How Quick we are to Judge!

[Buzz Dixon]

What's kind of ironic about all of this is that while we are debating, thousands of gays are living a "married" life. The only difference is they don't receive the benefits. This is about Civil Rights, and it is uncivil to tell two people who love each other that they aren't entitled to the same rights as a hetero married couple. It is bigotry, nothing more, nothing less. It's an ugly word because it defines and reveals an ugly mindset towards others.

No, they are not married. Marriage is a union of a male and a female. That's the universal default in all cultures regardless of what other permutations local mores may add, and it's certainly the only legally recognized form in this country since its inception. (And, no, the Mormons and the Onieda communities were not recognized on a national level and, in fact, both groups dropped polygamy/group marriage in order to flourish.)

Are there gays living in long term stable loving relationships? Without a doubt. Still not what this culture defines as a marriage. Again, a shopping cart is not the same thing as a Cadillac just 'cuz they're both made of steel and have four wheels.

You (rhetorical) are driving yourselves insane fighting a battle you can not win, when there is a fight you can win that will give you all the legal rights you want.

 

[k]

Still not what this culture defines as a marriage.

Gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts. Isn't that part of the US, and since it is, then it is also a part of our culture whether people agree with it or not.

Since the issue of the Rule of Law was ignored I guess that means...??

 

[Buzz Dixon]

Gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts. Isn't that part of the US, and since it is, then it is also a part of our culture whether people agree with it or not.

Since the issue of the Rule of Law was ignored I guess that means...??

It was imposed by judicial fiat, without even a court challenge being introduced. It has not yet been tested in the Supreme Court. The people of the state certainly didn't vote on it.

 

[Calidore]

it will happen because it's not worth the hassle of opposing. gay marriage is neither here nor there for a man of the spirit. Catholic priests are celibate, that says a lot about spirituality, though the body, ach wat is the body, who cares?

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

That can all be fixed with the flick of a pen.
So, ya wanna get your tax/legal breaks, or do you wanna throw a hissy fit over a name?

What I'm wondering is why y'all are going into a full blown panic attack over a name.

I, and many homosexuals, would be quite happy with a federally recognized civil union.

I fear I am not as much a stickler for state run order as Luther was, I consider the religious institution of marriage and the state institution of marriage to be two seperate entity. If a couple come before God (and, if at all possible, their Christian community) and declare themselves to be married then they are married.

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

Congress has the authority, not to define marriage itself, but to define laws relating to marriage - perhaps even to define how the word marriage must be used.

Congress has the authority to define what Federal law accepts as marriage.

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

It was imposed by judicial fiat,

I saw that coming a mile away. They looked at the law and the constitution and rendered their judgement. That is what their job is and that is what the constitution of Mass. says.

without even a court challenge being introduced.

What do you mean?

It has not yet been tested in the Supreme Court. The people of the state certainly didn't vote on it.

Errr, it is a state decision, it doesn't violate anybody anybody's civil rights, on what grounds would it be brought before the U.S. Supreme Court?

The people will have a chance to vote on it in about 2 years. If the experience in Vermont is any measure, the ammendment that is sure to be proposed will be voted down. OTOH Vermont has 'Civil Unions' not 'Marriages' so maybe Mass. with throw a hissy fit over the difference in language.

 

[CSMR]

I would be quite happy with a federally recognized civil union.

Why would you want this? What benefit does it convey to anyone to allow such civil unions?

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

I see.

So is it okay to:

• Have sex with your mother?
• Have sex with your sister?
• Have sex with your aunt?
• Have sex with an animal?

Read chapter 18 of Leviticus. You'll see the prohibitions against men lying with men is in the same chapter as the prohibitions I stated above. Aren't we "picking and choosing" which verses and laws to obey when we abstain from those perversions I've listed, yet somehow think it's okay for men to have sex with other men?

Lev 18 also prohibits uncovering your wife's nakedness while she is menstruating.


It does not prohibit marrying your niece.


From a secular point of view sex is about freely given informed consent.
Children are not competant to give informed consent. Very close relatives,
e.g. siblings or parents, raise the issue of power i.e. whether the consent was given freely, it also raises genetic issues.


As a Christian I am no longer under Mosaic law, however it does form a basis for understanding what God wanted in a particular place and time.
Further
1)from the story of the woman who had committed adultery (though what that exactly meant has some interesting posibilities) we see that Jesus continued to consider adultery a sin.
2)From Paul's writings we see he expected sex to be within the context of marriage.

3)From chapter 15 of Acts, we see the Counsel in Jerusalem make [font=Arial,Helvetica] abstaining from sexual immorality one of three commandments for Gentile Christians.

So if I read your response correctly, I agree that we can't just say "everybody picks and chooses, therefore I am going to pick and choose", especially when it comes to sexual behaviour.
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To make a very long and involved story short:
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[font=Arial,Helvetica]The beginning of the story is that I see Gays and Lesbians involved in loving relaitionships, contributing to communities and churches and raisinghealthy happy children.

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[font=Arial,Helvetica]The end is that I believe there is substantial reason to believe that Lev 18/20 and somewhat more abstractly 1 Tim 1 and 1 Cor 6 refer to temple prostitution, just as Deut 23 (and 1 Kings 14 and 15 and 2 Kings 23) most certainly does.
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[k]

OTOH Vermont has 'Civil Unions' not 'Marriages' so maybe Mass. with throw a hissy fit over the difference in language.

Generally, the complaint is not about the specific words, but rather how those words will be used in determining what benefits the gay community will receive within their legally recognized unions. Some people think that if Civil Unions are instituted under federal law (even state) those couples will automatically receive the same rights/benefits as hetero married couples.

It shouldn't be hard to imagine cases in court revolving around the interpretation of a specific word. One side will argue it's a "civil union" and not a "marriage" so the defendant has no grounds for this particular complaint.

 

[CSMR]

From a secular point of view sex is about freely given informed consent.
Children are not competant to give informed consent. Very close relatives,
e.g. siblings or parents, raise the issue of power i.e. whether the consent was given freely, it also raises genetic issues.

Are you claiming that this is the point of view of all atheists, or do you mean something else by secular?

 

[CSMR]

The beginning of the story is that I see Gays and Lesbians involved in loving relaitionships, contributing to communities and churches and raising healthy happy children.

1. Do you intend to use relate the love that you see here to the commands "love God" and "love thy neighbour"?
2. Do you believe that happiness and health on Earth is part of the aim of this life?

The end is that I believe there is substantial reason to believe that Lev 18/20 and somewhat more abstractly 1 Tim 1 and 1 Cor 6 refer to temple prostitution, just as Deut 23 (and 1 Kings 14 and 15 and 2 Kings 23) most certainly does.

If they meant temple prostitution, why didn't they say temple prostitution? Even if there was no hetrosexual temple prostitution and no homosexual activity outside the temple - which I am sure is not true of societies the Jewish tribes related to, and in Roman and Greek society very untrue indeed - why is the phenomenon referred to by its homosexuality rather than by its being prostitution? This interpretation seems very spurious to me.

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

I should note that 'without breaking previous commitments' along with something about public (and most specifically one's partner's) health (i.e. spreading disease) but as this is a discussion of marriage I made certain assumptions. Sorry.

Are you claiming that this is the point of view of all atheists, or do you mean something else by secular?

That is an explicit expression of a combination of the basis of many rape, incest, child molestation and underage sex laws, with fairly widely held views that do not start with "the Bible says".
Many people, atheists included, don't fully or explicitly reason out why they hold the moral positions they hold.
What I usually mean when I write 'secular', is what is this non-theocratic society is justified in enforcing, as opposed to what should Christians be teaching by example. Often they are similar if not identical. In this case the secular position doesn't even qualify as a starting position for Christians.

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

The topic comes up frequently in Christian forums because it has been thrust into the forefront of our minds by progressive liberals that will not tolerate being told that the lifestyle that they have accepted is un-Biblical and unhealthy.

Which lifestyle would that be? Oh, promiscuity. And this has what to do with homosexuals who want to be married?

These are the US AIDS statistics from avert.org
384,784 by Men who have sex with men

Which is somewhere around 10% of Gays.
Lesbians OTOH have an extraordinarily low level of AIDS.

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

1. Do you intend to use relate the love that you see here to the commands "love God" and "love thy neighbour"?
2. Do you believe that happiness and health on Earth is part of the aim of this life?

I believe that bearing good fruit is, and many Gays and Lesbians do, both literally and figuratively.

If they meant temple prostitution, why didn't they say temple prostitution?

I'm not so sure they didn't. Almost all the laws in Lev 19 refer to uncovering nakedness, not sex. Well you do generally get naked when you have sex. I think we suffer from not reading the prohibitions literally enough. You (adult male) shall not lay with a male (indeterminate age) as if you are laying with a woman.
Homosexual cult prostitution consisted of a male acolyte to the goddess pretending to be a woman, in some cults they emasculated themselves.
Lev 19 is a collection of customs and cultic practices of the Egyptians and the previous occupants of Israel.
All the prohibitions that carry a death penalty in Lev 21 are echoed in one form or another in Deut. but the only match for the ban on laying with a man as with a woman is the prohibition on cultic prostitution.
Any sex outside of marriage is forbidden, but when that sex is part of the worship of another god it deserves special mention.
Further, the sexual proclivities of the upper class of Greece and Rome seem to be derived directly from turning away from God and engaging in the worship of pleasure. I believe that 1 Cor 6 is at least an oblique condemnation of that, more directly it condemns kidnappers, which is arguably a condemnation of the practice of kidnapping slaves for sexual purposes.
It seems highly unlikely that the concept of a loving committed homosexual relationship would have been on the radar screen for Paul, what he saw was hedonism, rape of slaves and cultic prostitution.

 

[Robert the Pilegrim]

Why would you want this? What benefit does it convey to anyone to allow such civil unions?

Access to health insurance, access to pension plans, visitation rights in the hospital, presumption of durable power of attourney for medical decisions, presumption of inheritance rights, parental rights, access to housing, social stability...
90% of that would be covered with state implimented civil unions, at the federal level that would rapidly get 99% of the above (the 1% being those pension funds and health coverage plans that wouldn't start covering civil unions).
If the 1500 or so programs that use marriage as a qualification for benefits had their qualification expanded to include civil unions ...
To society at large it encourages stability, reduces paperwork, makes providing health care more efficient...

 

[Buzz Dixon]

What I'm wondering is why y'all are going into a full blown panic attack over a name.

Because the polygamists have already filed lawsuits in Utah based on the actions of gay marriage advocates.
And because once the barriers to polygamy and gay marriage go down, so do the barriers to incestuous marriage.
Because no matter how much trouble the current state of marriage is in, it will not be fixed by adding more chaos to the mix. Attempts to justify major societal upheavels on the marriage front by saying "Look how many heterosexual marriages end in divorce" is like arguing all safety gear should be removed from cars since some people are gonna die anyway.
The American people are a fair minded people. We hear the argument re unmarried households being allowed tax and propertry breaks and we understand 'em and for the most part we're inclined to grant them. We're not interested in having one of our most cherished institutions trashed in the process, especially since it will weaken marriage and put successive generations at risk by lessening the number of good role models available.
"But what about the good homosexual marriages that will result?" the activists ask. Sorry, that won't undo the harm done by debasing the meaning of the word in the eyes of millions. Gay marriage will not make heterosexual marriage stronger, and heterosexual marriage is vitally needed to keep this society on an even keel.
"But what about Sweden? What about the Netherlands?" Yeah, what about 'em? I see nothing in those countries I want to emulate here. They've got high drug use, high sucide rates, high psychological and spiritual illness, and their populations are shrinking.
If you (rhetorical) want gay marriage, be prepared for Islam to win by default in a century or two.

 

[k]

If you (rhetorical) want gay marriage, be prepared for Islam to win by default in a century or two.

If we are to prepare for "Islam" to win, then the Bible must be false. We suppose you have Muslim friends as well? The double standards posted have been magnificent. Gays can't be good "role" models? What makes heteros good "role" models? The point is, neither are good ones. We are all equally unworthy of God's Grace.

Christians have more in common with Muslims than most people think. Of course, this would mean removing fear long enough to actually visit a Mosque, read the Koran, and actually (dare I say) get to know some Muslims. They are God's Children too.

 

[Norea]

It's just the classic moral panic syndrome that seems to pervade modern society. People said the same things when GTA3 and GTA: Vice City came out. Whatever becomes the largest target for one's own frailties in light of the fact that all moral agency must be discovered, not ordained is the problem. Others 'borrow' morals from others rather than using their own capacity to Reason to discover morals based on their own values and values that are inherent to each living human being.

-- Bridget

 

[CSMR]

The point is, neither are good [role models]. We are all equally unworthy of God's Grace.

Bad people can be good role models. For instance Paul is worthy to be imitated (1 Cor 4:16) even though he is the worst person of all (1 Timothy 1:15).
In our actions there may be some expression of grace and some demonstration of faith. (And if we have not grace there may be some expression of law in external order which can help to lead others to grace - not that we will do this deliberately.)