Prop 8 - Judge rules to put marriages on hold (Kennedy: condo, fingerprints)

[Ritchie_az]

Originally Posted by .highnlite

Look, all these things you see as "wrong" have been "right" at some point in some culture. You keep asking who makes things right or wrong, I keep telling you it is society. You don't like that, which is your "right" but it does not change the facts.

You cannot say, "what is the reason for drawing that line?" You can ask "what societal forces create change?"

The answer to that is complex, and complex cause and effect forces are successfully ignored by the religious, that is one reason why the religious are religious, it simplifies life. In your case it seems to reduce it to a series of repeated statements and questions.

I suppose to give "drawing the line" a classic Christian answer, all the reasons are god's, he decides and works through society. If Slavery is "right". God did it (and the good Christian Slave owners would tell you slavery was a mandate from god, got them heathens out of the jungle and made good christians out of them)
You see, whether it is slavery, or the holocaust or the torture and oppression of various groups, there have been Christians who have said, "dang straight, that is what god approves of".
More Christian relativism.

First, you keep lumping "Christians" (or "the church") with God. Two seperate things. "Christians" or "the church" are people, an no person is perfect. People screw up all the time. So repeating history of people screwing up is no surprise to anyone. To say "look, they screwed up!" and then draw some kind of conclusion from that is silly, IMHO.

Second, I see that you have no problem with whatever a society says is right or wrong, as long as the society says so. Murder, rape, slavery--the concensus is right. I'm sure those victimized by that would disagree with you, but, whatever. However, I do find it funny that society has spoken about something specific being "wrong", yet apparently you strongly believe that in this case that society has it wrong.
Society has said homosexual marriage is wrong, shouldn't you accept that, since society is always right?

[BacktoBlue]

I want to consider gay marriage by first reflecting on the theology of marriage, and I want to reflect on the theology of marriage under the rubric of sanctification. This approach is consistent with the tradition of the Orthodox Church, which regards marriage as a way of participating in the divine life not by way of sexual satisfaction but by way of ascetic self-denial for the sake of more desirable goods. Theologically understood, marriage is not primarily for the control of lust or for procreation. It is a discipline whereby we give ourselves to another for the sake of growing in holiness -- for, more precisely, the sake of God.

In this respect marriage and monasticism are two forms of the same discipline, as the Orthodox writer Paul Evdokimov has argued. They are both ways of committing ourselves to others -- a spouse or a monastic community -- from whom we cannot easily escape. Both the monastic and the married give themselves over to be transformed by the perceptions of others; both seek to learn, over time, by the discipline of living with others something about how God perceives human beings.


So, having established the value of gay marriage, why are people so opposed to it?
Many of the reasons offered for opposing gay marriage are based on the assumption that gays have a choice in who they can feel attracted to, and the reality is quite different. Many people actually believe that gays could simply choose to be heterosexual if they wished. But the reality is that very few do have a choice -- any more than very few heterosexuals could choose which sex to find themselves attracted to.

1. Marriage is an institution between one man and one woman. Well, that's the most often heard argument, one even codified in a recently passed U.S. federal law. Yet it is easily the weakest. Who says who marriage is to be defined by? The married? The marriable? Isn't that kind of like allowing a banker to decide who is going to own the money in stored in his vaults? It seems to me that if the straight community cannot show a compelling reason to deny the institution of marriage to gay people, it shouldn't be denied. And such simple, nebulous declarations are hardly a compelling reason. They're really more like an expression of prejudce than any kind of a real argument. The concept of not denying people their rights unless you can show a compelling reason to do so is the very basis of the American ideal of human rights

[BacktoBlue]

2. Marriage is for procreation. The proponents of that argument are really hard pressed to explain why, if that's the case, that infertile couples are allowed to marry. I, for one, would love to be there when the proponent of such an argument is to explain to his post-menopausal mother or impotent father that since they cannot procreate, they must now surrender their wedding rings! That would be fun to watch! Again, such an argument fails to persuade based on the marriages society does allow routinely, without even a second thought.

[.highnlite]

"Christians" or "the church" are people, an no person is perfect

This is another of the rationalizations of the religious. Once they run out of canned answers they move to "nobody is perfect"

Ritchie, I am sure you are a fine person, however, you believe a certain way because of the culture you were raised in. If you were raised in a different culture, you would have a different faith, and a different set of values. If you lived a thousand years ago, ditto.

Religion is at its simplest, merely a way for the powerful to control others. There may or may not be a god, neither you nor I can provide any evidence for such a deity, but the existence of god or a god or a multitude of gods is quite different from religion. Religion, or "the church" or Christians, or muslims, or athiests, is just dogma.

If your dogma admitted the marriage of dogs to people, you would have no problem. Your dogma does admit ritual cannibalism, which I don't agree with.

[BacktoBlue]

3. Same-sex couples aren't the optimum environment in which to raise children. That's an interesting one, in light of who society does allow to get married and bring children into their marriage. Check it out: murderers, convicted felons of all sorts, even known child molesters are all allowed to freely marry and procreate, and do so every day, with hardly a second thought by these same critics. So if children are truly the priority here, why is this allowed? Why are the advocates of this argument not working to prohibit the above categories of people from raising children?

The fact is that many gay couples raise children, adopted and occasionally their own from failed attempts at heterosexual marriages. Lots and lots of scientific studies have shown that the outcomes of the children raised in the homes of gay and lesbian couples are just as good as those of straight couples. The differences have been shown again and again to be insignificant. Psychologists tell us that what makes the difference is the love of the parents, not their gender. The studies are very clear about that. And gay people are as capable of loving children as fully as anyone else.

4. Gay relationships are immoral and violate the sacred institution of marriage. Says who? The Bible? Somehow, I always thought that freedom of religion implied the right to freedom from religion as well. The Bible has absolutely no standing in American law (and none other than the father of the American democracy, Thomas Jefferson, very proudly took credit for that fact), and because it doesn't, no one has the right to impose rules anyone else simply because of something they percieve to be mandated by the Bible. Not all world religions have a problem with homosexuality; many sects of Buddhism, for example, celebrate gay relationships freely and would like to have the authority to make them legal marriages. In that sense, their religious freedom is being infringed. If one believes in religious freedom, the recognition that opposition to gay marriage is based on religious arguments is reason enough to discount this argument.

[Ritchie_az]

I guess there is only one true, right option: let there be homesexual marriage! Let there be marriage of all kinds! Society said it's ok.

Wait, what? Society said no? So did all the religious institutions?

OK, but liberals say yes, and they are always right, and everyone else is always wrong. So liberals determine what is "right" and what is "wrong"? No, only those liberals that think themselves smarter or better--the elites. The rest live by those rules. Is it oppression? Is it religion? Maybe a bit of both.

I did not come here to convince anyone of anything except that there is an opposing view point.

I get in return a "you are wrong because", which I fully expected and actually desired. But I have run out of time for today and perhaps the weekend. If I have time I'll post again. If not, it has been interesting.

Take care!

[Ritchie_az]

Originally Posted by BacktoBlue

4. Gay relationships are immoral and violate the sacred institution of marriage. Says who? The Bible? Somehow, I always thought that freedom of religion implied the right to freedom from religion as well. The Bible has absolutely no standing in American law (and none other than the father of the American democracy, Thomas Jefferson, very proudly took credit for that fact), and because it doesn't, no one has the right to impose rules anyone else simply because of something they percieve to be mandated by the Bible. Not all world religions have a problem with homosexuality; many sects of Buddhism, for example, celebrate gay relationships freely and would like to have the authority to make them legal marriages. In that sense, their religious freedom is being infringed. If one believes in religious freedom, the recognition that opposition to gay marriage is based on religious arguments is reason enough to discount this argument.

Actually, before I go, it is not freedom from religion, but freedom of religion. The founding documents are chocked full of Bible references, and our laws are mostly based on that. If you believe you have the right to be free from religion you are mistaken. Not unless the founding documents are replaced. Which I know some liberal folks want.

[BacktoBlue]

5. Marriages are for ensuring the continuation of the species. The proponents of such an argument are going to have a really hard time persuading me that the human species is in any real danger of dying out through lack of procreation. If the ten percent of all the human race that is gay were to suddenly refrain from procreation, I think it is safe to say that the world would probably be better off. One of the world's most serious problems is overpopulation and the increasing anarchy that is resulting from it. Seems to me that gays would be doing the world a favor by not bringing more hungry mouths into an already overburdened world. So why encourage them? The vacuity of this argument is seen in the fact that those who raise this objection never object to infertile couples marrying; indeed, when their retired single parent, long past reproductive age, seeks to marry, the usual reaction is how cute and sweet that is. That fact alone shows how false this argument really is. Let's face it - marriage is about love and commitment, and support for that commitment, not about procreation.

6. Same-sex marriage would threaten the institution of marriage. That one's contradictory right on the face of it. Threaten marriage? By allowing people to marry? That doesn't sound very logical to me. If you allow gay people to marry each other, you no longer encourage them to marry people to whom they feel little attraction, with whom they most often cannot relate sexually, and thereby reduce the number of supposed heterosexual marriages that end up in the divorce courts. If it is the institution of heterosexual marriage that worries you, then consider that no one would require you or anyone else to participate in a gay marriage. So you would have freedom of choice, of choosing what kind of marriage to participate in -- something more than what you have now. And speaking of divorce -- to argue that the institution of marriage is worth preserving at the cost of requiring involuntary participants to remain in it is a better argument for tightening divorce laws than proscribing gay marriage.

[.highnlite]

The founding documents are chocked full of Bible references, and our laws are mostly based on that. If you believe you have the right to be free from religion you are mistaken. Not unless the founding documents are replaced. Which I know some liberal folks want.

One of our Founding Fathers, John Adams had this to say;

As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.....

[BacktoBlue]

Catholics/Christians would be better served worrying about priests abusing children and the church hierarchy systematically covering up this abuse and working to protect the abusers from justice than about what women choose to do with their bodies or the domestic arrangements gay people choose to adopt.