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Laura said:It has everything to do with rights! Why should one part of the country be discriminated against because Christians don't like gay people? The last time I checked, we are not a theocracy, no matter how hard Bush is trying to change that.
Lynden1000 said:The OP only mentioned homosexuality tangentially. The main question - and the one no one has really addressed or answered - is why Christians do not make a concerted effort to ban remarriage after divorce when Jesus makes it about as unequivocally clear as he possibly could that such an act was adulterous.
I'm thinking that no such effort is made because Christians have simply given in to societal whims or have decided that such a ban against divorce would be just too darn inconvenient, thus they look for ways to "reinterpret" Jesus' words about divorce, much in the same way that the homosexual community tries to "reinterpret" biblical passages condemning homosexuality.
Laura said:Uh...the right to get married and all that goes along with it (power of attorney, adopting children together, etc).
loriersea said:The New Testament makes it pretty clear that getting a divorce (with the possible exception of getting one after your partner commits adultery, depending on how you interpret things) is sinful, and that getting remarried after a divorce is committing adultery.
As such, why aren't Christians in the United States fighting to make marriage between two divorced people (again, with the possible exception of divorce after adultery by the other partner) illegal? Why aren't they fighting to make sure that those couples are not entitled to the same legal rights as couples who are married in a way God approves of?
There are far, far more people in that situation (being married after a divorce for a reason other than adultery) than there are people in same-sex relationships. This is a far, far more rampant sin (assuming you see same-sex relationships as sinful, but this is addressed to people who do).
So shouldn't making marriage illegal between two divorced people be far more important than fight gay marriage?
Marriage has been deemed a 14th Amendment fundamental privacy right under the U.S. Constitution. See Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) (Holding that "[m]arriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.") You may disagree with the Supreme Court, and that holding may change over time, but the current state of the law deems marriage a right, not a privilege.MethodMan said:Those aren't rights - they are privilege
MethodMan said:Those aren't rights - they are privilege
beechy said:Marriage has been deemed a 14th Amendment fundamental privacy right under the U.S. Constitution. See Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) (Holding that "[m]arriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.") You may disagree with the Supreme Court, and that holding may change over time, but the current state of the law deems marriage a right, not a privilege.
Autumnleaf said:Good point about hypocrisy among adulterous Christians remarrying. We should be working just as hard against it as we are against gay marriage.
If the issue could be dismissed so simply, courts across the nation would not be reaching such varied conclusions (indeed, they wouldn't be hearing the cases at all).Autumnleaf said:At the time of that law marriage was defined as between man and woman. Not sure how it can be twisted...
Marriage is a vital social institution ... The exclusive commitment of two individuals to each other nurtures love and mutual support; it brings stability to our society. For those who choose to marry, and for their children, marriage provides an abundance of legal, financial, and social benefits. In turn it imposes weighty legal, financial, and social obligations.
beechy said:Marriage has been deemed a 14th Amendment fundamental privacy right under the U.S. Constitution. See Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) (Holding that "[m]arriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.") You may disagree with the Supreme Court, and that holding may change over time, but the current state of the law deems marriage a right, not a privilege.
beechy said:Marriage has been deemed a 14th Amendment fundamental privacy right under the U.S. Constitution. See Loving v. Virginia, 388 U.S. 1 (1967) (Holding that "[m]arriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival.") You may disagree with the Supreme Court, and that holding may change over time, but the current state of the law deems marriage a right, not a privilege.
beechy said:If the issue could be dismissed so simply, courts across the nation would not be reaching such varied conclusions (indeed, they wouldn't be hearing the cases at all).
I think the Massachusetts Supreme Court said it best in Goodridge v. Department of Public Health when it confirmed the lower court's observation that:
The Mass. Supreme Court went on to affirm the lower court's ruling that it had "failed to identify any constitutionality [sic] adequate reason for denying civil marriage to same-sex couples."
In other words, the fact that marriage may traditionally have been reserved for opposite sex couples does not mean that such a restriction is constitutional.
Here we go again. First of all, why are you always so fixated on the criminal penalty in that case? It has no impact on Loving's precedential value with respect to marriage as a fundamental right. Loving has been upheld for this proposition in cases like Turner v. Safley 482 U.S. 78 (1987), and Zablocki v. Redhail 434 U.S. 374 (1978).ChristianCenturion said:Loving v. Virginia was a case involving a MAN and a WOMAN who faced CRIMINAL charges due to the participants being of different RACIAL heritage.
What the precedent did NOT do is remove ALL constitutional requirements that a State and/or its corresponding citizens use to qualify and grant recognition, benefits and/or incentives to their corresponding model of marriage.
As you and I have pounded through in many a thread, the fact that a same-sex couple can achieve certain of the rights granted a married straight couple through private contractual means does not mean that the constitutional equal protection and due process requirements have been met. Moreover, not all of the rights granted a straight couple can be achieved privately, like how married spouses can't be compelled to testify against one another in court.ChristianCenturion said:IOW - there are many forms of marriage (not just same-gender) that still do not meet any one State's constitutional model of marriage and there is still the ability of any given group to have a marriage ceremony without requiring the State recognize it, enter into a legal contract i.e. wills, power of attorney, medical power of attorney, etc., and without it being a crime - pending complicating the issue with additional law considerations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loving_v._Virginia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marriage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_of_attorney
Again, and as I think you're probably aware, this dismissal is too simple. Insofar as marriage is, at it's heart, about choosing your partner, the argument is that it is being effectively denied gay people who would only choose someone of the same sex.MethodMan said:Gay people have not been denied marriage so the equal protection clause does not apply.
Yes, that was the law at issue in that case. However, the constitutional questions addressed have application beyond those particular laws (See, e.g., Turner v. Safley and Zablocki v. Redhail as cited in my above post).MethodMan said:Loving was specific to Viriginia's antimiscegenation law.
beechy said:Again, and as I think you're probably aware, this dismissal is too simple. Insofar as marriage is, at it's heart, about choosing your partner, the argument is that it is being effectively denied gay people who would only choose someone of the same sex.
loriersea said:Why aren't they? After all, there are MANY more remarried couples, and it is far, far more socially acceptable, than same-sex relationships. So why are there no conservative Christians calling for this?
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