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The thing that really gets to me is all the rhetoric about the benefits and perks that go with marriage which really reduces marriage to what's in it for us mentality and not what's best for society as a whole.
So, in what way would society be hurt by formal marriages between any two people who love each other and want to make a long-term committment and a vow to each other and have that vow accepted by the general public and have it become a part of the public record with all of the legal trivia appertaining thereunto accruing to them?
If they are not married formally but still live together as couples how does that make any dfference to society or to you as an individual?
What is in it for you to see to it that they don't get that piece of paper? Is is legal, personal, or religous?
Gays have all of the rights as heterosexuals have. Marriage is not a right but a priviledge. The requirement of marriage is that it is a union between a man and woman and gays do not want to abide by that. Gays have civil unions and if that is not meeting their needs, then they need to advocate to strengthen them. A union between a two males or two females does not constitue a marriage no matter how much people desire otherwise. The thing that really gets to me is all the rhetoric about the benefits and perks that go with marriage which really reduces marriage to what's in it for us mentality and not what's best for society as a whole. We really need to get government out of marriage to begin with.
Last time I looked gays can be fired from a job becuase of their sexual orientation in some states. I never hear of a person being fired because they are straight. In some states gay couples can not adopt children. What about states that have anti gay housing discrimination? That's not very fair or equal...........
We really need to get religion out of our government............
I think any time someone who is doing something immoral is told that what they're doing is wrong, the natural impulse is to think they're being "hated". It's simple really--they don't like to be told they're wrong.
Wow, that statement could pretty much define the entire span of the Bush administration. FauxNews tried to say people hated Bush because we all pointed out the obvious.
If you think gay sex is wrong, don't have it. This is not a theocracy and many of us do not even believe in your religion and certainly do not want it dictating legislature and tax laws. Gay couples should not have to pay higher taxes, it's pretty simple.
The Westboro Baptist Church is an extreme cult in Topeka, KS, has about 70 members, most members of Fred Phelps' family, and is not affiliated with any mainstream denomination. All Christian denominations, including the much-hated-by-the-left Southern Baptist Convention, has denounced Phelps and his followers.
Yet liberal activists love to use the Westboro Baptist Church to represent all Christians. They have been so successful that many non-believers see these people as representing what conservative Christianity a.k.a. the Christian Taliban is about.
I, as a conservative Christian, am tired of being lumped into the same category as these hateful maniacs.
There is, has always been, and always will be hate cults that hide under the banner of certain religions.
Problem is that "thought" is a continuum, going gradually from light to dark, or from mild to extreme. There is not all that much distance from the insane extremes of Fred Phelps and his band of idiots to the next ticket punch on the homophobic line of thought to the late Jerry Falwell, who once said that AIDS was God's punishment for gays. It's really the same thought, that the death of gays is somehow a Godly choice, when nothing could be further from the truth. The closer to the center you get on the continuum of thought the milder the thought becomes. Right now the GOP is still way too full of those who harbor extreme thoughts of what we call the evango-fascists or wingnuts of the very far right. These people are borderline crazy and very much need to be kept away from real power. But it's hard to know where to draw the line when determining who is acceptable (a typical mild-mannered God loving local pastor who tends to his flock and keeps his nose out of politics) and who is not acceptable (Phelps absolutely; and certainly so are the Falwell, Robertson, Dobson, Hagee, Parsley crowds), then its gets hazy as we steadily move towards the center (where MOST of us Americans hang out). It is this haziness that will continue to keep people lumping all of you into one big basket of nut-cases that are NOT acceptable, as friends or as elected types.
You're read my POV on C-D many times, that all this homophobic speech from "the church" is done mostly by the so-called Christian conservatives to raise funds from fearful gullible people. There is NO truth to the charge by these so-called leaders that gay marriage will ruin marriage, but clowns like James Dobson keep trying to whip up fears by voicing all sorts of wild scenarios of gays fornicating in the streets or buggering kids in school or that it somehow will wreck the "sacred" institution of marriage. Gimme a break, marriage is already wrecked by a divorce rate of 50% or more, yet Dobson says little about that sorry fact which he's been unable to change, so he goes after gays because it pays better for him.
You're going to keep taking your lumps until Christian conservatism morphs into something without fangs, and until it stops trying to force itself into our public laws and government via the efforts of the Alliance Defense Fund.
Gays have all of the rights as heterosexuals have. Marriage is not a right but a priviledge. The requirement of marriage is that it is a union between a man and woman and gays do not want to abide by that. Gays have civil unions and if that is not meeting their needs, then they need to advocate to strengthen them. A union between a two males or two females does not constitue a marriage no matter how much people desire otherwise. The thing that really gets to me is all the rhetoric about the benefits and perks that go with marriage which really reduces marriage to what's in it for us mentality and not what's best for society as a whole. We really need to get government out of marriage to begin with.
If this was all I had to understand you by I would think you know nothing of heterosexual marriage. Am I to infer that heterosexuals get married for the betterment of society? Is that what motivates them to walk down the aisle? "Oh honey, think of how great society will be when we consummate our vows and bear children from our loins to populate the world with more of US!"
If government gets out of the marriage business-the only sensible suggestion you offer-then your opinion on how to define it will not extend to anyone else. You choose to define marriage your way and that's where it should stop. Others will define it their way and that's where theirs stops. Everybody's happy and society doesn't crumble.
The tone of your post is off-putting, but I'll respond anyway. Your evidence of Christian opposition to Phelps isn't enough for me to believe that he doesn't represent something about conservative Christians. He still has a voice, doesn't he? Read the last sentence of my earlier post. The fact that the people you mention haven't successfully shut him up speaks volumes.
us "people" haven't shut him up?
Do you think he reports to me? Does he need my permission to do what he does?
What town has this loony Phelps bunch not been in with their signs and picketing? They have been in my town at least once over a soldier's funeral and desecrated American flags while they were at as pictured below. (Pictures snapped by me.)
Gays have all of the rights as heterosexuals have. Marriage is not a right but a priviledge. The requirement of marriage is that it is a union between a man and woman and gays do not want to abide by that. Gays have civil unions and if that is not meeting their needs, then they need to advocate to strengthen them. A union between a two males or two females does not constitue a marriage no matter how much people desire otherwise. The thing that really gets to me is all the rhetoric about the benefits and perks that go with marriage which really reduces marriage to what's in it for us mentality and not what's best for society as a whole. We really need to get government out of marriage to begin with.
Oh... is that why there is a 50% chance for divorce of heterosexual first marriages?
Marriage IS about what's in it for me mentality these days. The fact that two people that genuinely love each other are unable to marry is unfortunate; that they can't marry because they are the same sex is depressing in a society that promotes supposed equal rights.
Marriage is a right, not a privilege. If someone kills another person, it is not our right to take away their right to marriage. If they get an abortion, it is not our right to take away their right to marriage. Just because two people are of the same gender doesn't mean they can have their right to marriage taken away.
The Westboro Baptist Church is an extreme cult in Topeka, KS, has about 70 members, most members of Fred Phelps' family, and is not affiliated with any mainstream denomination. All Christian denominations, including the much-hated-by-the-left Southern Baptist Convention, has denounced Phelps and his followers.
Yet liberal activists love to use the Westboro Baptist Church to represent all Christians. They have been so successful that many non-believers see these people as representing what conservative Christianity a.k.a. the Christian Taliban is about.
I, as a conservative Christian, am tired of being lumped into the same category as these hateful maniacs.
There is, has always been, and always will be hate cults that hide under the banner of certain religions.
Oh baloney. Every atheist and agnostic I have ever discussed Phelps' clan with recognizes that they don't represent the vast majority of Christians. That includes me.
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