Men and women of faith who have served the military faithfully for centuries shouldn’t be likened to those who have regularly threatened the peace and security of the United States,” Crews said. “The materials we have received verify that the military views the Southern Poverty Law Center as a reliable source for Equal Opportunity briefings.”
The Pentagon did not return calls seeking comment. Last April, spokesman George Wright told Fox News the training briefing in Pennsylvania was an “isolated incident not condoned by the Department of the Army.”
There seem to be a lot of "isolated incidents" in the U.S. military in the last 6 months.
And yet no one is ever disciplined for these "isolated incidents" that have a consistent pattern of singling out Christians in the military for discriminatory treatment. Giving the impression that this is endorsed at a high level, and testing the limits in an orchestrated way to probe what level they can get away with discriminating against Christians and driving them out of the military.
Quote:
“This slide was not produced by the Army and certainly does not reflect our policy or doctrine,” he said. “It was produced by an individual without anyone in the chain of command’s knowledge or permission.”
And yet... no one was disciplined or fired, or even named.
Quote:
The Army said the slide was removed, the presenter apologized and they considered the matter closed.
“Mr. Wright’s response is accurate but incomplete,” Crews told Fox News. “Yes, the one offensive slide was deleted, but how many other EO officers continue to use the SPLC as a source for training materials?”
Given the long tradition, and the fact that the Bible is deeply ingrained in our Declaration, Constitution, and other founding principles, in the name of tolerance they could, y'know, maybe keep the Bibles for the many they matter to, and let the less enlightened folks just choose not to read them.
Again, an interesting transition under Obama. Gays in the military are endorsed, coinciding with a shunning and purging of Christians.
The Bibles are provided by Gideon. Not the hotels. Trying to use cost as an excuse is disingenuous.
The reasons they have for not providing the Bibles had to do, exclusively, with a typical Freedom from Religion campaign--the sole purpose of which/whom is to purge Christianity from the recesses of the nation/world.
As you said they are provided for by Gideon thus making them free. If you want to cry about losing an entitlement go ahead though. I enjoy the theater.
As you said they are provided for by Gideon thus making them free. If you want to cry about losing an entitlement go ahead though. I enjoy the theater.
Wow. You don't even care if people see you back pedaling anymore. You've been at this for so long that your bullshit filter has finally just eroded into nothing.
Score another victory for the gay nazis. God forbid a parent should be able to prevent their children from being exposed to gay marriage even as elementary schoolchildren. Or that a teacher should be taught to have the discretion not to force gay marriage on students, even at that young age.
She didn’t force gay marriage on anyone. Gays exist in the world like many other things exist. We have a “just grab em by the pussy” President for example on his third wife. Both him and Melania are guilty of adultery. Why is it fine for them to expose kids to that.
She didn’t force gay marriage on anyone. Gays exist in the world like many other things exist. We have a “just grab em by the pussy” President for example on his third wife. Both him and Melania are guilty of adultery. Why is it fine for them to expose kids to that.
First off, I never heard Melania Trump alleged to be engaged in adulterous affairs. As pointed out elsewhere, Melania Trump successfully sued a British newspaper for millions of dollars because they slanderously alleged she early in her life worked as a high class call girl.
Second, unless children read Trump's biography or listened to the liberal media, they never heard of Trump's sexual affairs. They are all allegations, not something Trump openly boasts about on national television. Third, the allegations are virtually all in the distant past, between 15 and 30 years ago.
And finally, neither Trump or Melania are teaching elementary school and exposing their sex partners and alternative lifestyles to kids, in a way that contradicts and offends what parents are teaching their kids.
But the most important point is that Christians who run businesses such as bakeries or photography studios have no option to decline to endorse a lifestyle they disagree with that opposes their religion (GENESIS 13:v 13, GENESIS 18 and 19, Sodom and Gomorrah. LEVITICUS 20:13. ROMANS 1;18-32.) and yet is forced on them and against their values by teachers and by leftist court judges.
And now, apparently, those same activist judges allow that intrusion on parents' religious freedom to be rammed down their throats in businesses to likewise be rammed down their throats in schools, and down the throats of their children.
It’s not an allegation that Trump was cheating on his first wife with who would end up being his second wife. And the Stormy Daniels affair may be something Trump won’t admit to but it’s not credible. His fixer at the time Cohen is in jail right now. The point is you are fine electing human garbage to our highest elected office and pretend it’s greatness. You lowered the bar on what is morally acceptable not with just Trump’s cheap sleaziy adultery but all the daily lies he tells. I think those sins are ones “Christians” are more likely to be guilty of themselves so it’s okay. Something like same sex attraction is something they are not tempted by so it’s easy to get righteous about. To me it shows a weakness in their character and not actual values. Going back to your post you’re upset that someone who lost her job for showing a picture of her fiancé to her students received compensation. In your world sleaze bag Trump is great but this poor woman was a “nazi” for showing a picture of the one she loves and wants to marry. Really, truly shame on you WB.
If Trump was cheating on his first wife with Melania Trump, that would have been some achievement, since his first wife was Ivanna Trump and they divorced in 1991, and Trump married Melania in 2005. In between Trump did have an affair with Marla Maples sometime before the end of his first marriage in Dec 1991 (Trump and Maples met in 1989). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivana_Trump
Trump and Marla Maples married in Dec 1993, and then just a few years later Trump discovered she was cheating on Trump and he filed for divorce in May 1997, finalized in 1999. Trump had been single almost 10 years when he married Melania Trump in 2005. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marla_Maples
I'm not seeing where any of those facts coincide with what you're alleging about Trump and Melania.
The Stormy Daniels thing is still an allegation, never proven to be actually true. Although I believe he did have an affair with Stormy Daniels.
Trump's attorney Michael Cohen is in jail for taxi cab medallion fraud (i.e., licenses to legally operate a taxi business, that were falsified) and for perjury, completely unrelated to Trump. Although those crimes were only found because the FBI and Mueller investigation went through every record Cohen had, in an authoritarian abuse of power, to manufacture a crime against Trump. And Cohen actually flipped but was completely not believable and therefore useless to the Mueller prosecutors. So ultimately, Cohen was actually convicted and jailed only in an effort to get Trump, that failed in its larger goal while imprisoning Cohen as collateral damage.
It's laughable to me how you jerks on the Democrat/Left bend over backwards to break every law and ethic that there is, and then have the audacity to talk about morality. You guys manufacture "lies" that Trump has allegedly told, but that is only political smoke, a political weapon, against a president who has kept more promises than any president in 50 years, has been the most effective president in over 50 years, by every measure.
No one is saying Trump is himself a model of perfect behavior, but he certainly has been an advocate and defender of those who are good Christians. And really, no Christian is perfect either, if you've ever read the Bible, even people as exalted as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, Jonah, and the apostles Paul and Peter were not perfect men. That's the whole point of Christianity is that none are perfect and all are redeeemed and purified through faith in God. In a fit of rage, Moses killed an Egyptian guard who had been beating a Jew, and ran away to avoid punishment. Kings David and Saul were, for a time, adulterers. David ordered a commanding officer to the front lines to die so he could marry his wife. I would say any of those exceed th real or imagined crimes of Donald J. Trump. The point being, one can be flawed, but ultimately serve a divine purpose. And Trump has done much to roll back the Democrat/Left's campaign to de-christianize America and crush religious freedom, and to rebuild the nation, economically, militarily, and in terms of its core values and national pride.
On the original subject, all I'm saying is it's an incredible double-standard that liberals/gays hold up, where Christians are not even given the option to dissent against seccularist indoctrination, and are driven out of business for choosing not to support or advocate a gay wedding with their bakery or photograhy studio businesses. For that "crime" they are fined out of business. And now likewise, parents who want to teach what the Bible teaches to their own children (that marriage is between a man and a woman, and that homosexuality is wrong), as is their religious freedom RIGHT, but are undermined by liberal teachers and liberal courts, so that they can not pass on their Biblical Christian standard to their children. The Biblical standard that the United States Constitution itself was based on, a contract between God and Man in the old and new testaments, mirrored in the contract between a government and its people in the Constitution.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
I think that's clear enough. Shame on you, M E M.
You're part of the lawless mob that is attempting to de-Christianize America, and can't even be honest about that goal. The Stacey Abramses, the Chuck Schumers, the Nancy Pelosi's, the Ocasio-Cortez's, the Obamas or the Clintons. Who have absolutely no respect for rule of law, or due process or free speech or religious freedom. Let alone U.S. sovereignty and border security. Your side creeps in under the veil of constitutional freedom, lies to gain power, and once in power, begins destroying the system that allowed them to rise!
Or more succinctly, Cultural Marxism. Bolshevism.
Before it's over if not already, loyal servants of the AntiChrist.
Even with corrupt Trump in power and installing toadies like Barr (his wingman but both are white so it’s all good) Clinton and all the others you endlessly accuse of crimes have been politically investigated over and over and still remain free. Bearing false witness is also a sin. You may note the Bible actually has a lot more to say about the sins Trump commits daily and without apology. When did Christianity become more about stuff like gay marriage than feeding and caring for the poor with so many people?
Even with corrupt Trump in power and installing toadies like Barr (his wingman but both are white so it’s all good) Clinton and all the others you endlessly accuse of crimes have been politically investigated over and over and still remain free. Bearing false witness is also a sin. You may note the Bible actually has a lot more to say about the sins Trump commits daily and without apology. When did Christianity become more about stuff like gay marriage than feeding and caring for the poor with so many people?
Originally Posted By: ERIC HOLDER, WHILE HE WAS OBAMA'S ATTORNEY GENERAL, in a radio interview
I'm Obama's wingman. I'm his boy!
You were going to call someone a toady and a wingman, M E M? And in remarkable hypocrisy and double-standard, you had absolutely no problem with Holder's unapologetic partisanship in service to Obama. Far beyond partisanship, setting aside the rule of law and weaponizing the DOJ in the service of Comrade Obama. Fast and Furious. Prosecuting only cases where blacks and hispanics were discriminated against, and refusing to prosecute cases of discrimination against whites. The Black Panthers voter intimidation case. Weaponizing the IRS to harass and intimidate Tea Party and religious conservative groups, and auditing of large GOP donors to Romney. For Obama's wingman, NO PROBLEM! And no problem for you either, M E M, clearly.
Attorney General William Barr has an absolutely spotless record, and is well known for decades to have the highest integrity and for defending the rule of law. Only at the point where he was doing his job as attorney general for president Trump was Barr ever accused of being a partisan. And only by the most disreputable and vicious partisans of the Democrat/Left. A week ago, Barr made clear he wanted Trump to not comment about cases on social media, and that "He is making it impossible for me to do my job". Implying that if Trump didn't back off, he might resign. Only a partisan liar like yourself would interpret that as being a "Wingman" for Trump.
I will just note again that you expose your hypocrisy on wingman there. Holder referring to himself as Obama’s wingman was and continues to be an issue to you. Not so with Trump saying he wanted one and is very happy with Barr. And yes partisans like yourself of course love Barr personally interceding for Trump but he’s made a joke out of the DOJ outside of Hannity fans. I never took his comments seriously about resigning because of Trump’s tweets. Trump never stopped nor even had an issue with Barr said. Trump knows Barr will continue protecting his corruption so unlike Sessions, the President is very much happy with his wingman.
I will just note again that you expose your hypocrisy on wingman there. Holder referring to himself as Obama’s wingman was and continues to be an issue to you. Not so with Trump saying he wanted one and is very happy with Barr. And yes partisans like yourself of course love Barr personally interceding for Trump but he’s made a joke out of the DOJ outside of Hannity fans. I never took his comments seriously about resigning because of Trump’s tweets. Trump never stopped nor even had an issue with Barr said. Trump knows Barr will continue protecting his corruption so unlike Sessions, the President is very much happy with his wingman.
You haven't detailed anything "partisan" or "wingman/toady" that Willam Barr has allegedly done on on Trump's behalf. You've only given vague slanders and insults that IMPLY Barr has done something wrong.
And again, only the most vicious partisans of the Democrat/Left allege wrongdoing on Barr's part, in a vain attempt to discredit Barr before Durham releases the results of his investigation. And from what has been said about the Durham investigation, indictments will quickly follow.
There is not "hypocrisy" on my part, there is clear partisanship on Holder's part that he engaged in unapologically. As compared to Barr's spotless record, where there is no substance to back the clearly politically-motivated smears by some of the DNC's worst actors.
Some nice news for me as the Supreme Court is apparently upholding same sex protections. I wonder if that renders Trump’s HHS recent changes against homosexuals and trans null?
I don't know how that shakes out with the latest Supereme Court ruling. But my opinion is, if gays want transgender surgery that they pay for themselves, or with their private insurance, whatever, it's a free country. It's not something I agree with, but it's their right as private citizens, and private insurers.
But if they want transgender surgery paid for on the federal tab, that's another story, and shouldn't happen. Especially offensive is gay/transgender criminals who are in prison, and are pushing for transgender surgeries paid for on the state tab, paid for with the tax money of the people they victimized. Likewise, transgenders in the military should not have a ticket to free transgender surgeries. That policy incentivizes gay transgenders to join the military, just so they can get free transgender surgery, that they could not get if outside the military.
Doing some reading and I think it does void Trump’s attempt to roll back the protections that were in place under Obama. A roll back done on the anniversary of the Pulse massacre btw.
Trump is so anti-gay, he had a gay German ambaassador, who he then promoted to be his Director of National Intelligence. Both key positions, not token positions.
And Grenell and been one of the most productive and loyal of Trump's officials.
You jerks on the left are constantly trying to sell the narrative that Trump is anti-black, anti-hispanic, anti-gay, anti-women, white supremacist, etc., etc. But the fact is, Trump is essentially a lifetime New York liberal, and as an employer for decades has been far more supportive of all these communities than pretty much any other company. And quite frankly on the gay front, far more supportive than me. And you guys viciously slander Trump as an anti-minority bigot.
Trump's record as president along disproved that lying Democrat narrative. As does his record for over 4 decades as an employer.
Rolling back gay protections in Obamacare is pro gay how? You understand that affects me more than promoting one gay guy who seems to be really useful for Trump? As for Trump, I don’t think he gives a shit about somebody being gay. He does care about pleasing his base though.
Are you getting transgender surgery now? Going Glenn or Glenda? How exactly does that affect you, other than feigned and selective outrage?
In the narrow case of not supporting parasitic abuse of government to pay for elective gender surgery is not unreasonaable. Trump is not hostile toward gays. I think the only gay person he's been critical of is Bradley Manning (and that is certainly a case for not admitting gays with gender-identity issues to access and supervise top secret information).
Aug. 27, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Few people doubt that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hopes to become president in 2016. Unfortunately for him, he may have just signed away any chance of that.
On Monday, Christie signed A3371, a draconian piece of legislation that bars licensed [psych] therapists from helping children overcome unwanted same-sex attractions, behavior or identity. This law bans help for minors even when – as is so often the case – those same-sex attractions arise from childhood sexual abuse by the likes of a Jerry Sandusky.
This law will prohibit minors and their parents from receiving counseling they desire and will force counselors to violate ethical codes because they will not be able to help clients reach their own counseling goals. This law would enslave children – whether abused or not – to a subjectively determined sexual identity that they reject.
The connection between homosexual abuse and “gay identity” is undeniable. Consider this: Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found that homosexual men are “at least three times more likely to report CSA (childhood sexual abuse)” than heterosexual men.
Moreover, the Archives of Sexual Behavior – no bastion of conservatism – determined in a 2001 study that nearly half of all gay-identified men were molested by a homosexual pedophile: “46 percent of homosexual men and 22 percent of homosexual women reported having been molested by a person of the same gender. This contrasts to only 7 percent of heterosexual men and 1 percent of heterosexual women reporting having been molested by a person of the same gender” noted the study.
For obvious reasons, this politically motivated law has been dubbed the “Jerry Sandusky Victimization Act.” Liberty Counsel, one of the fastest growing civil rights law firms in the country, has stepped in to protect New Jersey children, parents and licensed therapists. We’ve filed suit to block the law, as we’ve already blocked a similar law in California.
In his signing statement, Gov. Christie wrote: “Government should tread carefully into this area and I do so here reluctantly. I have scrutinized this piece of legislation with that concern in mind. However, I also believe that on issues of medical treatment for children we must look to experts in the field to determine the relative risks and rewards.”
Beyond the fact that Christie and the New Jersey Legislature have just violated the First Amendment rights of New Jersey parents, children and counselors, there remains another problem with his assertion. It’s not true. As with any form of therapy, the “experts” are all over the board on the issue of change therapy.
For instance, both New Jersey Democrats and Christie cited the American Psychological Association, or APA, as justification for this gross infringement on the right of self-determination. Although, no doubt, the highly liberal APA supports this and similar Sandusky Laws for political reasons, the group’s own task force on change therapy – led entirely by members who themselves are “gay”-identified or known political activists – has had to admit, nonetheless, that homosexuality itself “refers to feelings and self-concept.”
The [APA] taskforce confessed that such therapy has shown “varying degrees of satisfaction and varying perceptions of success.” It acknowledged within its own skewed, very limited “study” that some people had “altered their sexual orientation. … [P]articipants had multiple endpoints, including LGB identity, ex-gay identity, no sexual orientation identity, and a unique self-identity. … Individuals report a range of effects from their efforts to change their sexual orientation, including both benefits and harm.”
Reports of “both benefits and harm”? Exactly what might be expected from any form of therapy.
But that’s for adults.
Here’s the kicker: The APA also acknowledged that there is no evidence whatsoever that change therapy harms minors. Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, addressed this, the most outrageous aspect of the law: “The very report that the governor cited for signing this law also admitted that there is absolutely zero research – none – regarding the effect of change therapy with minors.”
Get that? Gov. Christie just signed into law a bill purporting to prevent harm to minors from change therapy, citing, as the reason, an APA report that admits there is neither research nor empirical evidence to suggest that change therapy harms minors.
Is your head swimming? It should be.
The governor is one of three things. He is either: 1) ill-informed, 2) politically motivated or 3) stupid.
I don’t know, I guess he could be 4) all of the above.
Meanwhile, there are many experts outraged over this gross overreach by Christie and other New Jersey liberals.
Dr. Nicholas Cummings, former president of the APA, wrote in USA Today: “Contending that all same-sex attraction is immutable is a distortion of reality. Attempting to characterize all sexual reorientation therapy as ‘unethical’ violates patient choice and gives an outside party a veto over patients’ goals for their own treatment. A political agenda shouldn’t prevent gays and lesbians who desire to change from making their own decisions.”
Dr. Cummings has testified to personally helping hundreds of formerly homosexual clients achieve the change they desired.
Things get more sinister yet. On Wednesday, New Jersey Assemblyman Tim Eustace, who sponsored the bill and is openly homosexual, bombastically compared change therapy to “beating a child” and suggested that the government take children seeking change away from their parents. He told Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, “What this does is prevent things that are harmful to people. If a parent were beating their child on a regular basis we would step in and remove that child from the house. If you pay somebody to beat your child or abuse your child, what’s the difference?”
Mat Staver responded on the same program: “It is shocking to hear the law’s sponsor threaten parents that the state will remove their children from them if they provide the counsel they need and which helps them. This is the ultimate nanny state,” he said.
I’ll take it a step further, and I think I speak for many Christian fathers. None of my three children suffer from unwanted same-sex attraction, but if any of them did and they decided to seek change therapy to reconcile their feelings with their faith, Mr. Eustace and the rest of his Gaystapo would be extremely ill-advised to crest my front porch with designs on taking my children.
Is this George Washington’s America, or Joseph Stalin’s Russia? ____________________________________
Matt Barber (@jmattbarber on Twitter) is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action
Also the stated plan of dozens of gay / trans / satanist teachers, who openly gloat this is their plan in their personal individual blogsite Tik Tok videos , to brainwash elementary and middle school kids, to groom and convert them into the gay/trans world, to deliberately confuse them as naive children into believing they are gay or transexual, to get them on puberty blockers and get trans surgery, secretly, WITHOUT EVER EVEN TELLING THEIR PARENTS.
This is their STATED plan, over and over, in gay organizations, in their own posted blog videos online, that they openly boast about.
And "Libs of Tik Tok", a conservative site that collects and exposes these videos that leftist/trans teachers freely post, is banned as a "hate site" for simply exposing what Leftist teachers openly and voluntarily said. Simply because it exposes the truly evil freakazoid Left for what they truly are, and for their truly evil abuse of their positions as teachers to do it, what they OPENLY BOAST about doing.
The consistent stated plan of gays, going back more than 10 years. Like Hitler's call for genocide and lebensraum in Mein Kampf, when a large and dangerous group warns you they intend to do do something radical, you should believe them. Because that telegraphed intent was not taken seriously, behold the destruction and widening threat that has unfolded over the last 10 years. A lot of damaged children and parents, across all 50 states.
And the gay/transgender movement is just one destructive front of the cultural marxist Democrat-Bolshevik left, destroying America from within, on many fronts. Indoctrinating in schools and universities, the self-destructive environmentalist movement destroying America's energy independence, America-hating indoctrination now in both schools and corporate businesses, "equity" fanaticism to destroy free-market capitalism and meritocracy, "woke" indoctination that is destroying our military and is purging it of tens of thousands of soldiers who would actually fight to preserve our country, the open borders movement, and questionably free trade that makes us dependent on hostile foreign governments. Your Democrat-Bolshevik Left at work.
"Gay pride" = an indoctrinated pride in something that is truly shameful and perverse. On full display in these two links, in its full loathesome perversity.
A healthy society that was NOT on a path to destruction would not tolerate this.
I think a healthy society is actually the opposite than the ones that try to make everyone fit to what the majority deems normal. I’m grateful to be part of that generation where enough people like yourself WB who had nothing to gain personally but saw the injustice and helped bring the nation to legalizing gay marriage. The society you want actually requires using fear and threats, people pretending to be who they aren’t. I remember being a gay teenager and having to hide out of fear because of people like you. I know how someone like Hitler came into power by stoking and using fear against Jews, gays and others along with lots of nationalism.
I think a healthy society is actually the opposite than the ones that try to make everyone fit to what the majority deems normal. I’m grateful to be part of that generation where enough people like yourself WB who had nothing to gain personally but saw the injustice and helped bring the nation to legalizing gay marriage. The society you want actually requires using fear and threats, people pretending to be who they aren’t. I remember being a gay teenager and having to hide out of fear because of people like you. I know how someone like Hitler came into power by stoking and using fear against Jews, gays and others along with lots of nationalism.
You're conflating a lot of things that aren't connected, predictably (as your side always does) insinuating anyone who doesn't agree with you is a Nazi. They're not.
It is YOUR SIDE who are trying to silence anyone who disagrees with you, to the point there can't even be a debate or dialogue. YOUR SIDE who attack conservatives at booksignings or university speaking appearances, prevents Republicans/conservatives from being able to appear as university guest speakers, or even at university graduation appearances.
It is YOUR SIDE (pretty much everyone in the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations, DOJ and FBI) who worships people like Che Gueverra, Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Castro, the Sandinistas, Hugo Chavez ("very effective, and a good model to follow" --Obama communication czar Mark Lloyd). And YOUR SIDE who has intruded so much on the ability of conservatives to say or practice what we believe, that we are ready to lash back with whatever it takes to push you away from our tread-upon freedom, our homes, our schools, our children, our guns, and incredibly, even our light bulbs, our cars, our gas and woodfire stoves.
You (the Democrat-Bolshevik Left) have intruded on and weakened our borders, our schools, our military, our economic system, that we are in danger of our nation being destroyed by those changes. At what point do we have a right to defend ourselves, get angry, to push back? I know the answer. For you on the Bolshevik Left, we NEVER have a right to dissent or fight back. You have a right to your "lifestyle", we don't. That is precisely the reason the Democrat/Left wants to take away citizens' guns, so the people CANNOT fight back, no matter how oppressive it gets.
Gay/Trans sex criminals targeting children with school-sponsored trans outreach parties, or transvestites doing lapdances and strip-club type antics for elementary school children, is grounds for arrest and conviction. If not finding them beaten to death in an alley the next day.
Gay/Trans teachers abusing their positions, openly boasting and plotting in Tik Tok videos to secretly recruit and indoctrinate children, or to secretly get them on puberty blockers and into self-mutilating sex-change surgery, is also a crime that warrants the maximum backlash. And most reasonable and normal people would not even question going after the people who would target children in this way, by either legal or illegal retribution.
Not "rights for gays", but maliciously and openly chanting: "WE'RE HERE, WE'RE QUEER, WE'LL TAKE AWAY YOUR CHILDREN." Does that REALLY sound like just gay rights to you, M E M ?!? Or are you capable of seeing that is an insurrection targeted to take away heterosexual, religious and conservative peoples' rights, to target and prey on their children? To target and prey on a free constitutional republic, to ideologically abuse that freedom, to crush that constitutional republic and replace it with a Cultural Marxist authoritarian one-party system? Saul Alinsky tactics. Cultural Marxism. Critical Theory. Critical RACE theory. Critical GAY TRANS theory. Black Liberation theology. Anti-Colonialism. "Intersectionalism". "1619 Project" "Black Lives Matter." Your-side, compartmentalizing and smothering all dissenting thought, until no one in the center or Right is even allowed to speak, who disagrees with your side. And in the end, the Left will turn on themselves, violently turning on any Democrat sub-group who isn't their particular kind of Bolshevik. Ask Tulsi Gabbard. Ask Joe Manchin. Ask Kyrsten Sinema. Ask Riley Gaines.
That's a lot different than those in the mainstream targeting people for just being gay. I had at least 3 friends in my high school graduating class who at the time I at least suspected were gay, and they were then and are now my friends. But being gay and wanting to live in your own subculture is way different than maliciously targeting and recruiting children to the trans/gay side who never asked for it, and/or were confused into it. Just about every person I've seen interviewed who had sex-change surgery has regretted it. For gay/trans teachers --TEACHERS !!--- to use their position to target, confuse and pervert normal kids into that lifestyle, that is unforgivable, and solicits the most extreme and vigorous backlash.
We as a society have always used "fear and threats", if you wish to term it that way, a deterrent to dangerous, criminal and destructive behavior that offends and endangers the rest of society. To deter murders and drug trafficking, and prostitution, and violent crime. A healthy society encourages behavior it wants, that strengthens our society (community, tax-exempt churches, volunteerism, education mentoring, family, purchasing homes), and it deters behavior it doesn't want (crime, deviancy, and other behavior that disrupts and hurts society).
And in the last 5 years, In exactly the way Democrat/Leftist ideology has been used to eliminate penalties, release violent criminals en masse from prisons, to enable and increase those violent crimes, so are these same Leftist idealogues simultaneously doing the same over the last decade or so to enable the most vile in the Leftist/Marxist/gay/trans community to target children. It is not about rights or "freedom" for gays at this point, gays have had that since at least the 1980's, it is about the Left exerting power, weaponizing the gay/trans movement to crush and humiliate and silence conservative free speech and religion, silencing any dissent, to consolidate one-party authoritarian leftist power. Gays are just the willing participants, or the dupes, in that.
I was just responding to several of your posts. You’re the one that brought up Hitler, gay nazi’s and Bolsheviks (doing exactly what you accuse me of doing straight from the rules for radicals playbook). I was a gay teenager that had to hide from people like yourself. And I feel bad for the kids in Florida and other parts of the country where there is now more pressure for them to have to hide again. More kids suffering depression and at a greater risk of suicide just so you feel better. The nation though overall has grown though thanks to those that were willing to support gay rights because they had the empathy and sense of justice that you simply don’t possess. That makes me feel good and hopeful for everyone towards the end of this Pride month. This year we actually bought a Pride cake from Costco and brought it down to my family’s gathering for Father’s Day that everyone enjoyed. You remind me of just how far thing’s have changed for the better and for that I guess I thank you.
Aug. 27, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Few people doubt that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie hopes to become president in 2016. Unfortunately for him, he may have just signed away any chance of that.
On Monday, Christie signed A3371, a draconian piece of legislation that bars licensed [psych] therapists from helping children overcome unwanted same-sex attractions, behavior or identity. This law bans help for minors even when – as is so often the case – those same-sex attractions arise from childhood sexual abuse by the likes of a Jerry Sandusky.
This law will prohibit minors and their parents from receiving counseling they desire and will force counselors to violate ethical codes because they will not be able to help clients reach their own counseling goals. This law would enslave children – whether abused or not – to a subjectively determined sexual identity that they reject.
The connection between homosexual abuse and “gay identity” is undeniable. Consider this: Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have found that homosexual men are “at least three times more likely to report CSA (childhood sexual abuse)” than heterosexual men.
Moreover, the Archives of Sexual Behavior – no bastion of conservatism – determined in a 2001 study that nearly half of all gay-identified men were molested by a homosexual pedophile: “46 percent of homosexual men and 22 percent of homosexual women reported having been molested by a person of the same gender. This contrasts to only 7 percent of heterosexual men and 1 percent of heterosexual women reporting having been molested by a person of the same gender” noted the study.
For obvious reasons, this politically motivated law has been dubbed the “Jerry Sandusky Victimization Act.” Liberty Counsel, one of the fastest growing civil rights law firms in the country, has stepped in to protect New Jersey children, parents and licensed therapists. We’ve filed suit to block the law, as we’ve already blocked a similar law in California.
In his signing statement, Gov. Christie wrote: “Government should tread carefully into this area and I do so here reluctantly. I have scrutinized this piece of legislation with that concern in mind. However, I also believe that on issues of medical treatment for children we must look to experts in the field to determine the relative risks and rewards.”
Beyond the fact that Christie and the New Jersey Legislature have just violated the First Amendment rights of New Jersey parents, children and counselors, there remains another problem with his assertion. It’s not true. As with any form of therapy, the “experts” are all over the board on the issue of change therapy.
For instance, both New Jersey Democrats and Christie cited the American Psychological Association, or APA, as justification for this gross infringement on the right of self-determination. Although, no doubt, the highly liberal APA supports this and similar Sandusky Laws for political reasons, the group’s own task force on change therapy – led entirely by members who themselves are “gay”-identified or known political activists – has had to admit, nonetheless, that homosexuality itself “refers to feelings and self-concept.”
The [APA] taskforce confessed that such therapy has shown “varying degrees of satisfaction and varying perceptions of success.” It acknowledged within its own skewed, very limited “study” that some people had “altered their sexual orientation. … [P]articipants had multiple endpoints, including LGB identity, ex-gay identity, no sexual orientation identity, and a unique self-identity. … Individuals report a range of effects from their efforts to change their sexual orientation, including both benefits and harm.”
Reports of “both benefits and harm”? Exactly what might be expected from any form of therapy.
But that’s for adults.
Here’s the kicker: The APA also acknowledged that there is no evidence whatsoever that change therapy harms minors. Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, addressed this, the most outrageous aspect of the law: “The very report that the governor cited for signing this law also admitted that there is absolutely zero research – none – regarding the effect of change therapy with minors.”
Get that? Gov. Christie just signed into law a bill purporting to prevent harm to minors from change therapy, citing, as the reason, an APA report that admits there is neither research nor empirical evidence to suggest that change therapy harms minors.
Is your head swimming? It should be.
The governor is one of three things. He is either: 1) ill-informed, 2) politically motivated or 3) stupid.
I don’t know, I guess he could be 4) all of the above.
Meanwhile, there are many experts outraged over this gross overreach by Christie and other New Jersey liberals.
Dr. Nicholas Cummings, former president of the APA, wrote in USA Today: “Contending that all same-sex attraction is immutable is a distortion of reality. Attempting to characterize all sexual reorientation therapy as ‘unethical’ violates patient choice and gives an outside party a veto over patients’ goals for their own treatment. A political agenda shouldn’t prevent gays and lesbians who desire to change from making their own decisions.”
Dr. Cummings has testified to personally helping hundreds of formerly homosexual clients achieve the change they desired.
Things get more sinister yet. On Wednesday, New Jersey Assemblyman Tim Eustace, who sponsored the bill and is openly homosexual, bombastically compared change therapy to “beating a child” and suggested that the government take children seeking change away from their parents. He told Talk Radio 1210 WPHT, “What this does is prevent things that are harmful to people. If a parent were beating their child on a regular basis we would step in and remove that child from the house. If you pay somebody to beat your child or abuse your child, what’s the difference?”
Mat Staver responded on the same program: “It is shocking to hear the law’s sponsor threaten parents that the state will remove their children from them if they provide the counsel they need and which helps them. This is the ultimate nanny state,” he said.
I’ll take it a step further, and I think I speak for many Christian fathers. None of my three children suffer from unwanted same-sex attraction, but if any of them did and they decided to seek change therapy to reconcile their feelings with their faith, Mr. Eustace and the rest of his Gaystapo would be extremely ill-advised to crest my front porch with designs on taking my children.
Is this George Washington’s America, or Joseph Stalin’s Russia? ____________________________________
Matt Barber (@jmattbarber on Twitter) is an attorney concentrating in constitutional law. He serves as Vice President of Liberty Counsel Action
Also the stated plan of dozens of gay / trans / satanist teachers, who openly gloat this is their plan in their personal individual blogsite Tik Tok videos , to brainwash elementary and middle school kids, to groom and convert them into the gay/trans world, to deliberately confuse them as naive children into believing they are gay or transexual, to get them on puberty blockers and get trans surgery, secretly, WITHOUT EVER EVEN TELLING THEIR PARENTS.
This is their STATED plan, over and over, in gay organizations, in their own posted blog videos online, that they openly boast about.
And "Libs of Tik Tok", a conservative site that collects and exposes these videos that leftist/trans teachers freely post, is banned as a "hate site" for simply exposing what Leftist teachers openly and voluntarily said. Simply because it exposes the truly evil freakazoid Left for what they truly are, and for their truly evil abuse of their positions as teachers to do it, what they OPENLY BOAST about doing.
The consistent stated plan of gays, going back more than 10 years. Like Hitler's call for genocide and lebensraum in Mein Kampf, when a large and dangerous group warns you they intend to do do something radical, you should believe them. Because that telegraphed intent was not taken seriously, behold the destruction and widening threat that has unfolded over the last 10 years. A lot of damaged children and parents, across all 50 states.
And the gay/transgender movement is just one destructive front of the cultural marxist Democrat-Bolshevik left, destroying America from within, on many fronts. Indoctrinating in schools and universities, the self-destructive environmentalist movement destroying America's energy independence, America-hating indoctrination now in both schools and corporate businesses, "equity" fanaticism to destroy free-market capitalism and meritocracy, "woke" indoctination that is destroying our military and is purging it of tens of thousands of soldiers who would actually fight to preserve our country, the open borders movement, and questionably free trade that makes us dependent on hostile foreign governments. Your Democrat-Bolshevik Left at work.
Show me where I said one word that was inaccurate.
Against your slanders, I have never attacked a gay person, either verbally or physically, I've never known anyone who attacked a gay person, and I've never heard of a single incident in my area where a gay person was attacked.
While I don't agree with gay ideology, that being gay is natural or inborn, I don't hate gays, as as I've said repeatedly I do have gay friends and relatives. But the radicalism of the gay/transgender culture, recent pushing of transgender surgeries FOR KIDS, gay/trans-ing up our Bud Lite beer in offensive creepy ads. Gay/trans-ing up "tuck-friendly" clothes for boys in Target retail stores. Gay/trans teachers openly boasting in their self-made videos they are DELIBERATELY INDOCTRINATING KIDS. Openly boasting in televised parades, "We're here, we're queer, we'll take away your children." Forcing Christian bakers and photographers and website designers to endorse gay marriage against their will.
You are turning the entire country against you, in a deeply offensive visceral way.
Even some gays are posting videos and pushing back at more radical gays, because they know this is turning the entire country against you:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gays_Against_Groomers ( and that leftist Wikipedia listing is hilarious propaganda in itself, how it portrays the founders and members who are gay leftists themselves as "extreme right wing". NO. These are pragmatic gay leftists who see the trans craziness as poisoning and destroying several decades of successful gay-activist narrative, fronting that gays are just like everyone else. That may be true of SOME gays, but there's a whole lot of offensive and perverse gay extremism in every gay march I've ever seen video of. Public floggings and public BDSM sex, people gyrating in simulated if not actual sex everywhere. Transvestites, gay nude displays in front of children. Disgusting, the purest meaning of that word. And of course, pedophilism and recruiting, euphemized as "gay outtreach". This is what gay activists try to hide. Maybe there is a large community of monogamous and more low-key gays. But a large ratio of them are not. Much as they try to gloss over the abundant excesses to portray it that way. )
... the "science" of homosexuality is far from proven and fully endorsed. There are a large percentage of the psychology community who still treat homosexuality as an obsessive disorder, as it was listed in the DSM manual of psychological disorders for decades until 1973 when it was changed by re-writing the manual, and til then not listed as a "normal healthy condition".
There are a number of studies done by gays in the psych community who have been gay all their lives.
There are studies of the disproportionate ratio of alcoholism, drug abuse and suicide among gays, even in nations and regions where homosexuality is entirely endorsed and accepted.
Facts that I would not be permitted to post on George Orwell's Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and any number of other online social media sites, that would get me banned immediately. As with so many other political and medical issues, the Left does not tolerate any discussion or facts inconvenient to their ideology.
I didn’t say one thing untrue WB. You resort to using the term gay nazi and reposting a couple of posts where you didn’t doesn’t make it not so. Most kids didn’t gay bash me either in high school but a lot cheered and supported their friends. There are lots of people I’m polite with and even help that are not my friends. Those that support your viewpoints on gays and comfy with slapping the word nazi in there isn’t a friend.
Support for gay marriage has grown in this country so much so that republicans that could safely campaign on it as a wedge issue now have to instead use a smaller group to target with a lot of recycled garbage utilizing fear and ignorance thrown at trans people. My family does have a trans teenager and loving parents that want to help them have the best life and future possible. What they don’t want is a dead child. They’ve done research and continue to do so. What you want would actually increase the risk of suicide and depression for a very dear sweet child.
I didn’t say one thing untrue WB. You resort to using the term gay nazi and reposting a couple of posts where you didn’t doesn’t make it not so. Most kids didn’t gay bash me either in high school but a lot cheered and supported their friends. There are lots of people I’m polite with and even help that are not my friends. Those that support your viewpoints on gays and comfy with slapping the word nazi in there isn’t a friend.
I used the term "gay nazi" (not a term I invented by the way, but one in very common usage) because it rightly manifests the bullying tactics of intimidation and violence that gays (as frontline stormtroopers for the Democrat / liberal / "progressive" / Leftist movement) consistently use to get their way.
And as I've said often, the inspiration for Hitler and Goebbels, is the German and Soviet communist parties, that the Nazi flags, uniforms, posters and brochures emulate. And clearly, virtually the entire Democrat party leadership worships and emulates communism in all its forms: Leninism/Stalinism. (Bernie Sanders and A O-C, for example, identify as "Democratic socialists". Lenin said: "The purpose of socialism is communism." To get it inside the gate. Maoism (praised by at least 3 Obama officials, during Obama's presidency, who I've quoted repeatedly). Castro and Che Gueverra in Cuba. The Sandinistas in Nicaragua (praised by Bernie Sanders). And the Hugo Chaves marxist takeover of Venezuela ( Obama communications czar Mark Lloyd, praising Chaves' authoritarian takeover of the Venezuelan media: "Very effective, and a good model to follow.")
Originally Posted by M E M
Support for gay marriage has grown in this country so much so that republicans that could safely campaign on it as a wedge issue now have to instead use a smaller group to target with a lot of recycled garbage utilizing fear and ignorance thrown at trans people. My family does have a trans teenager and loving parents that want to help them have the best life and future possible. What they don’t want is a dead child. They’ve done research and continue to do so. What you want would actually increase the risk of suicide and depression for a very dear sweet child.
Support for gay marriage is due to bombardment, weariness from propaganda and intimidation, not because of increased public support for being gay as somehow "normal". Cowed silence, and a confused sense of what the gay movement is, and "trying to be fair".
As I've said for years, further acceptance and concession to gays, just emboldens gays to take even more offensive advances across our culture, such as the attempt to normalize freakish transgenders as generals and military officers, that do anything but inspire fear and respect from our allies or enemies. Quite the opposite, they are doubling over with laughter, at the damage this is doing to our military.
Or haven't you noticed, that military enrollment is down 25% below annual military recruiting goals? That is a clear manifestation that the most patriotic in this country don't want to serve under a president and his party that clearly hate America and its military, and will put them at risk, no matter how bravely they try to serve.
Pressure for prisons and the military to pay for transgender surgeries. Pressure for trans-males to compete in swimming and other sports with women, which is actually misogynistic, and has virtually destroyed these sports for ACTUAL women. And extreme intimidation and threats against ACTUAL female athletes who object (see the example of Riley Gaines I cited above.)
Against the odds, in 2015-2016 I became close friends with an assistant manager who was lesbian, and we went out regularly for dinner and drinks after work. She had been a lesbian since high school and at that point never had sexual relations with a man. One time, she told me over beers that she recently ran into the girl she lost her virginity to... who was now transitioning to become a man. This really freaked her out. She was clearly disturbed and repulsed by it.
There's not necessarily a support for the transgender push the last couple years. Many more "mainstream/moderate" gays have openly condemned it as something that has turned the mainstream against the gay movement, after decades of building trust among heterosexuals that gays aren't a threat. But "gay pride" parades of gay men flashing themselves and gyrating in front of kids, and either having sex in public, or gyrating in simulated sex in public, make clear this is a sickness and decadent obsessive-compulsive disorder (as it was diagnosed in the DSM of mental illnesses until 1973) , and a threat that will at every turn try to damage and corrupt our culture if permitted to. Gays recruiting underage kids in schools, through "gay outreach programs" in schools (that are in truth about recruiting boys for sex). I met a lawyer who filed a lawsuit in Broward county (Fort Lauderdale) schools, and successfully removed these programs, at least for a few years.
Silenced, of course, by George Orwell's liberal media. There are other books. I wish I could recall the name of the female doctor who I saw intervied, about her more recent book on the subject.
Considering what a tiny percentage trans people are, a tiny fraction of the already very small 2% who identify as gay, these trans people who are on puberty blockers and are by definition unstable... produce a very high ratio of shootings and risk, created by chemically altering these people, toward a questionably productive goal, that are ruining a lot of innocent bystander lives who just wind up in their path.
Maybe these people shouldn't have guns or be admitted into the military, unless and until they reach some level of mental stability?
I understand you rationalize everything but hope someday you understand that you support exactly what you accuse others of. Gays are not nazi, anyone with some understanding of history can understand that. But it dehumanizes your fellow Americans so it works for you. That’s who you are. And looking at the laws passed in Florida by republicans it’s pretty clear to see also who is actually for more government control over what can be said or read. If a private business speaks up against it like Walt Disney does then the state tries to punish them for exercising their first amendment right. That is truly Orwellian
I understand you rationalize everything but hope someday you understand that you support exactly what you accuse others of. Gays are not nazi, anyone with some understanding of history can understand that. But it dehumanizes your fellow Americans so it works for you. That’s who you are. And looking at the laws passed in Florida by republicans it’s pretty clear to see also who is actually for more government control over what can be said or read. If a private business speaks up against it like Walt Disney does then the state tries to punish them for exercising their first amendment right. That is truly Orwellian
Yeah....
I rationalize based on facts, and cite those facts, sourced and linked, whereas you and virtually all Democrats selectively omit facts inconvenient to your worldview, and believe only what you wish was true, and slander anyone who disagrees with the narrative your party has sold you, on issues from gay rights to abortion to Fauci, vaccines and masks, to the global warming narrative, to socialism (that has failed in every country it has been attempted, but your side still wants it, and wants to impose it on the rest of us through Bolshevik revolution and one-party rule. )
How many times do I have to present the facts to you before you will process the facts?
As is the broader Left, whether gay activists, Antifa, BLM, environmentalists, or other Democrat/Left angry fanatics who won't even let any conservative give a college lecture appearance, or have a booksigning without being attacked, shouted over into silence, intimidated and the event shut down. Absolutely no chance at a political dialogue with them. Your side pumps its followers with a level of intolerant hate comparable to the Nazis, Maoist China, or Soviet-Bolshevik revolutionaries. And that has been widely cited with examples in cities nationwide, NOT just my opinion. Gays similarly attack parents at school PTA meetings in cities nationwide who question gay/trans indoctrination in schools, or transgender males destroying high school and college womens' sports. https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/06...board-meeting-required-lgbtq-activities/
FACT.
Whether you like it or not, that is an absolute fact. Cited, sourced and linked, repeatedly.
As are the other trans attacks on conservatives and Christians I just linked in my above posts. And that is not even a complete list. Your side is intolerant, violent, and has no reservations about attacking, intimidating or silencing their conservative political opposition. FACT.
Have you read up on conservatives killing, beating and intimidating others they disagree with? “ Numbers for right-wing extremist violence are far higher, with numerous high-profile terrorist attacks as well as lower-level assaults, vandalism, and other forms of violence. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, far-right extremists have killed 130 people in the United States, more than any other political cause, including jihadists.7 Notable attacks in recent years include the 2018 Pittsburgh Synagogue attack, the 2019 El Paso mall killings, and the 2022 Buffalo market attack. A range of far-right extremists, including organized groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers as well as hundreds of unaffiliated conspiracy theorists, anti-government extremists, and ordinary supporters of President Trump, also stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a direct assault on American democracy. Far-right extremist violence has not abated: earlier this month, on May 6, 2023, an apparent neo-Nazi with misogynist leanings shot up a Texas mall, killing eight people.” Countering organized violence in the US
This type of violence isn’t acceptable no matter the side doing it.
Have you read up on conservatives killing, beating and intimidating others they disagree with? “ Numbers for right-wing extremist violence are far higher, with numerous high-profile terrorist attacks as well as lower-level assaults, vandalism, and other forms of violence. Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, far-right extremists have killed 130 people in the United States, more than any other political cause, including jihadists.7 Notable attacks in recent years include the 2018 Pittsburgh Synagogue attack, the 2019 El Paso mall killings, and the 2022 Buffalo market attack. A range of far-right extremists, including organized groups such as the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers as well as hundreds of unaffiliated conspiracy theorists, anti-government extremists, and ordinary supporters of President Trump, also stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a direct assault on American democracy. Far-right extremist violence has not abated: earlier this month, on May 6, 2023, an apparent neo-Nazi with misogynist leanings shot up a Texas mall, killing eight people.” Countering organized violence in the US
This type of violence isn’t acceptable no matter the side doing it.
That's, of course, a liberal propaganda spin of the truth, whipped up by a liberal media, and the collaborative 97% Democrat-donating FBI and DOJ, who are manipulating the statistics to to whip up a fake "white supremacist" threat (i.e., a fake label for peaceful Republican conservatives, peaceful religious conservatives, peaceful (mostly Christian) pro-life activists, peaceful Trump supporters, and other perceived enemies, to be polarized, isolated and demonized by the Democrat Left and its agents in the federal government.
The 2019 El Paso Mall attack is a perfect example. The kid who did the attack was a HISPANIC immigrant, completely independent of any white supremacist group, who was borderline insane and acting on some very weird ideas about environmentalism and population control. It's SUCH a lie to say this hispanic kid was a "white supremacist". Wikipedia's carefully worded spin : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_El_Paso_shooting
And as I said at the time, in more full context :
Quote
The "partisan talking heads" you "refuse to watch" is Tucker Carlson, who in addition to hosting one of the most popular shows on ALL of cable television, not just among the most popular on Fox News. In addition he runs the news site The Daily Caller. He reports facts and interviews journalists and authors presenting information, you can't just dismiss all that as "partisan". Far more factual, I might add, than the namecalling, insults and bumper-sticker slogans on CNN or MSNBC. I'm hard pressed to find "news" anymore on those two channels, just pure partisan demagoguery and unbridled Trump-hate.
Regarding Tucker Carlson's alleged " 'white supremacy is a hoax' garbage", there was nothing Carlson made up. It is a fact that the El Paso shooter made clear in his manifesto that his racist/environmentalist ideology was formed long before Trump was even a candidate, let alone became president. The El Paso shooter was motivated by some kind of weird environmentalism, that he wanted to stop ALL immigration to the U.S., not just illegal immigration, or hispanic immigration. His ideas are completely independent of Trump, but the liberal media and liberal partisans like yourself desperately reach to allege Trump's rhetoric had something to do with it.
What did Trump say that inspired this attack? SPECIFICALLY. What? You can't quote one sentence to support that. Because it doesn't exist. As compared to the Spokane, Washington attack on an ICE facility a month ago, where the Antifa shooter used specific words and phrases that were directly taken from Democrat Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, and other Democrat leaders. Yet I never hear the clowns of the Left blame Democrat rhetoric for clearly inspiring liberal violence.
What Trump has actually said is: 1) that we have to secure our borders and control immigration into this country. 2) That we want and need immigration to fill the jobs as our economy has improved under his policies. But that they have to come in the right way, LEGALLY, and that this uncontrolled illegal migration has to stop.
3) That among illegals, many criminals are entering our country: drug traffickers, human traffickers, gang members, violent criminals, rapists, murderers, drunk drivers, who victimize thousands of U.S. citizens and LEGAL immigrants annually. That Mexico is the largest source of illegal immigrants (59%), and the Central American nations the next largest (15%). In fact, Latin American nations combined are over 81% of all illegal immigrants. That is not demagoguery, those are facts. Which Trump has cited. And he welcomes and considers valuable those who come LEGALLY.
4) Trump does not engage in hate speech "against all hispanics". He only condemns those (race unspecified) who enter our country illegally.
5) He does not in any way spread or endorse, or have any connection to, white supremacist or white racist rhetoric. That only exists in the vicious insinuations of the Democrat/Left. In point of fact, Trump has repeatedly condemned white nationalism and white racist ideology and violence. The worst Democrat misquote of Trump, where he said of Charlottesville, VA protestors, "There are good people on both sides", Trump was referring to 2,000 people there protesting just to keep the Robert E. Lee statue by the city hall, the good people who asked the 200 to 300 white supremacists to leave. But public statements by Democrat leaders and the liberal media lyingly imply that all in favor of the Lee statue were white supremacists, rather than a small minority.
6) Trump has cited correctly that the women and children who come in illegally are raped and abused at an enormous rate. The most conservative estimate, quoted by ICE official Tom Homan and others in ICE and Border Patrol, is 31% of illegals trafficked are raped. As I have linked and sourced in the Soros-funded caravan topic, many human rights groups (leftist groups) have estimates far higher, in the range of 60 to 80% raped while crossing illegally. Is it more humane to let these illegals in, and encourage this abuse of hundreds of thousands of trafficked women to continue? Or is it more humane to stop it, and end the rapes?
7) In addition to that, illegal human trafficking enriches the Mexican drug cartels who control that trafficking, and the Mexican cartels now make a third of their profits off human trafficking. Billions in the coffers of drug cartels.
8) In addition to that, the masses illegally entering our country (at least 2,000 a day surrendering to Border Patrol, and God knows how many thousands more who slip in undetected) are carrying diseases and infecting U.S. citizens with diseases like Tuberculososis, Mumps, Measles, Typhoid, new strains of flu, flesh eating bacteria, and AIDS/HIV, among others. Diseases wiped out decades ago in the U.S. that are now each epidemic in over 20 states.
9) In addition to that, an increasing number of illegals are categorized by Border Patrol as "Other Than Mexican(OTM)" and present an increasing islamic terror threat, being trafficked from the mid East and Africa, and could contain ISIS or Al Qaida cels, or with the current outbreak in Africa, either by random infection or deliberately weaponized, Ebola.
There is no "propaganda" or "racist/white supremacist" hatred in Trump discussing these things. The President, the Center For Disease Control, ICE, Border Patrol, and Department of Homeland Security are simply citing the known facts. That Democrats and the liberal media try to pretend don't exist.
Most of the violence done by white supremacists is done by white nationalist prison gangs, and is done in drug turf wars, revenge killings of members of their own gangs or competing white gangs. As I;ve said prior, among the Ku Klux Klan, in a nation that now has about 330 million people, the Klan is believed to have at most 5,000 members nationwide (the 8,000 number is new, that I highly doubt, as it is just an "estimate" from the highly unreliable Southern Policy Law Center, that labels others as "hate groups" , but SPLC is in fact itself a hate group, slandering others, and those others are all their conservative opposition, very conveniently. ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ku_Klux_Klan https://www.conservapedia.com/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Poverty_Law_Center#Lawsuits_and_criticism_against_the_SPLC
I'd also point out that the Democrat/Leftist fanatics on your side similarly labelled George Zimmerman a "white supremacist" (he was in fact a hispanic, black and Jewish immigrant, who tutored black kids and a Democrat who voted for Barack Obama !) And your side has similarly labelled just about every leftist Democrat shooter in the last 12 years or so a "white supremacist" or "white nationalist", and within a day or two your side is consistently proven wrong with eeach shooting. The Pulse Night Club shooting at a gay club in Orlando, FL, was likewise labelled a "white supremacist" shooting, and again, it turned out to be a Muslim immigrant, not white.
So... what you're saying is once again propaganda whipped up by the Left, not even fact. I recall one discussion we had, you dramatically alleged that "White supremacist violence" had risen by 50% in one year. I did some goggle searching (I still used Google back then) and it turned out there had been 2 white supremacist killings in the previous year. and the new year had 3 deaths. THAT was your dramatic 50% rise in white supremacist killings. Propaganda and total horseshit.
You can do your usual partisan rant about liberals but all those people are still dead killed by right wing nuts. It’s unacceptable from either side but attacks by conservatives are coming more often and more lethal.
You can do your usual partisan rant about liberals but all those people are still dead killed by right wing nuts. It’s unacceptable from either side but attacks by conservatives are coming more often and more lethal.
Sorry to confuse you with, y'know, ACTUAL FACTUAL INFORMATION.
vs. the distortions I just pointed out, how this El Paso shooter kid was actually hispanic, and neither white nor white supremacist, just a lunatic whose ideas were actually more LEFTIST ideas, of environmentalism and killing people to de-populate the planet. That is distorted by Democrats to be "right wing" and "white supremacist", rather than a dupe of liberal propaganda and a confused kid as he truly was.
Likewise George Zimmerman, a black, hispanic and jewish registered Democrat, who voted for Obama.
Likewise Jared Loughner, who friends, neighbors and classmates described as a "liberal pothead". Distortedly portrayed as a "right wing shooter" .
Likewise the Aurora Colorado movie theatre shooter.
Likewise the Sandy Hook elementary school shooter.
And then finally, FINALLY, after for a decade all these leftist/Democrat shooters were initially portrayed as "Right wing" and "white supremacist, before they were exposed for the leftists they truly are, FINALLY, some shooter in Norway turned out to be an actual right wing shooter (though far outside the ideology of virtually all right wingers. And the liberal media was virtually orgasmic reporting the details of this particular shooting case.
The Democrats are liars, and they find ways to deceitfully categorize shootings as somehow done by "white supremacists" even when they are not. Consistently, for many years, over and over. And the at least 80% liberal media are eager partners in fronting that false narrative. FACT.
Don’t worry about confusing me with long partisan rants. This is what you do. What I linked to actually has little resemblance to your rant. It doesn’t pin everything to white supremacy and even notes that organized groups are weak. It’s the lone wolfs that have been very lethal recently like the 2019 El Paso mall killing. Who was definitely from the far right with his views. This isn’t acceptable no matter the side though.
Don’t worry about confusing me with long partisan rants. This is what you do. What I linked to actually has little resemblance to your rant. It doesn’t pin everything to white supremacy and even notes that organized groups are weak. It’s the lone wolfs that have been very lethal recently like the 2019 El Paso mall killing. Who was definitely from the far right with his views. This isn’t acceptable no matter the side though.
I didn't see anything lucid or specific you could cite.
And I just deconstructed how your "sources" are absolute and total B.S. How they manipulate the facts by selective omission and evasion to front as truth things that are actually distortions and lies.
vs. what I posted, that views all these false narratives you front in their full context, and how your Democrat-Bolshevik side has fronted a similar false narrative in each case, and been exposed when the true facts are fully disclosed.
In the El Paso shooting example, you fronted that the shooter was a white supremacist, motivated by "White supremacist ideology", when in truth he was a hispanic immigrant kid, motivated by some very weird environmentalist / population control ideology, that has nothing to do with conservatives or white supremacists, BUT HAS BEEN PORTRAYED as conservative and white supremacist by the Democrats and (not difference really) the liberal media. Your side lied and distorted the facts. Absolutely no question. Your side lied, Republican leaders and conservative media told the truth. While your side just slice-and-diced the same facts into a lying Bolshevik narrative.
From the 21 year old American and self proclaimed white nationalist himself…” Office of public affairs he wrote a manifesto, titled “An Inconvenient Truth,” and uploaded it to the internet minutes before he commenced his attack. In it, he characterized himself as a white nationalist, motivated to kill Hispanics because they were immigrating to the United States. Crusius admitted to selecting El Paso, a border city, as his target to dissuade Mexican and other Hispanic immigrants from coming to the United States.”
You are doing exactly what you’re accusing me and it’s very easy to see that WB. But Crusius is a right wing nut.
Considering what a tiny percentage trans people are, a tiny fraction of the already very small 2% who identify as gay, these trans people who are on puberty blockers and are by definition unstable... produce a very high ratio of shootings and risk, created by chemically altering these people, toward a questionably productive goal, that are ruining a lot of innocent bystander lives who just wind up in their path.
Maybe these people shouldn't have guns or be admitted into the military, unless and until they reach some level of mental stability?
ATLANTA, GEORGIA: An Antifa goon was reportedly arrested over the weekend for setting fire to a planned $90 million police training center. The suspect, James 'Jamie' Marsicano, 29, has now been identified as the transgender daughter of millionaire North Carolina businessman Michael Marsicano. She is reportedly an outspoken anti-police advocate. She is currently in her first year of law school at the North Carolina School of Law.
Marsicano was among the rioters who attacked cops with fireworks and Molotov cocktails at the site of the future Atlanta Police Safety Training Center on the night of Sunday, March 5, according to booking documents. Jamie is being held on domestic terrorism charges without bail. Her father, Michael, ran a foundation worth $4 billion.
According to a profile of Marsicano, who is nearly 30 years of age, on the National Lawyers Guild website, she is "a queer and trans organizer from Charlotte, NC." "Before coming to law school, Jamie worked with mutual aid collective Charlotte Uprising to start a grassroots community bail fund that raises money to bail people out of jail and support them through court, regardless of charge," the website says.
It adds, "Jamie believes that no one should be in a cage, and dreams of a world where we can prevent and respond to harm in our communities without relying on prisons or police. Jamie plans to use a law degree to do criminal defense in NC. As a Haywood Burns fellow, Jamie will be working at the Law Office of Habekah B Cannon, an explicitly abolitionist, public interest criminal defense firm. The goal is to be a movement lawyer, and this summer Jamie is lucky enough to support and learn from one of the best."
Him, her, whatever. A rose by any other name is still a loathesome transgender freak.
I'm far from the only one who has pointed out that transgenders, from Bradley Manning on down, are unstable people who should not be trusted with a national security clearance, and present an unnecessary danger to the country when they do have it.
Transgenders are also a big recruiting ground for Antifa and BLM militants, and with just a bit of far-Left BLM/Antifa indoctrination added to the mix of already being unstable, are very angry and prone to violent behavior. And are a disproportionate ratio of BLM/Antifa violent storm troopers.
A conservative social media influencer released three pages of what he says is the manifesto written by the transgender mass shooter who killed six people, including three 9-year-old students, in March in Nashville, Tennessee. Steven Crowder, via his "Louder With Crowder" website and a YouTube video, said his team had obtained the manifesto written by Audrey Hale, 28, who was born a female but identified as a male.
"I will be reading the manifesto here on this show,” Crowder said in the video. "I wish that I wouldn't have to."
In a statement to Newsmax on Monday, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation did not confirm the authenticity of the alleged leaked pages.
"We are aware of the images you've referenced," TBI spokesman Josh DeVine said. "We are not offering confirmation of their authenticity. Our agency is only assisting the Metro Nashville Police Department in its investigation into the shooting." Newsmax reached out to the Nashville prosecutor to confirm the authenticity of the manifesto obtained by Crowder. So far, there has been no response.
Newsweek reported that a Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) spokesperson said police were unable to confirm the manifesto but were looking into the matter. According to Crowder, the manifesto detailed thoughts Hale had leading up to what the shooter allegedly referred to as "DEATH DAY."
The alleged manifesto also shows Hale wrote:
"Can't believe I'm doing this, but I'm ready...I hope my victims aren't." "I hope I have a high death count." "Kill those kids!!!" "Wanna kill all you little crackers!!! Bunch of little fa***ts w/ your white privileges" "It might be 10 minutes tops. It might be 3-7. Its gunna go quick." Hale, who stormed The Covenant School, a private Christian school, on March 27 with two semi-automatic rifles and a handgun, fatally shot three 9-year-olds and three adults before being killed by police.
But then... despite the best efforts of Democrat/woke/trans-friendly Nashville police, TBI and city officials to hide the shooter's indoctrinated trans/Left ideological motive for the shooting... we knew this already, didn't we? The Democrat-aligned Nashville prosecutor, TBI, and Nashville police wouldn't even confirm this, none of them. But --OF COURSE-- if the shooter could be characterized as conservative, right-wing, NRA, white supremacist or a Trump supporter, the posted manifesto would have been leaked in the first few hours after the shooting, many months ago. But because it goes against their narrative, they tried, and are still trying, to bury Audrey Hale's posted manifesto.
From the 21 year old American and self proclaimed white nationalist himself…” Office of public affairs he wrote a manifesto, titled “An Inconvenient Truth,” and uploaded it to the internet minutes before he commenced his attack. In it, he characterized himself as a white nationalist, motivated to kill Hispanics because they were immigrating to the United States. Crusius admitted to selecting El Paso, a border city, as his target to dissuade Mexican and other Hispanic immigrants from coming to the United States.”
You are doing exactly what you’re accusing me and it’s very easy to see that WB. But Crusius is a right wing nut.
Though Left-wing media — mainstream and otherwise — have portrayed Patrick Crusius (shown), the cowardly, hate-filled shooter in the El Paso massacre, as a “Right-winger,” the reality is that his manifesto (which the Left-wing media refuse to publish, while selectively quoting) shows that he was clearly motivated by Left-wing ideology. In other words, the Left caused the shooting and then blamed it on the Right.
Examples of Leftist media blaming the shooting on Right-wing ideology are legion. For instance, CrooksAndLiars, a liberal “news” site, claimed in an August 5 headline that “El Paso Shooter’s Manifesto Uses Trump And Right Wing Talking Points” and includes such calumnies as, “his ‘manifesto’ hate screed is filled with talking points and terminology used by Donald Trump at his Nazi MAGA rallies and FOX News hosts like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.” Now, that is a broad brush indeed. And despite its extreme breadth, it still managed to hit the wrong target while skillfully avoiding the correct one. In case their readers are so dull as to miss the point of the article, the writer of that erroneous piece ended with, “The only way to try to pull us back from the brink of a straight up civil war is stricter gun control laws and to vote Donald Trump out. He is the cancer. He is the tumor. He is the sickness infecting our country.”
Left-leaning Slate echoed that error, in an article equating the El Paso shooter — and many other recent Left-wing shooters — with the Right. The headline, which was about as accurate as it was subtle, claimed, “Right-Wingers Are America’s Deadliest Terrorists.” Claiming that “right-wing terrorists have killed more people on U.S. soil than jihadis have since 9/11,” the article runs the gamut from the outrageous to the ridiculous.
Leaving behind anything resembling accuracy and research, Business Insider had the audacity to report on a “study” claiming “all of the extremist killings in the US in 2018 had links to right-wing extremism.” The cited “study” is from the Left-leaning and self-serving Anti-Defamation League. Perhaps someone should tell the folks over at the Anti-Defamation League that spouting fake claims while painting every recent mass shooting as “Right-wing” is itself defamation. The irony is likely deliberate, though; It appears that rather than merely being mistaken, they are instead full of the stuff male bovines leave behind.
Because as with the Christchurch shooter, the manifesto written by Crusius shows that his ideology is actually that of the Left, not the Right.
He begins by stating, “I support the Christchurch shooter and his manifesto.” Amongst his grievances, Crusius cites the “takeover of the United States government by unchecked corporations.” Reality check: Is that language and sentiment from the conservative Right or from the liberal Left? He could have — and may have — borrowed that claim from any of a plethora of speeches by that darling-of-the-Left, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
Furthermore, Crusius goes on to decry the evils of pro-corporatism, writing, “Procorporation = pro-immigration” (i.e., because big corporations want cheap immigrant labor) before going on to attack America itself as a blight on the environment:
Of course these migrants and their children have contributed to the problem, but are not the sole cause of it. The American lifestyle affords our citizens an incredible quality of life. However, our lifestyle is destroying the environment of our country. The decimation of the environment is creating a massive burden for future generations. Corporations are heading the destruction of our environment by shamelessly overharvesting resources. This has been a problem for decades. For example, this phenomenon is brilliantly portrayed in the decades old classic “The Lorax”. Water sheds around the country, especially in agricultural areas, are being depleted. Fresh water is being polluted from farming and oil drilling operations.
Consumer culture is creating thousands of tons of unnecessary plastic waste and electronic waste, and recycling to help slow this down is almost non-existent. Urban sprawl creates inefficient cities which unnecessarily destroys millions of acres of land. We even use god knows how many trees worth of paper towels just wipe water off our hands. Everything I have seen and heard in my short life has led me to believe that the average American isn’t willing to change their lifestyle, even if the changes only cause a slight inconvenience. The government is unwilling to tackle these issues beyond empty promises since they are owned by corporations. Corporations that also like immigration because more people means a bigger market for their products. I just want to say that I love the people of this country, but g*d d**n most of y’all are just too stubborn to change your lifestyle. So the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.
He goes on to say that perhaps his massacre of immigrants will serve as “the right incentive” for “the Hispanic population” to “return to their home countries” and ameliorate the extra burden they place on the environment.
So, the primary ideology that seems to drive his hatred of immigration is his underlying assumption that overpopulation is damaging the environment and limiting resources. Again, does this sound like the Right or the Left? In fact, if this writer may be so bold as to state the obvious — even if that statement leads to discomfort — if the assumptions of the Left (that there is no God, that the environment is strained and natural resources are limited and running out, that overpopulation is the “big problem” of our era, that corporations are destroying the world) are correct, his solution would at least make sense. After all, if there is no God — and therefore, no objective standard of right and wrong — then his massacre of immigrants in an effort to protect limited resources for natives cannot be called wrong. It may — in that twisted view — even be considered virtuous.
But rather than face the fact that their ideology is to blame — that their chickens have come home to roost — the Left is doubling down and using this unjustifiable, inexcusable tragedy as a club with which to attack the Right.
How many more twisted minds will the Left radicalize and turn loose on America only to blame the very people who do believe in God, in right and wrong, in hard work and enterprise, in honest values, for the fallout when those twisted, radicalized minions of the Left wreak havoc on innocent victims en masse?
If America truly is to survive the likes of the El Paso shooter and others before (and likely after) him, it will be by standing up against the lies that actually led him to his actions. And those lies come from the Left.
So there is a bit of the manifesto that talks about environmental concerns. If you pretend that wasn’t just a tiny bit of the crazy you would have a point. From the manifesto your partisan source left out…. “ Political Reasons In short, America is rotting from the inside out, and peaceful means to stop this seem to be nearly impossible. The inconvenient truth is that our leaders, both Democrat AND Republican, have been failing us for decades. They are either complacent or involved in one of the biggest betrayals of the American public in our history. The takeover of the United States government by unchecked corporations. I could write a ten page essay on all the damage these corporations have caused, but here is what is important. Due to the death of the baby boomers, the increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric of the right and the ever increasing Hispanic population, America will soon become a one party-state. The Democrat party will own America and they know it. They have already begun the transition by pandering heavily to the Hispanic voting bloc in the 1st Democratic Debate. They intend to use open borders, free healthcare for illegals, citizenship and more to enact a political coup by importing and then legalizing millions of new voters. With policies like these, the Hispanic support for Democrats will likely become nearly unanimous in the future. The heavy Hispanic population in Texas will make us a Democrat stronghold. Losing Texas and a few other states with heavy Hispanic population to the Democrats is all it would take for them to win nearly every presidential election. Although the Republican Party is also terrible. Many factions within the Republican Party are pro-corporation. Procorporation pro-immigration. But some factions within the Republican Party don’t prioritize corporations over our future. So the Democrats are nearly unanimous with their support of immigration while the Republicans are divided over it. At least with Republicans, the process of mass immigration and citizenship can be greatly reduced.”
So there is a bit of the manifesto that talks about environmental concerns. If you pretend that wasn’t just a tiny bit of the crazy you would have a point. From the manifesto your partisan source left out…. “ Political Reasons In short, America is rotting from the inside out, and peaceful means to stop this seem to be nearly impossible. The inconvenient truth is that our leaders, both Democrat AND Republican, have been failing us for decades. They are either complacent or involved in one of the biggest betrayals of the American public in our history. The takeover of the United States government by unchecked corporations. I could write a ten page essay on all the damage these corporations have caused, but here is what is important. Due to the death of the baby boomers, the increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric of the right and the ever increasing Hispanic population, America will soon become a one party-state. The Democrat party will own America and they know it. They have already begun the transition by pandering heavily to the Hispanic voting bloc in the 1st Democratic Debate. They intend to use open borders, free healthcare for illegals, citizenship and more to enact a political coup by importing and then legalizing millions of new voters. With policies like these, the Hispanic support for Democrats will likely become nearly unanimous in the future. The heavy Hispanic population in Texas will make us a Democrat stronghold. Losing Texas and a few other states with heavy Hispanic population to the Democrats is all it would take for them to win nearly every presidential election. Although the Republican Party is also terrible. Many factions within the Republican Party are pro-corporation. Procorporation pro-immigration. But some factions within the Republican Party don’t prioritize corporations over our future. So the Democrats are nearly unanimous with their support of immigration while the Republicans are divided over it. At least with Republicans, the process of mass immigration and citizenship can be greatly reduced.”
So there is a bit of the manifesto that talks about environmental concerns. If you pretend that wasn’t just a tiny bit of the crazy you would have a point. From the manifesto your partisan source left out…. “ Political Reasons In short, America is rotting from the inside out, and peaceful means to stop this seem to be nearly impossible. The inconvenient truth is that our leaders, both Democrat AND Republican, have been failing us for decades. They are either complacent or involved in one of the biggest betrayals of the American public in our history. The takeover of the United States government by unchecked corporations. I could write a ten page essay on all the damage these corporations have caused, but here is what is important. Due to the death of the baby boomers, the increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric of the right and the ever increasing Hispanic population, America will soon become a one party-state. The Democrat party will own America and they know it. They have already begun the transition by pandering heavily to the Hispanic voting bloc in the 1st Democratic Debate. They intend to use open borders, free healthcare for illegals, citizenship and more to enact a political coup by importing and then legalizing millions of new voters. With policies like these, the Hispanic support for Democrats will likely become nearly unanimous in the future. The heavy Hispanic population in Texas will make us a Democrat stronghold. Losing Texas and a few other states with heavy Hispanic population to the Democrats is all it would take for them to win nearly every presidential election. Although the Republican Party is also terrible. Many factions within the Republican Party are pro-corporation. Procorporation pro-immigration. But some factions within the Republican Party don’t prioritize corporations over our future. So the Democrats are nearly unanimous with their support of immigration while the Republicans are divided over it. At least with Republicans, the process of mass immigration and citizenship can be greatly reduced.”
Gosh that sounds a bit like you WB.
Despite Iggy's idiot cheerleading, your desperate attempt to spin this kid as a "white supremacist" and as a Republican are obviously wrong. OBVIOUSLY.
The kid who wrote this is an ethnic hispanic resident of Texas. Full stop. The kid is HISPANIC. He speaks in his manifesto with a focus on overpopulation, environmental and anti-corporate concerns, NOT in racial terms. None of those three issues are "white supremacist" or racially focused, they are clearly leftist/Democrat issues. The kid in his manifesto speaks AS A HISPANIC of a poisonous open-borders ideology that he AS A HISPANIC sees infecting HIS hispanic community in Texas, sees as bad for the country, that will result in overpopulation of the U.S., if it is not stopped. His problem is not with Texas becoming hispanic, Texas ALREADY IS hispanic, HE is hispanic, his problem is the racial pandering of the Democrats will make the firehose of massive immigrattion into Texas even more unstoppable.
He is clearly not a Republican or a white supremacist, HE IS HISPANIC, and while not a Republican ideologically, sees the Republicans as the slightly more preferable choice of the two political parties. But clearly, at the center of his thinking is preventing overpopulation. His only issue with race is that hispanic immigrants are a voting bloc for Democrat policy, that will bringi in uncontrolled millions more immigrants to the U.S. As is CRYSTAL clear in the article I linked and posted in its entirety. The kid was CLEARLY not trying to create a white Aryan Texas, he was only (in his mindset) trying to stop overpopulation. I CLEARLY do NOT share his ideology. I don't see killing immigrants, hispanic or otherwise, as a solution. I want to prevent them from immigrating here illegally, and want to see the millions illegals let in deported. People who LEGALLY immigrate to the U.S., who assimilate and become one of us, I welcome. People who come here illegally and/or don't assimilate and become a healthy and productive part of our culture should be deported.
But sticking to the kid's motivating ideology, it again is CLEARLY about environmentalism and preventing overpopulation, CLEARLY not about "white supremacy" or race. He IS HISPANIC.
I think reading the whole crazy manifesto disproves what you posted WB. The piece you posted probably works for an audience that is comfortable with Trump joking about Nancy Pelosi’s husband being brutally beaten with a hammer though.
From the 21 year old American and self proclaimed white nationalist himself…” Office of public affairs he wrote a manifesto, titled “An Inconvenient Truth,” and uploaded it to the internet minutes before he commenced his attack. In it, he characterized himself as a white nationalist, motivated to kill Hispanics because they were immigrating to the United States. Crusius admitted to selecting El Paso, a border city, as his target to dissuade Mexican and other Hispanic immigrants from coming to the United States.”
You are doing exactly what you’re accusing me and it’s very easy to see that WB. But Crusius is a right wing nut.
Though Left-wing media — mainstream and otherwise — have portrayed Patrick Crusius (shown), the cowardly, hate-filled shooter in the El Paso massacre, as a “Right-winger,” the reality is that his manifesto (which the Left-wing media refuse to publish, while selectively quoting) shows that he was clearly motivated by Left-wing ideology. In other words, the Left caused the shooting and then blamed it on the Right.
Examples of Leftist media blaming the shooting on Right-wing ideology are legion. For instance, CrooksAndLiars, a liberal “news” site, claimed in an August 5 headline that “El Paso Shooter’s Manifesto Uses Trump And Right Wing Talking Points” and includes such calumnies as, “his ‘manifesto’ hate screed is filled with talking points and terminology used by Donald Trump at his Nazi MAGA rallies and FOX News hosts like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.” Now, that is a broad brush indeed. And despite its extreme breadth, it still managed to hit the wrong target while skillfully avoiding the correct one. In case their readers are so dull as to miss the point of the article, the writer of that erroneous piece ended with, “The only way to try to pull us back from the brink of a straight up civil war is stricter gun control laws and to vote Donald Trump out. He is the cancer. He is the tumor. He is the sickness infecting our country.”
Left-leaning Slate echoed that error, in an article equating the El Paso shooter — and many other recent Left-wing shooters — with the Right. The headline, which was about as accurate as it was subtle, claimed, “Right-Wingers Are America’s Deadliest Terrorists.” Claiming that “right-wing terrorists have killed more people on U.S. soil than jihadis have since 9/11,” the article runs the gamut from the outrageous to the ridiculous.
Leaving behind anything resembling accuracy and research, Business Insider had the audacity to report on a “study” claiming “all of the extremist killings in the US in 2018 had links to right-wing extremism.” The cited “study” is from the Left-leaning and self-serving Anti-Defamation League. Perhaps someone should tell the folks over at the Anti-Defamation League that spouting fake claims while painting every recent mass shooting as “Right-wing” is itself defamation. The irony is likely deliberate, though; It appears that rather than merely being mistaken, they are instead full of the stuff male bovines leave behind.
Because as with the Christchurch shooter, the manifesto written by Crusius shows that his ideology is actually that of the Left, not the Right.
He begins by stating, “I support the Christchurch shooter and his manifesto.” Amongst his grievances, Crusius cites the “takeover of the United States government by unchecked corporations.” Reality check: Is that language and sentiment from the conservative Right or from the liberal Left? He could have — and may have — borrowed that claim from any of a plethora of speeches by that darling-of-the-Left, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
Furthermore, Crusius goes on to decry the evils of pro-corporatism, writing, “Procorporation = pro-immigration” (i.e., because big corporations want cheap immigrant labor) before going on to attack America itself as a blight on the environment:
Of course these migrants and their children have contributed to the problem, but are not the sole cause of it. The American lifestyle affords our citizens an incredible quality of life. However, our lifestyle is destroying the environment of our country. The decimation of the environment is creating a massive burden for future generations. Corporations are heading the destruction of our environment by shamelessly overharvesting resources. This has been a problem for decades. For example, this phenomenon is brilliantly portrayed in the decades old classic “The Lorax”. Water sheds around the country, especially in agricultural areas, are being depleted. Fresh water is being polluted from farming and oil drilling operations.
Consumer culture is creating thousands of tons of unnecessary plastic waste and electronic waste, and recycling to help slow this down is almost non-existent. Urban sprawl creates inefficient cities which unnecessarily destroys millions of acres of land. We even use god knows how many trees worth of paper towels just wipe water off our hands. Everything I have seen and heard in my short life has led me to believe that the average American isn’t willing to change their lifestyle, even if the changes only cause a slight inconvenience. The government is unwilling to tackle these issues beyond empty promises since they are owned by corporations. Corporations that also like immigration because more people means a bigger market for their products. I just want to say that I love the people of this country, but g*d d**n most of y’all are just too stubborn to change your lifestyle. So the next logical step is to decrease the number of people in America using resources. If we can get rid of enough people, then our way of life can become more sustainable.
He goes on to say that perhaps his massacre of immigrants will serve as “the right incentive” for “the Hispanic population” to “return to their home countries” and ameliorate the extra burden they place on the environment.
So, the primary ideology that seems to drive his hatred of immigration is his underlying assumption that overpopulation is damaging the environment and limiting resources. Again, does this sound like the Right or the Left? In fact, if this writer may be so bold as to state the obvious — even if that statement leads to discomfort — if the assumptions of the Left (that there is no God, that the environment is strained and natural resources are limited and running out, that overpopulation is the “big problem” of our era, that corporations are destroying the world) are correct, his solution would at least make sense. After all, if there is no God — and therefore, no objective standard of right and wrong — then his massacre of immigrants in an effort to protect limited resources for natives cannot be called wrong. It may — in that twisted view — even be considered virtuous.
But rather than face the fact that their ideology is to blame — that their chickens have come home to roost — the Left is doubling down and using this unjustifiable, inexcusable tragedy as a club with which to attack the Right.
How many more twisted minds will the Left radicalize and turn loose on America only to blame the very people who do believe in God, in right and wrong, in hard work and enterprise, in honest values, for the fallout when those twisted, radicalized minions of the Left wreak havoc on innocent victims en masse?
If America truly is to survive the likes of the El Paso shooter and others before (and likely after) him, it will be by standing up against the lies that actually led him to his actions. And those lies come from the Left.
... the intent of the El Paso shooter was QUITE clear. Despite yours and the Left's attempt to twist it. Just like the Rep. Gabby Giffords shooter, just like the Aurora Colorado movie theatre shooter, just like the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooter, just like the Trayvon Martin shooter, just like the gay Pulse Night Club shooter, just like.... Well, you get the idea.
In EVERY ONE of these cases, the liberal media and Democrats tried to smear them as "right wing'/Republican/Trump supporter-motivated shootings, and in EVERY ONE of these cases they turned out to be left-wing Democrats. Or in the case of the Pulse Night club in Orlando, an immigrant muslim shooter.
I lose track of the sheer volume of slanderous incendiary rhetoric from Democrats, but have linked and cited it repeatedly at the time they said it, over the last 15 years :
More from Wikipedia…” Patrick Wood Crusius (born July 27, 1998) was arrested shortly after the shooting and charged with capital murder.[43][44][45] A 21-year-old white male,[46][47][48] he was last known to have lived in his family's home in Allen, Texas, in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex,[17][42][49] approximately 650 miles (1,050 km) from El Paso.[50] He graduated in 2017 from Plano Senior High School, and was enrolled at Collin College from 2017 until spring 2019.[50]
Crusius legally purchased a GP WASR-10 semiautomatic rifle and 1,000 rounds of hollow-point ammunition online in June 2019.[3][51] During his first interrogation, he told detectives he had targeted Mexicans, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.[52][53][54][55][47] Crusius was also diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.[56]
Crusius registered to vote in 2016 as a Republican and had a Twitter account from 2017 that showed a photo of Trump in the Oval Office. He also had a pro-Trump poll that included responses such as "#BuildTheWall, #NoSanctuaryCities, #KeepGitmoOpen and #BanSyrianRefugees".[57]”
He posted his manifesto on 8chan, we all know that’s a hot bed for liberals
More from Wikipedia…” Patrick Wood Crusius (born July 27, 1998) was arrested shortly after the shooting and charged with capital murder.[43][44][45] A 21-year-old white male,[46][47][48] he was last known to have lived in his family's home in Allen, Texas, in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex,[17][42][49] approximately 650 miles (1,050 km) from El Paso.[50] He graduated in 2017 from Plano Senior High School, and was enrolled at Collin College from 2017 until spring 2019.[50]
Crusius legally purchased a GP WASR-10 semiautomatic rifle and 1,000 rounds of hollow-point ammunition online in June 2019.[3][51] During his first interrogation, he told detectives he had targeted Mexicans, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.[52][53][54][55][47] Crusius was also diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.[56]
Crusius registered to vote in 2016 as a Republican and had a Twitter account from 2017 that showed a photo of Trump in the Oval Office. He also had a pro-Trump poll that included responses such as "#BuildTheWall, #NoSanctuaryCities, #KeepGitmoOpen and #BanSyrianRefugees".[57]”
He posted his manifesto on 8chan, we all know that’s a hot bed for liberals
That's some major non-sequitur logic. That's like saying because Crusius has a dog and Trump has a dog, they are ideologically aligned.
What kind of guns he has or what kind of ammunition he purchased doesn't make him a Trump supporter, or motivated to violence by Trump.
I am one of 74.3 million people who voted for Trump in 2020 ( according to official numbers. I believe it was far more, and that official count was manipulated and rigged by the Democrats.) ARE WE ALL KILLING MACHINES LIKE CRUSIUS, WAITING TO BE MASS SHOOTERS, JUST BECAUSE WE VOTED FOR TRUMP?!? Total B.S. on your part.
And where exactly did Trump .>>>>EVER<<<<<<<< say we should become mass shooters and kill all Mexican immigrants? Trump only said we should control our borders, and only allow in immigrants the LEGAL way, so we only allow in people who are vetted, good hardworking non-criminal immigrants who will assimilate, and not become welfare dependents or terrorists, and prey on Americans and fleece our system. Which by the way, has been border security policy as long as we've existed as a country. Up until Obama and Biden.
As you are obviously ignorant of, for the last 2 decades, we let in 1.2 million LEGAL green-card immigrants annually into the country. Under alleged "white racist genocide advocate" Trump, he was SO RACIST that ... he actually increased LEGAL immigration to 1.5 million legal green-card immigrants a year. Wow. What a racist, what a xenophobe. He's SO RACIST, that for 50 years, long before other companies were doing it, Trump's real estate construction company was promoting women and minorities to high-level executive positions. Trump is SO HOMOPHOBIC that... he is the first president to openly support gays without equivocation. That he made Rick Grennell the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. , then ambassador to Germany, and then the temporary Director of National Intelligence. I might add that Trump is far more pro-gay than myself. https://www.conservapedia.com/Homos...2C_Culture.2C_Sexual_Abuse.2C_and_Choice I don't hate gays, I have gay friends, gay co-workers and gay family members I am friendly with. I just disagree with their views and think, based on considerable evidence, that they are wrong on that issue, and that being gay is ultimately hurting them and others.
For 20 years here on RKMB, I've believed you are a nice and sincere person, M E M, who I disagree with politically, but I've thought despite our disagreements, are still a nice person. But NOW... I think your party's rhetoric is leading you off the deep end, into some mean-spirited VICIOUS fanaticism. The kind of demagoguery that makes people murder their neighbors in a Kristallnacht type event, a Leninist revolution, a Stalin-type Ukranianian holodomor. A Maoist type revolution where they round up and eviscerate the demonized scapegoated undeserving Chinese landlords with spears. That's where your rhetoric is headed.
When you say garbage like this, linking this random schizophrenic environmentalist shooter nut to Trump, it is such a vicious lie about Trump and his supporters, that I can only presume you are DELIBERATELY fronting an egregiously vicious untruth, and that you are not the nice person you seem to be, but a vicious liar, as vicious as the worst fanatics in your party, to deliberately slander Trump and his supporters as either advocating mass murder, or actually BEING mass murderers. You know who hates and demonizes a group of people that much, the way you are? MASS MURDERERS. Or leadership trying to incite mass murder, for their own Jacobinist /Marxist /Democrat-Bolshevik ends.
While he targeted Mexicans, he did so for ecological reasons, not "white supremacist" reasons. He didn't care what race the Mexican immigrants were, he cared what they believed ideologically, and that mass waves of immigrants would further environmentally damage the United States. That is what Crusius believed, sourced and cited from his own writings. . And it is clear he is not a Republican, but considers the Republicans a grain of sand less destructive to his environmental utopia than than the Democrats. And again, THE SHOOTER HIMSELF IS HISPANIC. This isn't about race, it's about environmentalist ideology, and an obsessive schizophrenic worldview.
You seem to daily follow political issues, perhaps honestly misinformed and a dupe of Leftist propaganda (you seem to go to sources that spoon feed you the most radical leftist/Democrat talking points narrative, rather than actual facts). If you are NOT just a dupe of Democrat propaganda, then you HAVE TO know you are engaging in vicious slander and mischaracterization of Trump and his supporters. In which case, you are deliberately slandering Trump and his supporters just to hurt them politically. In which case you are one in spirit with the Kristallnacht killers of the Jews, and one with the Leninists and Maoists who stabbed the scapegoated and demonized "Kulacs" to death. Vive Le revolucion !, right, M E M?
WB I was just pointing out and sourcing that the shooter was a white male, registered republican that had voted for Trump. He posted a crazy manifesto that included the type of voter replacement theory with democrats using immigration to overpower republicans that you believe in. Trying to spin a part of that crazy manifesto and excluding everything else like him being a registered republican is just being deceptive. You support a guy that jokes about Pelosi’s husband being brutally beaten with a hammer by yet another crazy person that drank the kool aid. And his voters are good with it.
WB I know we get in heated discussions but I hope you know I wish you well. That said you used a partisan source that was truly deceptive. And what is your source on his race? News articles that i’m seeing mention race all say white.
WB I was just pointing out and sourcing that the shooter was a white male, registered republican that had voted for Trump. He posted a crazy manifesto that included the type of voter replacement theory with democrats using immigration to overpower republicans that you believe in. Trying to spin a part of that crazy manifesto and excluding everything else like him being a registered republican is just being deceptive. You support a guy that jokes about Pelosi’s husband being brutally beaten with a hammer by yet another crazy person that drank the kool aid. And his voters are good with it.
Because media and the Democrat/Left are ideologues who want to portray Crusius that way, and conflate Crusius' weird idea of killing immigrants to stop overpopulation (Crusius killed 20, 13 of them hispanic, even as 10,000 a day pour over the Texas border). Immigrants who according to Crusius' manifesto (and many conservative and liberal immigration scholars confirm) will turn Texas blue, and will vote overwhelmingly Democrat in the future, that he envisioned as a permanent-majority voter-base that will enable even more overpopulation and environmental destruction in the future, that will completely enable Democrats' radical policy with a permanent uncontrolled majority.
Look at his last name. Does Crusius sound like a white/anglo/Aryan name? No. Possibly originating from Spain, Portugal, Italy, somewhere in latin America, or Greece.
I looked at dozens of articles on the El Paso shooter, and the mainstream leftist media hijack the story and avoid discussion of Crusius' ethnicity, even when they front in the headline to detail his ethnic background.. They NEVER say the nationality of his parents or grandparents, what country or countries his family immigrated to the U.S. from, or the origin of his surname. The media shave the facts, TO PORTRAY him as white supremacist, and avoid detailing his environmental/leftist ideas in his manifesto, that ONLY the article I linked details. All others I could find simply describe him as "white" or "American", and raised in Texas. But all white persons in the U.,S. came from somewhere in Europe originally. I myself am English, Irish, Scottish, German, Dutch, and Cherokee. And witthout detailing his race, the media label him "white supremacist", because that is the lying narrative that suits their political agenda.
Crusius was not simply about killing ethnic hispanics, that media narrative deceitfully evades his larger over-reaching goal. His idea was to stop immigration to the U.S. PERIOD, NOT just non-white immigrants. In his mindset, to stop the environmental damage to the U.S. due to massive new millions of immigrants to the U.S. every year. And Mexicans (at least until Biden's presidency changed that demographic for the first time, Biden inaugurated well AFTER Crusius' 2019 El Paso shooting), have long been the largest wave of immigrants to the U.S. year after year, for decades. Mexicans/hispanics are simply the single largest group of immigrants pouring into the U.S., whether measuring LEGAL immigrants or ILLEGAL immigrants. For decades, Mexicans/hispanics have consistently been the largest group in both categories.
But regardless, you, the Democrats, and the liberal media want to lyingly make that insinuation, of Crusius being a result of "build the wall" Trump ideology. Crusius even posts hostiliy toward the Republican party for enabling Democrats' excessive immigration, and for allying with corporations, allowing both immigration and pollution. Only by HIDING these facts can it be dumbed down to Crusius just being a "white racist Trump supporter".
Look at these photos of Crusius:
Granted, there are other photos where he looks more "white", but in none of them does he look particularly Aryan. There's a big difference between "white supremacist" and "stop the invasion." Crusius' stated written views seem to consistently be the latter., despite how you and others try to portray him.
“ Crusius is a Latinized German surname, typically Latinized from Kraus or Krause. It may refer to: Christian August Crusius (1715–1775), German philosopher and Protestant theologian. Ludwig Friedrich Otto Baumgarten-Crusius (1788–1843), German Protestant divine.” From NPR… “ The 21-year-old white man accused of driving more than 11 hours through Texas to kill Hispanics at an El Paso Walmart in August pleaded not guilty to capital murder charges on Thursday, contradicting a confession he made following the shooting, according to police documents.” You can find links from the Times and others on Wikipedia plainly stating he’s a white male.
So a white male, registered as a Republican who worried his actions would be used by the fake news to blame Trump. You’re doing what you accuse others of doing WB.
“ Crusius is a Latinized German surname, typically Latinized from Kraus or Krause. It may refer to: Christian August Crusius (1715–1775), German philosopher and Protestant theologian. Ludwig Friedrich Otto Baumgarten-Crusius (1788–1843), German Protestant divine.” From NPR… “ The 21-year-old white man accused of driving more than 11 hours through Texas to kill Hispanics at an El Paso Walmart in August pleaded not guilty to capital murder charges on Thursday, contradicting a confession he made following the shooting, according to police documents.” You can find links from the Times and others on Wikipedia plainly stating he’s a white male.
So a white male, registered as a Republican who worried his actions would be used by the fake news to blame Trump. You’re doing what you accuse others of doing WB.
That is just you repeating your narrative. See the artilce I already posted above (that you try to lie and deflect from) that goes into Patrick Cusius' rhetoric in his online manifesto, and the full enviromentalist context of his mindset, that you try to deflect from and evade just to sell a narrative.
And just because one guy in history who is German has the same name, doesn't prove it is a German name. The name Jesus is the same in several languages, Obviously Jesus in english, i is still Jesus in spanish, just with the pronounciaion <hey zeus> .
Even the part you wrote about Crusius being "registered as a Republican" is a slander and a lie, just said so you can sell a narrative. As I JUST QUOTED, Crusius had as much clearly written contempt in his posts for the Republican party, and just saw the Republicans as a grain of sand closer to protecting his environmentalist concerns. That you try to gloss over in an attempt and blame and smear Trump for the shooting, or blanket-smear his crazy genocidal ideas as allegedly shared or inspired by the Republican party as a whole. CLEARLY, it is NOT inspired by or shared by other Republicans.
Lol, I’m enjoying that you’re trying to spin a registered Republican that voted for Trump as being a liberal using a partisan conservative spin sight.
All you're doing is proving your own malice and dishonesty, M E M.
Thsi Crusius guy is no more a Republican than George Zimmerman, or Sandy Hook shooter Adam Lanza, or Aurora Colorado movie theatre shooter James Holmes, or Rep. Gaby Giffords shooter Jared Loughner, and so many others. ALL of whom you and your party lyingly categorized as "right wing Republicans" or Trump supporters, that ALL turned out to be deliberate liberal media false narratives, and each to actually be left wing Democrats with weird leftist ideas.
So... you're a vicious partisan liar, just like always. Pushing a lying NARRATIVE, not facts. Patrick Crusius is not a Republican, or at all inspired by Republican or Trump ideology, Crusius is literally insane. And as I said, he actually voiced a good amount of contempt for the Republican party. By his own words, his ideology existed before Trump even became a candidate in 2016,. And Crusius' motivation, as quoted FROM HIS OWN POSTS ABOVE, was motivated by leftist / environmentalist ideology, not racism. Democrats and the liberal media have to misrepresent that, to make it conform to their lying narrative.
“EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A WHITE Texas gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in 2019 returned to court Wednesday for sentencing in a mass shooting that targeted Hispanic shoppers in the border city of El Paso.“
“ The son of a licensed therapist and nurse, Crusius had been enrolled as a student at Collin College, near Dallas, and had no criminal convictions before the shooting. On social media, Crusius appeared consumed by the nation’s immigration debate, tweeting #BuildtheWall and posts that praised then-President Donald Trump’s hardline border policies.
His views went further in a document posted to an online message board about 20 minutes before the massacre in which he said the shooting was “in response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
In American politics, Republicans continue to use the word “invasion” to describe migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, waving off critics who say the rhetoric fuels anti-immigrant views and violence.”
You just made up his race to suit your false narrative WB. Do keep try to shill though. Again you present the partisan spin that leaves out that he was a Trump supporter and you both share the same voter replacement theory from the far right.
I'd just like to take this moment to, again, point out that things like this are why no one takes Wonder Dave seriously.
In oher words... you're a lying troll, whose only purpose here is to harass me. And harass any other person here who dares to voice a conservative point of view. Review of your posts here for 14 years make clear that no one should take YOU seriously. You post pure insults, no actual content. You are the definition of unhinged and malicious.
“EL PASO, Texas (AP) — A WHITE Texas gunman who killed 23 people at a Walmart in 2019 returned to court Wednesday for sentencing in a mass shooting that targeted Hispanic shoppers in the border city of El Paso.“
“ The son of a licensed therapist and nurse, Crusius had been enrolled as a student at Collin College, near Dallas, and had no criminal convictions before the shooting. On social media, Crusius appeared consumed by the nation’s immigration debate, tweeting #BuildtheWall and posts that praised then-President Donald Trump’s hardline border policies.
His views went further in a document posted to an online message board about 20 minutes before the massacre in which he said the shooting was “in response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”
In American politics, Republicans continue to use the word “invasion” to describe migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border, waving off critics who say the rhetoric fuels anti-immigrant views and violence.”
You just made up his race to suit your false narrative WB. Do keep try to shill though. Again you present the partisan spin that leaves out that he was a Trump supporter and you both share the same voter replacement theory from the far right.
Democrats have openly boasted of immigration policy that is demographically changing the U.S. from white majority to white minority, because non-whites vote overwhelmingly Democrat. Democrats gloat that this will give them a permanent unbeatable political majority in elections. They openly boast about it. And then Democrats portray Republicans who criticize the clear and obvious plan that DEMOCRATS gloat about, as Republicans being "racist" and "paranoid". Well, that clearly is the Democrat plan, that Democrats openly plan and acknowledge. And if it is the demonstrated real plan, it is neiiher racist nor paranoid for Republicans to point out those FACTS.
These are the same media sources who propped up the false narratives surrounding George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin (Zimmerman portrayed as right wing racist, he was actually a registered Democrat who voted for Obama, who is partially hispanic, Jewish and black, who volunteered to tutor black kids). The same Orwellian liberal media who told us the Sandy Hook school shooting was done by a "right wing" shooter (he was a liberal/leftist Democrat). The same Orwellian liberal media who told us the Aurora Colorado movie theatre shooter was a right wing Tea Party member (he was revealed to be another leftist Democrat). The same Orwellian liberal media who told us that Rep. Gabby Giffords' shooter was a right wing Tea Party member (Jared Loughner was revealed to be another "left wing pothead".)
The same Orwellian liberal media who told us George Floyd was a black guy killed by a racist cop (George Floyd was actually a violent career criminal , who had many times been convicted of robberies and home invasions, and doing so to feed his lifelong drug addiction. Who took Fentanyl right before the police arrived, and was overdosing when police arrived, and whose autopsy --BOTH autopsies--- showed Floyd had about twice the fatal dosage of Fentanyl in his bloodstream at the time of his death.) All the subject of a just released documentary on the subject: www.thefallofminneapolis.com
Ferguson, Missouri: Same thing, another false media narrative about a PROVEN innocent police officer, Darren Wilson. Many other examples, those are just the ones I can recall offhand.
In EACH CASE, the liberal Democrat-aligned propagandist media DELIBERATELY got the story wrong, to aid Democrats politically, to slander and undermine support of Republicans, to reinforce a false narrative whose ideology those in the media reporting it share, even when that narrative is PROVEN to be false, often KNOWN BEFORE IT WAS EVEN FIRST REPORTED to be false.
Citing stories PROVEN to be false, by news agencies DELIBERATELY propping up a false narrative, because their journalists, producers, editors and publishers maliciously want that false narrative propped up, across the entire mainstream news media, collaborating together, and also collaborating with Democrat political leaders (for example, with Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, a newspaper quietly e-mailing the Clinon campaign, giving Clinton the option to review a story, and the option to spike it, if she felt it was too damaging to her campaign. Another exaample: the "Journo-list" online discussion group of national reporters, brainstorming how to destroy Sarah Palin and John McCain, and also how to destroy and marginalize Bernie Sanders to clear the way for Hillary Clinton's DNC nominaion. On and on.
And you hold up these liars as "proof" ? Don't make me laugh.
M E M, you are clearly a hardcore partisan Democrat, and over and over in the last 20 years here on RKMB, you always prop up whatever the Democrats' false narrative is, on any given day, month after month, year after year. You always find a way to rationalize away inconvenient facts and toss them into a dismissive category, when they don't fit your lying Democrat narrative. Sometimes I think you'e just a Democrat true believer and you are just honestly misled by your party and liberal media's narrative. And often I'm sure that you MUST know it is a false narrative, and you are deliberately slandering Republicans, with a false narrative that you KNOW to be untrue, just because it benefits your party.
That is the full context of the liberal media fronting that Patrick Crusius is "white" or "white racist" or "white supremacist", when I have cited Crusius' sourced online posts and manifesto to prove otherwise. AND full context of your vicious attempt to blame Republicans or Trump for what the shooter himself said are his own ideas that Trump had no part in creating, no part in motivating Patrick Crusius' shooting in El Paso.
So in your mind the media is lying when they state the shooter’s race as being white? I’ve read the whole crazy manifesto that your partisan source doesn’t talk about. You share the same far right voter replacement conspiracy. I’ve sourced and linked it all. Registered as a republican and a Trump supporter. Like you he talked about fake news in his crazy manifesto.
So in your mind the media is lying when they state the shooter’s race as being white? I’ve read the whole crazy manifesto that your partisan source doesn’t talk about. You share the same far right voter replacement conspiracy. I’ve sourced and linked it all. Registered as a republican and a Trump supporter. Like you he talked about fake news in his crazy manifesto.
Hey, M E M: THE ENTIRE DEMOCRAT PARTY OPENLY BOASTS about "replacement theory". Isn't that amazing, how your party has boasted about importing third-world immigrants for 30 years, to create a permanent Democrat majority. But when any Republican-conservative points out what your party has OPENLY STATED is their victory plan, suddenly the narrative is flipped by the Democrat-Bolsheviks, so that Republicans are the alleged racists. And it's not a "replacement conspiracy" when your party openly brags about it.
It's also the shared plan of Mexican government, as Pat Buchanan details in his 2006 book STATE OF EMERGENCY on the border crisis, that the Mexican government (and pro-Mexicaan groups in the U.S., with chapters in universities and high schools nationwide) call it "La Reconquista", a way for Mexicans to take back the entire U.S. Southwest territory, through the overwhelming demographics of Mexican/hispanic immigration.
FACT.
When California overwhelmingly passed a law to deny benefits and sanctuary to illegals, and it was overturned and neutralized by an appellate court, a Democrat-leftist hispanic professor gloatingly called it "the dying last gasp of white America".
FACT.
And like I said, over and over for at least 15 years, with every shooting or racial incident, from Trayvon Martin to Michael Brown to Adam Lanza, to Jared Loughner, to George Floyd, on and on, the mainstream media have CONSISTENTLY gotten the facts wrong, DELIBERATELY gotten the facts wrong, OVER AND OVER, because the Democrat-Bolsheviks in the media wanted to sell that false narrative. As Sharyl Atkisson has detailed in specific example after specific example. The media narrative you cite has not only gotten it wrong, but DELIBERATELY gotten it wrong. To sell the Democrat-serving false narrative they wanted to sell. The narrative YOU are lyingly trying to sell. FACT.
Citing stories PROVEN to be false, by news agencies DELIBERATELY propping up a false narrative, because their journalists, producers, editors and publishers maliciously want that false narrative propped up, across the entire mainstream news media, collaborating together, and also collaborating with Democrat political leaders. (For example, with Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, a newspaper quietly e-mailing the Clinton campaign, giving Clinton the option to review a story, and the option to spike it, if she felt it was too damaging to her campaign. Another example: the "Journo-list" online discussion group of national reporters, brainstorming how to destroy Sarah Palin and John McCain, and also how to destroy and marginalize Bernie Sanders to clear the way for Hillary Clinton's DNC nomination. On and on. )
And you hold up these liars as "proof" ? Don't make me laugh.
Your gods of information are the Bolshevik liars who have consistently gotten he story wrong, and been PROVEN wrong, DELIBERATELY gotten it wrong in case after case for over 15 years. What I sourced and linked about the El Paso shooting (and about your attempting to conflate it with Trump himself, and to conflate it with Trump supporters, in a vicious lying insinuation) is the truth. That you are desperately trying to smear, to sell your party's Democrat-Bolshevik narrative.
Back to ranting and partisan accusations WB. Attkisson isn’t going to produce anything that would upset a loyal Trump supporter. And the only time I hear about the voter replacement theory is from Uber partisan conservatives like yourself and the white registered republican El Paso shooter that you just decided was Mexican because in some pics he looks different. You got his race wrong and reading his manifesto and not just one tiny part that your one partisan source picks out it’s pretty easy to see he really was one of you. And as I linked to he was a registered republican that had pics of Trump, worried about fake news and hashtags with build the wall. You do what partisan you always do. Attack all and anything that doesn’t suit your partisan values. Being really partisan isn’t really a value though. Trump is what you end up with.
That is exactly how this situation is going to play out for as long as you are kind enough to respon, MEM. He'll never understand that it was his ilk that drove me away from the GOP.
Back to ranting and partisan accusations WB. Attkisson isn’t going to produce anything that would upset a loyal Trump supporter. And the only time I hear about the voter replacement theory is from Uber partisan conservatives like yourself and the white registered republican El Paso shooter that you just decided was Mexican because in some pics he looks different. You got his race wrong and reading his manifesto and not just one tiny part that your one partisan source picks out it’s pretty easy to see he really was one of you. And as I linked to he was a registered republican that had pics of Trump, worried about fake news and hashtags with build the wall. You do what partisan you always do. Attack all and anything that doesn’t suit your partisan values. Being really partisan isn’t really a value though. Trump is what you end up with.
FACTS are not "just partisan accusations".
Nice try. Sharyl Attkisson is a self-described liberal/leftist, not a Trump supporter. The difference is, despite that she is a liberal, she still has integrity and journalistic standards, that compelled her to leave an award-winning invesigative journalist career position with CBS where she was earning 7 figures a year, because that network, and the liberal media in general after 2008, ceased to have journalistic standards and integrity, and started just cranking out Orwellian propaganda that she could no longer be a part of.
And she cited endless named and sourced examples, and the ACTUAL facts, vs. the verifiably false propaganda narrative these mainstream news outlets front as "news". She quoted from dozens of articles the zealous self-incriminaing statements of liberal reporters and editors, and journalism professors, who have stated their abandonment of journalism standards in favor of being Democrat activists on a sacred mission to stop the Republicans and get Democrats elected. With sourced and cited examples.
Sharyl Attkisson is not a Republican or Trump supporter. Lara Logan (another award-winning journalist who has left the mainstream liberal propaganda networks) is not a Republican or Trump supporter. Glenn Greenwald. John Solomon. John Stossel. Ron Kessler. Bernard Goldberg.
These are all decades-long highly acclaimed, and mostly LIBERAL journalists, who have ALL made the same points about the decline of mainstream journalism, and its abandonment of of long-established journalistic standards, in favor of liberal activism and propaganda. That you like to dismiss, without even looking at the overwhelming evidence they present.
That is exactly how this situation is going to play out for as long as you are kind enough to respon, MEM. He'll never understand that it was his ilk that drove me away from the GOP.
For 15 years here on RKMB, you've manifested your unhinged logic, dishonesty, and spite for anyone who doesn't share your point of view.
Your STATED support for the leftist-crazy Occupy Wall Street movement, your rabid hatred of Christianity and stated malevolent pleasure in discriminating against Christian students in your junior college classes, your support for open borders and illegal immigration, are all clear examples that you are in complete opposition to conservatism,. That you are a fucking liar and never were a conservative, for you to ever support these things. Like Hillary Clinton aide Jennifer Palmieri, with her idea for leftists to pretend to be Catholics, to infliltrate the Catholic church, and deceitfully push as fake Catholic members from within for the church to accept abortion and gay rights. Saul Alinsky tactics.
Deception is the core tactic of the Democrat party, brought from its mother ship, Bolshevik Marxism.
Where you were deceptive here was leaving out everything but a tiny part of a manifesto. He’s a white registered Republican for example. And Sheryl Attkisson doesn’t describe herself as liberal in anything I’ve seen. We’ve discussed her before and looking at her work she’s certainly proTrump. Why Trump has already secured a second term — no matter who his opponent is Journalistic hand jobs like that for Trump I can understand why you and other conservatives love her. Has she ever produced anything actually critical of Trump?
And Lara Logan is so far right wing crazy even for Fox and Newsmax stopped using her.
Where you were deceptive here was leaving out everything but a tiny part of a manifesto. He’s a white registered Republican for example. And Sheryl Attkisson doesn’t describe herself as liberal in anything I’ve seen. We’ve discussed her before and looking at her work she’s certainly proTrump. Why Trump has already secured a second term — no matter who his opponent is Journalistic hand jobs like that for Trump I can understand why you and other conservatives love her. Has she ever produced anything actually critical of Trump?
And Lara Logan is so far right wing crazy even for Fox and Newsmax stopped using her.
M E M, I find your ability to circumnavigate the facts, or to outright misrepresent them or cherry-pick while leaving out the part that shows these reporterss' integrity and courage, quite astonishing.
In the case of Sharyl Attkisson...
Originally Posted by WB
In EACH CASE, the liberal Democrat-aligned propagandist media DELIBERATELY got the story wrong, to aid Democrats politically, to slander and undermine support of Republicans, to reinforce a false narrative whose ideology those in the media reporting it share, even when that narrative is PROVEN to be false, often KNOWN BEFORE IT WAS EVEN FIRST REPORTED to be false.
Citing stories PROVEN to be false, by news agencies DELIBERATELY propping up a false narrative, because their journalists, producers, editors and publishers maliciously want that false narrative propped up, across the entire mainstream news media, collaborating together, and also collaborating with Democrat political leaders (for example, with Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, a newspaper quietly e-mailing the Clinon campaign, giving Clinton the option to review a story, and the option to spike it, if she felt it was too damaging to her campaign. Another exaample: the "Journo-list" online discussion group of national reporters, brainstorming how to destroy Sarah Palin and John McCain, and also how to destroy and marginalize Bernie Sanders to clear the way for Hillary Clinton's DNC nominaion. On and on.
And you hold up these liars as "proof" ? Don't make me laugh.
...of the literally HUNDREDS of times I have posted this link, and the abundant facts cited, you obviously, OBVIOUSLY have chosen the path of deliberate ignorance and never even watched it. That etches in marble your complete lack of inerest in the facts.
Attkisson outright says she is a left-leaning liberal Democrat, but despite her own politics, she feel an obligation to uphold old-school standards of objective journalism and sourced facts, that she says virtually the entire mainstream liberal media has abandoned.
Which is why, after 3 decades as a liberal journalist for CNN and then CBS, she finally broke her contract and left. Because CBS was censoring her and not airing the investigative reports she researched.
When she was doing the exact same investigative reports hat embarassed the George W. Bush administration up through 2008, CBS loved her. But when she began reporting with the exact same investigative reporting that embarassed the Obama administration, her CBS superiors silenced, blunted and shelved her reports, until she resigned.
And then intelligence agencies of the Obama administration hacked her computer to spy on and delete her research. And an IT expert who investigated told her the technology used to hack her computer was definitely federal intelligence agency level, far beyond what anyone hacking her in the private sector would use.
And keep in mind, this is the worst even the far-Left Wikipedia propaganda website could say...
Quote
Logan worked as a news reporter for the Sunday Tribune in Durban [South Africa] during her studies (1988–1989), then for the city's Daily News (1990–1992). In 1992, she joined Reuters Television in Africa, primarily as a senior producer. After four years she branched out into freelance journalism, obtaining assignments as a reporter and editor/producer with ITN and Fox/SKY, CBS News, ABC News (in London), NBC, and the European Broadcasting Union. She worked for CNN, reporting on incidents such as the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Nairobi and Tanzania, the conflict in Northern Ireland, and the Kosovo war.[8]
Logan was hired in 2000 by GMTV Breakfast Television (in the UK) as a correspondent; she also worked with CBS News Radio as a freelance correspondent. Days after the September 11 attacks, she asked a clerk at the Russian Embassy in London to give her a visa to travel to Afghanistan. In November 2001, while in Afghanistan working for GMTV, she infiltrated the American-British-backed Northern Alliance and interviewed their commander, General Babajan, at the Bagram Air Base.[11]
CBS News offered her a full-fledged correspondent position in 2002. She spent much of the next four years reporting from the battlefield, including war zones in Afghanistan and Iraq, often embedded with the United States Armed Forces. But she also interviewed famous figures and explorers such as Robert Ballard, discoverer of the wreck of the RMS Titanic.[12] Many of her reports were for 60 Minutes II. She was also a regular contributor to the CBS Evening News, The Early Show and Face the Nation.[13] In February 2006, CBS News named Logan their chief foreign affairs correspondent.[8]
Logan left CBS News in August 2018.[14][15] The following year, she joined the Sinclair Broadcast Group on a temporary basis, as a correspondent reporting on the United States–Mexico border.[2]
In October 2022, Logan was banned from right-wing television network Newsmax for what the network described as "reprehensible statements" during an interview where she said that "the open [United States-Mexico] border is Satan’s way of taking control of the world through all of these people who are his stooges and his servants ... You know, the ones who want us eating insects, cockroaches and that while they dine on the blood of children?"[16][17]
I left in the part at the end about Newsmax, because it's hilarious that she would be fired for that. People airing on both Newsmax and Fox News make similar statements every day (from Hannity to Tucker Carlson to Judge Jeanine Pirro to Greg Kelly, to Jesse Waters, on down) about the insideous plans of elites orchestrating flow of alien hordes daily entering the U.S. illegally EVERY DAY. Who march in carrying foreign flags, who are drug cartels, bringing in Fentanyl and other narcotics that killed 106,000 Americans from overdoses in 2022 ALONE, and every year, who are are orchestraing human trafficking, forced prostitution, that 30% of all immigrant women smuggled into the U.S. are raped, many are murdered, and / or forced to spend the rest of their lives in forced prostitution. "Satan's army"?!? Fuck yes. Not the slightest inaccuracy in reporting that. The part about forcing us to eat insects is a point Tucker Carlson made almost every night for months, until Fox without reason --STILL unexplained-- took him off the air.
And look at the list of places that Lara Logan has worked across her career. LOOK AT IT !
Reuters, ITN, Sky News, Fox, CBS, ABC, NBC, European Broadcasting Union (which is to say even to the left of American liberal media), CNN. There is no way, ABSOLUTELY NO WAY, that she could be "right wing" and spend 30 years working for these beyond-left leaning news agencies. No way.
And further down below what I quoted above, Wikipedia cites even more details of the boldness and aggressiveness with which she pushed for dangerous assignments and went worldwide to the most dangerous places on earth, war zones, Afghanistan, the Middle East amid revolution. Even being gang-raped and almost killed by an islamic mob didn't make her the slightest bit hesitant or fearful. She manifests incredible initiative and courage, both in the places she volunteered to go, and the integrity of her reporting, and in her criticism of other prominent journalists, at potential risk to her career.
If she has become a "right wing" reporter, after over 30 years as a liberal journalist, reporting over 3 decades for the most liberal news agencies (and you cited no facts or sources to back that 'right wing partisan" slander up, JUST THE SLANDER), if she has become a conservative, it must have been a very recent conversion. With her criticism of the larger liberal networks , I think it is more a case of her going where she can report the facts without being censored, and outlets that give her that freedom, irregardless of that employer's own political leanings.
It’s pretty apparent who’s leaving out pertinent facts WB. Like the fact the shooter was a registered Republican. And Attkisson had a reputation that she still cashes in on with conservatives but these days it’s puff pieces for Trump and mostly conspiracy stories that don’t upset conservatives. Logan is just unhinged bat shit crazy from the looks of it. To far right crazy for Newsmax is a pretty low bar.
It’s pretty apparent who’s leaving out pertinent facts WB. Like the fact the shooter was a registered Republican. And Attkisson had a reputation that she still cashes in on with conservatives but these days it’s puff pieces for Trump and mostly conspiracy stories that don’t upset conservatives. Logan is just unhinged bat shit crazy from the looks of it. To far right crazy for Newsmax is a pretty low bar.
My facts cited at length, vs. your total B.S.
What you say is a bumper-sticker propaganda Democrat narrative, what I say are the sourced and cited facts. Laraa Logan (like Sharyl Attkisson, like John Stossel, like Glenn Greenwald, like John Solomon, like Glenn Kessler and many others impeccable TRUE journalists, with an integrity no longer shared by George Orwell's mainstream media ) is an award-winning decades-long highly respected journalist, who has worked for every mainstream network, for over 30 years, LIBERAL networks. If she was "batshit crazy", none of these networks would have hired her in the first place, or kept her in the highest reporting positions, FOR DECADES. Only after she resigned and began giving exposure to the mainstream narrative across the major networks did they begin a slander campaign to discredit her.
That you, as a loyal Democrat-Bolshevik propagandist, are only too eager to promote.
I sourced and linked the shooter being a registered republican and Trump supporter as well as a link to his whole manifesto. You provided a link via a partisan source that only references 1 paragraph of the 4 page manifesto. You also tried to pass off Attkisson and Logan as liberals, lol. I read Attkisson’s piece declaring Trump was going to win 2020 no matter who he was up against, lol. That’s a conservative writing with full on bias in play. And I see nothing she’s produced in over a decade that would make a conservative the least bit uncomfortable. Logan I never saw as either way tbh but obviously something happened and she’s doing stuff with the my pillow guy. Again I understand why you like bat shit crazy conservatives gone wild but why even try to polish these turds?
I sourced and linked the shooter being a registered republican and Trump supporter as well as a link to his whole manifesto. You provided a link via a partisan source that only references 1 paragraph of the 4 page manifesto. You also tried to pass off Attkisson and Logan as liberals, lol. I read Attkisson’s piece declaring Trump was going to win 2020 no matter who he was up against, lol. That’s a conservative writing with full on bias in play. And I see nothing she’s produced in over a decade that would make a conservative the least bit uncomfortable. Logan I never saw as either way tbh but obviously something happened and she’s doing stuff with the my pillow guy. Again I understand why you like bat shit crazy conservatives gone wild but why even try to polish these turds?
Attkisson's editorial about the the 2016 election is not at all partisan, she just talks about her instincts as a journalist for 3 decades, and what she saw in the opinions of dozens of people she came in contact with who discussed Trump, Hillary and the then-pending election. She doesn't in the editorial endorse Trump or wax enthusiastic about him, she just cites from many sources who she sees as the likely winner of the election. So again, you LIE when you say she is "right wing" or a partisan for Trump.
And again with Lara Logan, you cite nothing beyond your irrational opinion (to atttempt to discredit her) that she is a conservative. Again: She has spent OVER 30 YEARS reporting for the most liberal news agencies on earth. No one who was a conservative would endure that for 30 years.
You posted a link to an AP article that gave an opinionated false unsourced narrative that Crusius is a "white racist", that didn't source any ACTUAL PROOF that Patrick Crusius was "white supremacist" or "white racist", or even prove he is "white". Speculation only in that AP article, without ANY proof. And as I said, I looked before you even posted that AP piece, viewing at least 20 other articles, some of which even had the headline of detailing Crusius' background, but NONE gave sourced facts, other than basically namecalling him "white supremacist" or "white racist".
What I linked about Patrick Crusius DID detail his manifesto, but where your AP liberal Newspeak article tried to bypass the thrust of what Patrick Crusius' motive was, while acknowledging Crusius targeted a majority of Mexicans (if I recall, 13 of the 20 he shot were Mexican) the article I posted doesn't just paint him as "white racist" to sell a false liberal narrative, it goes into the DEEPER REASON he targeted immigrants in El Paso (and again, not 100% or even close to it were Mexicans he targeted).
The link I posted goes into Crusius' ACTUAL self-declared envionmentalist motivation for the shooting, that you pretend doesn't exist so you can sell a false "white supremacist" narrative.
Dylan Roof (Charleston church shooter) was a white racist. Frank James (the N Y City subway shooter) was a black racist. Their own manifestos make that clear. Crusius' manifesto does NOT.
I've yet to see that you proved this Patrick Crusius kid was a racist. Crusius (in his manifesto) citing the political ramifications of immigration on the U.S. over coming decades is NOT the same thing as being a racist. And Crusius himself said his ideas on the subject were formed long before Trump became a candidate in 2015, and Crusius HIMSELF made clear that Trump had nothing to do with forming Crusis' ideology on the subject. This is CRYSTAL clear, and yet you still lyingly / slanderously push the false narrative that Trump motivat ed Cruisus to do the El Paso shooting. He did NOT.
Crusius is mentally unbalanced, he has weird ideas that he acted on with a gun. But he is not a racist. And he was not motivated by Trump.
The inconvenient truth is that our leaders, both Democrat AND Republican, have been failing us for decades. They are either complacent or involved in one of the biggest betrayals of the American public in our history. The takeover of the United States government by unchecked corporations. I could write a ten page essay on all the damage these corporations have caused, but here is what is important. Due to the death of the baby boomers, the increasingly anti-immigrant rhetoric of the right and the ever increasing Hispanic population, America will soon become a one party-state. The Democrat party will own America and they know it. They have already begun the transition by pandering heavily to the Hispanic voting bloc in the 1st Democratic Debate. They intend to use open borders, free healthcare for illegals, citizenship and more to enact a political coup by importing and then legalizing millions of new voters. With policies like these, the Hispanic support for Democrats will likely become nearly unanimous in the future. The heavy Hispanic population in Texas will make us a Democrat stronghold. Losing Texas and a few other states with heavy Hispanic population to the Democrats is all it would take for them to win nearly every presidential election. Although the Republican Party is also terrible. Many factions within the Republican Party are pro-corporation. Procorporation pro-immigration. But some factions within the Republican Party don’t prioritize corporations over our future. So the Democrats are nearly unanimous with their support of immigration while the Republicans are divided over it. At least with Republicans, the process of mass immigration and citizenship can be greatly reduced.
That is clearly not "right wing" or "pro-Trump" or motivated by Trump. And is clearly motivated by POLITICAL considerations, as he headlines that clause of his manifesto. NOT racial reasons. He clearly does not identify himself as a Republican or a Trump supporter, or as a racist. He is clearly critical of the Republican party.
And...
Quote
America is full of hypocrites who will blast my actions as the sole result of racism and hatred of other countries, despite the extensive evidence of all the problems these invaders cause and will cause. People who are hypocrites because they support imperialistic wars that have caused the loss of tens of thousands of American lives and untold numbers of civilian lives. The argument that mass murder is okay when it is state sanctioned is absurd. Our government has killed a whole lot more people for a whole lot less. Even if other non-immigrant targets would have a greater impact, I can’t bring myself to kill my fellow Americans. Even the Americans that seem hell-bent on destroying our country. Even if they are shameless race misers, massive polluters, haters of our collective values, etc. One day they will see error of their ways. Either when American patriots fail to reform our country and it collapses or when we save it. But they will see the error of their ways. I promise y’all that. I am against race mixing because it destroys genetic diversity and creates identity problems. Also because it’s completely unnecessary and selfish. 2nd and 3rd generation Hispanics form interracial unions at much higher rates than average. Yet another reason to send them back. Cultural and racial diversity is largely temporary. Cultural diversity diminishes as stronger and/or more appealing cultures overtake weaker and/or undesirable ones. Racial diversity will disappear as either race missing or genocide will take place. But the idea of deporting or murdering all non-white Americans is horrific. Many have been here at least as long as the whites, and have done as much to build our country. The best solution to this for would be to divide America into a confederacy of territories with at least 1 territory for each race. This physical separation would nearly eliminate race mixing and improve social unity by granting each race self-determination with their respective territory(s).
For a "white racist", he repeatedly makes reasoned and impassioned economic and political arguments for why he is NOT a racist.
Granted he's a crazy man for planning to shoot dozens of innocent people and then actually doing it. But his logic as best I can grasp it is that he intended it to preserve the U.S.'s sovereignty, environment, and national cultural identitty.
I provided a linked source identifying him as white vs you just deciding he was Hispanic because he looks darker in some pics. Nor when I was looking did I see conservative sites presenting his ethnicity being any different. More importantly he murdered people based on their race. Yes he tries to rationalize his white racist nationalism and as I said before it looks familiar to some of your posts. I also linked and sourced to his Republican Party affiliation and Trump support. If he had been a registered democrat I know that would have been end of the story for you. You don’t have the sources or facts and you gush over a guy who jokes about a political opponent’s spouse being brutally beaten with a hammer.
I provided a linked source identifying him as white vs you just deciding he was Hispanic because he looks darker in some pics. Nor when I was looking did I see conservative sites presenting his ethnicity being any different. More importantly he murdered people based on their race. Yes he tries to rationalize his white racist nationalism and as I said before it looks familiar to some of your posts. I also linked and sourced to his Republican Party affiliation and Trump support. If he had been a registered democrat I know that would have been end of the story for you. You don’t have the sources or facts and you gush over a guy who jokes about a political opponent’s spouse being brutally beaten with a hammer.
You are again deliberately lying.
You "provided a linked source", but not to verifiable facts, but to a leftist OPINION and NAME-CALLING that Crusius is a "white racist" and "white supremacist", an "article" that parrots in editorial form your false narrative, but NEVER PROVIDED SOURCES to prove Crusius is either "white" or further "white racist/white supremacist". No sources given, no evidence given. Just labels.
1) critical of both the Democrat and Republican parties, so your statement that Crusius is a Republican or Trump supporter is clearly a lie and not accurate,
2) Crusius clearly states that he is NOT a white supremacist or ideologically inspired by Trump, that his ideology pre-dates Trump ever becoming a presidential candidate. So THAT is another misrepresentation by you. He states his ideology as having been formed by a book titled The Great Replacement.
3) Nowhere in the manifesto does Crusius identify himself as white, only that (in his point of view, explaining his motive for the El Paso shooting) he sees himself as a patriotic American standing up for his country against an invasion by illegals, an invasion orchestrated by liberals and corporate interests, that is environmentally destroying the United States. He does NOT identify himself as white, only as culturally American. That his planned El Paso attack (in his manifesto) he says needs to be followed by many more such shootings, to deter immigrants (he doesn't specify legal or illegal, in his mind ALL immigrants) to both deter them to stop coming. And as he cites, some have left on their own, so he wanted to encourage more to leave and return to their native countries. What Romney termed in 2012 as "self-deport".
4) Crusius emphasizes repeatedly in his 4-page manifesto that he is NOT racist, and NOT a white supremacist, and the headings of the sections of his manifesto identify his motives as POLITICAL REASONS, and ECONOMIC REASONS, and a section where Crusius projects the REACTION of illegals and of the mainstream media to his shooting (both his planned intended reaction, and the media's predictable false-narrative reaction, which of course includes dismissing him as a racist, and falsely blaming Trump, despite that he says at least twice in the manifesto his ideas pre-date Trump ever emerging as a presidential candidate.)
Also, there is no such race as hispanic. Most hispanic immigrants are essentially white, but are culturally hispanic, and prone to a democrat/liberal ideology. He targeted hispanics for 2 reasons, (1) because they are the largest immigrant group, up till Biden's presidency about 82% of annual U.S. immigration (both legal and illegal), and (2) because he is in Texas, and they are the immigrant group that is turning his native Texas to a Democrat/blue/leftist state. As I said, I looked at over 20 articles, and even the ones that front to detail "the background" of Patrick Crusius never clarify what his race is, his family's nationality and origins, they just blanket-label him "white racist" and "white supremacist", WITHOUT ever confirming and sourcing what race he actually is, just the editorialized labels.
Originally Posted by M E M
Yes he tries to rationalize his white racist nationalism and as I said before it looks familiar to some of your posts.
You are a vicious liar. While I have concerns about immigration, I have clearly neverNEVER advocated or endorsed mass shootings, of illegals or anyone else. My stated soluion, and of Republicans in general, is to prevent illegals from entering, and deport those who get in. NOT shooting them, or shooting anyone else.
And your repeatedly calling Crusius' motive "white racist nationalism" is again a lie, that bypasses his ACTUAL and STATED motive in his 4-page manifesto, that you instead deliberately twist and misrepresent to conform to your Democrat-Bolshevik narrative, to slander all Republican conservatives and Trump supporters. Crusius is a nut, mass shootings is not a solution, and you deliberately smear all conservatives (and me) by conflating us with ideas we do not share. I advocate deporting illegals, people who shouldn't be here, who commit crimes and hurt Americans. I / we advocate imprisoning or deporting them, we do NOT advocate killing them. You are a vicious liar.
That insinuation is along the same lines as Democrats saying Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump are the same as David Duke. David Duke is a prominent white supremacist, who endorsed both Reagan and Trump over the last 43 years, because of the 2 parties, Republicans supported some of the things Duke thought were good for the country. While Reagan or Trump ideology were / are not the same as David Duke ideologically, in both cases, Duke saw Republicans as closer to his desired agenda for the country than Democrats. That does NOT make Reagan or Trump ideologically the same as Duke.
Similarly, Osama Bin Laden and other islamic terrorist groups endorsed Obama / Biden and the Democrats, because they were ideologically compatible, weaker on terrorism, and thus more desireable for Al Qaida's goals. Likewise, Democrats are ideologically more desireable for China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. Likewise Antifa, Black Lives Matter, and other leftist domestic terror groups. All align far more with Democrats. If you hate America and want to destroy America, Democrats are the obvious party to endorse and ideologically align with.
WB let’s just stick to what I actually posted. I provided a link to a news story that sited that the shooter had his party affiliation as republican and he had a pic of Trump and #build the wall. I never expect you to accept any facts that you don’t suit your partisanship. You never do. When confronted with it you attack the person that provided the source. Rules for radicals you know so well. I doubt tha AP just lied. I also think if the shooter had an online profile showing that the shooter was anything but white and a Biden supporter Fox and the rest of the conservative media would be on it with big headlines. Especially if the less partisan media got it wrong. I didn’t see that when I was searching on him though. And yes when he writes about the great replacement theory it would be identical to your take on it. He tries to rationalize his racism but while proclaiming he wasn’t racist he didn’t like race mixing on his way to murder people based on their ethnicity. Those lives had so little value because they were not white.
WB let’s just stick to what I actually posted. I provided a link to a news story that sited that the shooter had his party affiliation as republican and he had a pic of Trump and #build the wall. I never expect you to accept any facts that you don’t suit your partisanship. You never do. When confronted with it you attack the person that provided the source. Rules for radicals you know so well. I doubt tha AP just lied. I also think if the shooter had an online profile showing that the shooter was anything but white and a Biden supporter Fox and the rest of the conservative media would be on it with big headlines. Especially if the less partisan media got it wrong. I didn’t see that when I was searching on him though. And yes when he writes about the great replacement theory it would be identical to your take on it. He tries to rationalize his racism but while proclaiming he wasn’t racist he didn’t like race mixing on his way to murder people based on their ethnicity. Those lives had so little value because they were not white.
Dear God, how many times are you going to repeat the exact same thing?!?
I even duplicated your links in what I posted in response, to clarify EXACTLY what I was responding to. WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO SAY ?!?
I made CRYSTAL CLEAR that your saying "he is a Republican" is absolute shit garbage. That he expressed a contempt and disdain for both parties. He only felt that Republicans in power would slow down the immigrant turning of Texas to a deep blue state. That is CRYSTAL clear in his 4-page manifesto, and I even quoted the specific portions where he made it clear.
AP (while notoriously liberal-Democrat leaning, and my linked Sharyl Atkisson video quotes AP as one of the deliberately misrepresentaive biased media sources committed to Democrat activism rather than objective journalism) AS I JUST SAID never clarified Patrick Crusius' ethnic background. Nor did over 20 other articles I read, even the ones that specifically promised to do so in their headlines. They just labelled him "white racist" with no stated facts to establish that.
I attacked an AP article that was liberal propaganda, cited details that PROVED it was factless propaganda. And called you a liar for misrepresenting the facts, as I made CRYSTAL clear in my Dec 7th above post. EVERYTHING YOU ASKED, I already answered in that post. Sourced, quoted, cited, over and over, chapter and verse.
And you further SLANDERED ME, alleging that I was one in ideology with Crusius. I certainly don't have to defend myself against that allegation, it is so clearly a slander and in opposition to what I have said here on these boards, FOR 20 YEARS. I'm for securing the border and deportation of illegals, I'm NOT a supporter of killing anyone. You VICIOUS fucking liar.
And as for AP or any other liberal media "being eager to tell the truth" if Crusius was not white, as I already said, REPEATEDLY, they didn't show an eagerness to tell the truth in ANY of 15 years of similar cases, such as George Zimmerman, Jared Loughner, Darren Wilson, Nicholas Sandman, Kyle Rittenhaus, or dozens of others involved in racially charged shootings. The media continually portray black criminals as innocent saints despite their histories as violent criminals who provoked their own shootings, or their own deaths by drug overdose (George Floyd), or by violently resisting arrest (Michael Brown), or pre-existing health problems (Eric Garner, Freddie Gray). The same media falsely portray whites/police as motivated by racism to kill, and exclude the facts that prove otherwise.
In several dozen cases over the last 15 years, I was each time initially sympathetic to the appearance of racism in each of these cases, and EACH TIME, the media was shown within days to have lied, and to have DELIBERATELY presented a false narrative, to have demonized police, or whites in general, or demonize Republicans or Trump, to benefit Democrats or some other Leftist (BLM, Antifa, Marxist, critical race theory) ideological cause.
And years later, they have NEVER admitted the true facts revealed, in ANY of these cases. And you are still parroting their lying talking points.
You can't find any "less than partisan media" (i,e., either objective/neutral media, or conservative media) in an online Google search, that present evidence other than the liberal media false narrative, because Google search algorithms make anything other than hard-left media sources almost impossible to find. I presented you with one such article, and knee-jerk, you slammed it as untrue, no matter how many times I cited the facts presented and the full context of Crusius' odd primary environmental motivation, even using your own sources, that PROVE what I said is true. Where you lyingly allege I somehow used "selective omission" of Patrick Crusius' full context of his manifesto. Well, I sourced the full 4-page Crusius manifesto, FROM YOUR linked source, and THERE IS NO FURTHER CONTEXT, that argument of yours is just smoke and mirrors. https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/08/what-we-know-about-el-paso-shooter-patrick-crusius/
The Democrat/Left can't win against the facts, so they shadow-ban and block and censor the FACTS they can't dispute. George Orwell's liberal media. And George Orwell's Google, Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok. And FBI.
I provided a link and source to a news articles vs your predictable partisan shit and garbage. You hate anything that isn’t loyal to your party and isn’t under its thumb so project all you want. Do rest assured I don’t see you killing anyone. I have read his manifesto and it’s full of nationalism that looks oh so similar to your posts. Tell me where do your views differ on your shared great replacement theory? I don’t see any.
I provided a link and source to a news articles vs your predictable partisan shit and garbage. You hate anything that isn’t loyal to your party and isn’t under its thumb so project all you want. Do rest assured I don’t see you killing anyone. I have read his manifesto and it’s full of nationalism that looks oh so similar to your posts. Tell me where do your views differ on your shared great replacement theory? I don’t see any.
My "shit" is cited, sourced, linked and FACTUAL.
That thing you posted wasn't a news article, that was an editorial DISGUISED as a news article. And I specifically deconstructed how it was an editorial and factless narrative fiction.
You got it turned around. You linked to a conservative opinion piece while attacking the news article I linked too as opinion. Your links in general are shit opinion pieces lol. Classic projection WB
WB let’s just stick to what I actually posted. I provided a link to a news story that sited that the shooter had his party affiliation as republican and he had a pic of Trump and #build the wall. I never expect you to accept any facts that you don’t suit your partisanship. You never do. When confronted with it you attack the person that provided the source. Rules for radicals you know so well. I doubt tha AP just lied. I also think if the shooter had an online profile showing that the shooter was anything but white and a Biden supporter Fox and the rest of the conservative media would be on it with big headlines. Especially if the less partisan media got it wrong. I didn’t see that when I was searching on him though. And yes when he writes about the great replacement theory it would be identical to your take on it. He tries to rationalize his racism but while proclaiming he wasn’t racist he didn’t like race mixing on his way to murder people based on their ethnicity. Those lives had so little value because they were not white.
Dear God, how many times are you going to repeat the exact same thing?!?
I even duplicated your links in what I posted in response, to clarify EXACTLY what I was responding to. WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO SAY ?!?
I made CRYSTAL CLEAR that your saying "he is a Republican" is absolute shit garbage. That he expressed a contempt and disdain for both parties. He only felt that Republicans in power would slow down the immigrant turning of Texas to a deep blue state. That is CRYSTAL clear in his 4-page manifesto, and I even quoted the specific portions where he made it clear.
AP (while notoriously liberal-Democrat leaning, and my linked Sharyl Atkisson video quotes AP as one of the deliberately misrepresentaive biased media sources committed to Democrat activism rather than objective journalism) AS I JUST SAID never clarified Patrick Crusius' ethnic background. Nor did over 20 other articles I read, even the ones that specifically promised to do so in their headlines. They just labelled him "white racist" with no stated facts to establish that.
I attacked an AP article that was liberal propaganda, cited details that PROVED it was factless propaganda. And called you a liar for misrepresenting the facts, as I made CRYSTAL clear in my Dec 7th above post. EVERYTHING YOU ASKED, I already answered in that post. Sourced, quoted, cited, over and over, chapter and verse.
And you further SLANDERED ME, alleging that I was one in ideology with Crusius. I certainly don't have to defend myself against that allegation, it is so clearly a slander and in opposition to what I have said here on these boards, FOR 20 YEARS. I'm for securing the border and deportation of illegals, I'm NOT a supporter of killing anyone. You VICIOUS fucking liar.
And as for AP or any other liberal media "being eager to tell the truth" if Crusius was not white, as I already said, REPEATEDLY, they didn't show an eagerness to tell the truth in ANY of 15 years of similar cases, such as George Zimmerman, Jared Loughner, Darren Wilson, Nicholas Sandman, Kyle Rittenhaus, or dozens of others involved in racially charged shootings. The media continually portray black criminals as innocent saints despite their histories as violent criminals who provoked their own shootings or deaths by drug overdone (George Floyd) resisting arrest, or pre-existing health problems. The same media falsely portray whites/police as motivated by racism to kill, and exclude the facts that prove otherwise. In several dozen cases over the last 15 years, I was initially sympathetic to the appearance of racism in each of these cases, and EACH TIME, the media was shown within days to have lied, and to have DELIBERATELY presented a false narrative, to demonize police, or whites in general, or demonize Republicans or Trump, to benefit Democrats or some other Leftist (BLM, Antifa, Marxist, critical race theory) ideological cause.
And years later, they have NEVER admitted the true facts revealed, in ANY of these cases. And you are still parroting their lying talking points.
You don't find any "less than partisan media" (i,e., either objective or conservative media) in an online search, that present evidence other than the liberal media false narrative, because Google search algorithms make anything other than hard-left media sources almost impossible to find. I presented you with one such article, and knee-jerk, you slammed it as untrue, no matter how many times I cited the facts presented and the full context of Crusius' odd primary environmental motivation, even using your own sources, where you lyingly allege I somehow used selective omission of Patrick Crusius' full context of his manifesto. Well, I sourced the full 4-page Crusius manifesto, FROM YOUR linked source, and THERE IS NO FURTHER CONTEXT, that argument of yours is just smoke and mirrors. https://legalinsurrection.com/2019/08/what-we-know-about-el-paso-shooter-patrick-crusius/
The Democrat/Left can't win against the facts, so they shadow-ban and block and censor the FACTS they can't dispute. George Orwell's liberal media. And George Orwell's Google, Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok. And FBI.
Using YOUR OWN sources, I detailed EXACTLY what Patrick Crusius said, cited and sourced, from both my sources and yours.
That AP article you linked called Patrick Crusius a "white racist" but cited no sources, just editorially labelled him that, but did NOT specifically detail his race or ancestry to qualify the label. So your AP article is actually an editorial, disguised as a news article.
My source is not "shit", my sources in general are not "consistenttly shit", you just slander them that way, without facts, to discredit sources that present facts inconvenient to your liberal indoctrination and narrative.
Considering what a tiny percentage trans people are, a tiny fraction of the already very small 2% who identify as gay, these trans people who are on puberty blockers and are by definition unstable... produce a very high ratio of shootings and risk, created by chemically altering these people, toward a questionably productive goal, that are ruining a lot of innocent bystander lives who just wind up in their path.
Maybe these people shouldn't have guns or be admitted into the military, unless and until they reach some level of mental stability?
ATLANTA, GEORGIA: An Antifa goon was reportedly arrested over the weekend for setting fire to a planned $90 million police training center. The suspect, James 'Jamie' Marsicano, 29, has now been identified as the transgender daughter of millionaire North Carolina businessman Michael Marsicano. She is reportedly an outspoken anti-police advocate. She is currently in her first year of law school at the North Carolina School of Law.
Marsicano was among the rioters who attacked cops with fireworks and Molotov cocktails at the site of the future Atlanta Police Safety Training Center on the night of Sunday, March 5, according to booking documents. Jamie is being held on domestic terrorism charges without bail. Her father, Michael, ran a foundation worth $4 billion.
According to a profile of Marsicano, who is nearly 30 years of age, on the National Lawyers Guild website, she is "a queer and trans organizer from Charlotte, NC." "Before coming to law school, Jamie worked with mutual aid collective Charlotte Uprising to start a grassroots community bail fund that raises money to bail people out of jail and support them through court, regardless of charge," the website says.
It adds, "Jamie believes that no one should be in a cage, and dreams of a world where we can prevent and respond to harm in our communities without relying on prisons or police. Jamie plans to use a law degree to do criminal defense in NC. As a Haywood Burns fellow, Jamie will be working at the Law Office of Habekah B Cannon, an explicitly abolitionist, public interest criminal defense firm. The goal is to be a movement lawyer, and this summer Jamie is lucky enough to support and learn from one of the best."
Him, her, whatever. A rose by any other name is still a loathesome transgender freak.
I'm far from the only one who has pointed out that transgenders, from Bradley Manning on down, are unstable people who should not be trusted with a national security clearance, and present an unnecessary danger to the country when they do have it.
Transgenders are also a big recruiting ground for Antifa and BLM militants, and with just a bit of far-Left BLM/Antifa indoctrination added to the mix of already being unstable, are very angry and prone to violent behavior. And are a disproportionate ratio of BLM/Antifa violent storm troopers.
And yet another log tossed on the homicidal radicalized transgender-activist pile...
Another angry gender-idenity-confused transgender freak, out of his/her/whatever mind on puberty blockers, lashes out and shoots a bunch of innocent people. Transgenders may be a very small slice of the gay community, but they sure seem to be very prone to destructive behavior, to themselves and everyone else. With a dash of islamic radicalism tossed in the mix, like a twist of lime in a vodka martini.
The Left's standard of what they try to market to us as "normal" and as just like everyone else, seems to be erroneously be applied to a number of very unbalanced, angry and very dangerous people. And the hate indoctrinated into them from the Democrat/Left just seems to galvanize their impulse toward violent attacks.
Looks like as usual your wrong WB… From the AP “ BY MELISSA GOLDIN Published 4:27 PM CST, February 13, 2024 Share CLAIM: The shooter who carried out an attack injuring two people at a Texas megachurch on Sunday has been identified as transgender.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Houston police said on Monday that its investigation has thus far determined that the shooter, Genesse Ivonne Moreno, identified as female despite using multiple aliases, including the name Jeffery — or Jeffrey — Escalante. Multiple court records identify Moreno as female, most recently in 2022. ” Googling this I can understand why you got it wrong as conservative media really ran with the transgender angle.
Looks like as usual your wrong WB… From the AP “ BY MELISSA GOLDIN Published 4:27 PM CST, February 13, 2024 Share CLAIM: The shooter who carried out an attack injuring two people at a Texas megachurch on Sunday has been identified as transgender.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. Houston police said on Monday that its investigation has thus far determined that the shooter, Genesse Ivonne Moreno, identified as female despite using multiple aliases, including the name Jeffery — or Jeffrey — Escalante. Multiple court records identify Moreno as female, most recently in 2022. ” Googling this I can understand why you got it wrong as conservative media really ran with the transgender angle.
I call B.S. by the liiberal media. That's a really heavy parsing of words.
1) The "woman" in quesion has a long history of mental issues, and PERSONALLY, HERSELF identified as a transgender male. Houston police at a press conference after-the-fact bent themselves in pretzels delicately addressing the gender-freak woman posthumously by her silly preferred pronouns. She may be genetically female, but her head was a transgender mess. Something the AP news' Orwellian Newspeak puts on a remarkable show of sophistry to avoid addressing. But a rose by any other name is still a transgender freak.
2) She is from El Salvador and may be in the U.S. illegally.
3) With her mental issues, it is very suspect how she EVER would have been able to purchase the two weapons she had on her in the Lakewood Church.
The only blessing is that there were two alert armed officers there who quickly saw what was going on, and shot him/her/whatever dead, before she was able to kill a lot of other people.
![[wink]](images/icons/wink.gif){kind=icon}
![[gulp!]](gulp.gif)
.![[biiiig grin]](images/icons/grin.gif){kind=icon}
![[eh?]](images/icons/confused.gif){kind=icon}
![[nyah hah]](images/icons/tongue.gif){kind=icon}
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. Still, we seem to be operating at full capacity, so I'll give it a second, abbreviated try:![[mwah hwah haa]](graemlins/devil.gif)
)? Maybe they just want to dilute another aspect of tradition and rub it in Righty's face? Or do they need it to ease their consciences? ![[yuh huh]](images/icons/rolleyes.gif){kind=icon}
or as another milestone in the moral decay of society, this issue is just one little domino in a long chain of dominoes that lead ultimately to a society completely different from the one we know now. Should personal convictions play a role in your position on this issue? Only if you value playing a part in determining the course of your world over simply telling people what they want to hear and won't get indignant over.
![[whaaaa!]](eek01.gif)
I should feel guilty for 'opposing you and your freedom'? Well, damn! I had no idea you were magically protected from disagreement! ![[no no no]](graemlins/nono.gif)
![[izzat so?]](graemlins/zatso.gif)
Singling out homosexuality as the supreme evil? Wait a minute, I'll go check... Hmmm... it would appear I never made any such statements! In fact, I repeatedly stated that "I'm no better than anyone else", "Homosexuals aren't any worse than anyone else", and other such statements as well. The Bible does say that all sins are equal, which is precisely why I said those things. The difference is that you're basically expecting me to approve of legislation that attempts to make one of those sins legally legitimate. I'm simply maintaining that my conscience wouldn't permit me not to say anything about it. If you have a problem with that, then you're the one who's insulting what I believe, which might make your 'I'm the victim' approach a bit less defensible.![[who, me?]](graemlins/whome01.gif)
.
![[humina humina]](graemlins/love.gif)
LOVE ![[AAAHHHH!!!]](graemlins/aahhh.gif)
![[cool]](images/icons/cool.gif){kind=icon}
Missed that. I kinda just skimmed along and missed that. Me so solly. 
The court issued the opinion in response to a request from the state Senate about whether Vermont-style civil unions, which convey the state benefits of marriage — but not the title — would meet constitutional muster. 
President Bush immediately denounced the decision and vowed to pursue legislation to protect the traditional definition of marriage. Church leaders in the heavily Roman Catholic state also pressed their parishioners to oppose efforts to allow gays to marry. 
The Massachusetts case began in 2001, when seven gay couples went to their city and town halls to obtain marriage licenses. All were denied, leading them to sue the state Department of Public Health, which administers the state's marriage laws. 
The 4-3 advisory ruling Wednesday by the Supreme Judicial Court creates a legislative dilemma that could force many uneasy lawmakers to choose sides on a contentious social issue. 
"Whatever your view is of marriage, it's my belief that fair-minded people oppose writing discrimination into the constitution," said Barrios, who is gay. 
"I understand there are wrinkles that need to be worked out, but as far as I'm concerned, we will be married," said Molly McKay as she and her partner of eight years, Davina Kotulski, stood at the clerk's counter. 
Both Kerry and Edwards said they oppose gay marriages but would not support a constitutional amendment. 
Oops. Somehow, I had a duplicate post here, that I just omitted.
Reproduction.
Meanwhile, a crowd of gay couples was expected to go to the county administration building in Portland, Ore. Wednesday after a county commissioner there said she would begin issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Cheney said during the 2000 campaign, and again last month, that he prefers to see states handle the issue of gay marriage. His openly lesbian daughter, Mary Cheney, is an aide in the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, but the vice president declined to discuss her. 
, winking 
)
![[Linked Image from dreshare.com]](https://www.dreshare.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Patrick-Crusius.jpg)
![[Linked Image from c1.legalinsurrection.com]](https://c1.legalinsurrection.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Patrick-Crusius-300x211.png)
I'd just like to take this moment to, again, point out that things like this are why no one takes Wonder Dave seriously.