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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
No rather, your side has crossed the line by using the justice system to attack religious freedom.
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Except your idea of religious freedom is allowing religion to do whatever it wishes even at the expense of other people's freedom.
Religious freedom in your mind essentially says that only Christians have the right to be free. Everyone else, regardless of their beliefs, must obey the Bible.
That is NOT religious freedom. That is religious fascism. I really don't know how many times I have to explain this for you to understand the difference.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
IF we going down the path you forge, religious freedom in the future is going to mean the freedom to only having beliefs in your mind.
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Which is crap. I told you already that you have the freedom to refrain from engaging in homosexual acts. You have the freedom not to marry someone of the same gender. You have the freedom to express your personal views on homosexuality and your personal views on religion. You have the freedom to make all kinds of choices in regards to religion and homosexuality ... but those choices all apply to you.
Once again, the problem is that you want to make choices for OTHER PEOPLE. You want to choose for others who they can and can't marry. You want to choose for others what is a sin and what isn't. You want to choose for others their moral values, their spiritual beliefs, their religious beliefs, the kind of god they believe in, what verses in the Bible are important to them or even what holy book they put stock in, or whether they believe in any religion at all.
You don't like it so NO ONE should have the right to do it.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
My freedom of religion does not guarantee you freedom FROM religion. Buy a set of ear plugs if it offends you so much.
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What makes this argument so stupid is that having freedom FROM religion protects you, too. You're just so used to being in the majority as a Christian that you're willing to throw that protection away without so much as a thought.
Having protection FROM religion is what keeps the Qu'ran out of our schools, as well. It's what keeps one Muslim family from insisting that the entire school stop for Muslim prayer time however many times it happens during a school day. It's what keeps Shar'ia Law out of our legal system.
And it's not just Islam.
Do you not understand, Jeff, that if you open that door and claim that our government has no protection FROM religion and that American citizens have no protection against having religion forced upon them, it won't just be Islam. ALL religions, great and small, will be waltzing through that door -- everything from wackjob Christian cults to Scientology, Wicca, Paganism, Satanism, and of course, the major religions like Buddhists, Hindus, Shintos, Taoists, Muslims (especially), and small armies representing religions you've never even heard of looking to gain some power and political clout.
Guess what, Jeff ... the government will have to treat each one as equals. Yep. And you will see Christian dominance slowly erode away like mountains against the rain.
But you're just too figuratively fat and content on your own religion's power to see that, yes, we DO have protection FROM religion -- and precisely WHY we have it. You're the type who would open the city gates and let in the barbarian horde, so to speak, because you're tired of sharing the city with a couple of people you don't like and you want to throw them out. So open them gates, by God, because the horde wouldn't dare to enter. We don't need no stinkin' protection from barbarians!
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
When it comes to establishing laws that have a basis in morality, you want us to ignore traditional values and go with secular thought. Why should I be bound to obey YOUR idea of morality?
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That's just it ... you're NOT bound to obey "MY" idea of morality. Because no one is compelling you to engage in homosexual activities; no one is compelling you to marry someone of the same gender. You are still free to continue living your traditional lifestyle. For you, NOTHING has changed.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Sexual sin only causes problems for society as a whole. Same sex activities certainly carries serious health risks which in turns burdens the healthcare system that we all use. Of course, you will deny this because you have to. You can't admit that you are wrong. The moral laws in the Bible make practical sense.
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Jeff, homosexuals are going to have sex whether they are allowed to marry or not, so the so-called "health risks" are irrelevant to the gay marriage issue.
Refusing them access to marriage is not going to make them stop having sex with each other. To think otherwise is ludicrous. In fact, allowing them access to marriage will more than likely keep many of them monogamous and less likely to sleep around -- which is what causes many of those health risks.
Thus by refusing them access to marriage, you're actually making the problem worse. Which means citing health risks as a reason to deny them marriage is idiotic.
In addition, there are health risks to heterosexual sex, as well. Should we then simply deny marriage to everyone? Otherwise, this entire line of debate is extremely hypocritical and is an obvious ploy to desperately grab for a secular reason to deny gays the right to marry ... but it doesn't work. We're already aware that any secular reason you can argue with gays can also be equally argued against heterosexual couples -- meaning you can't apply it to one without applying it to the other. Therefore, you can't deny gays the right to marry based on those reasons without denying marriage to heterosexual couples, as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
I am only campaigning for the right to leave Christian business out of immoral ceremonies. Why should we be forced to compromise our values? I know you don't give a rip about religious freedom, but it is a sacred right for many people.
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Actually, I do "give a rip" about religious freedom. I'm not out to destroy anyone's right to believe as they wish to believe. The problem is when those beliefs collide with the mainstream world.
The Constitution will never allow a pro-discrimination law that targets a specific group of people -- in this case, homosexuals. This means the law would have to allow discrimination against
anyone for
any religious reason.
The result will be the elimination of all the progress we as a society has made against racism, sexism, and bigotry since 1865. People who were never religious before will suddenly "find God" just so they can discriminate against the color of their choice whether it's people who look like Muslims, people who look like illegal Latinos and Latinas, or the traditional race hatreds. Misogynists will refuse to serve women who ought to be home cooking and taking care of the children ... which can easily be plucked from scripture, and any woman not feminine enough or any male not masculine enough can get the boot whether they're gay or not (how is a business owner supposed to know?)
What's worse is that larger stores will require these bigoted, racist, and sexist policies be enforced by teenagers and college kids just trying to earn extra dough for their first car or perhaps tuition. Yet they'll be the ones on the front line taking ALL the risks for a paltry minimum wage salary. They will be the ones who will have to explain to the black man that this store doesn't serve them, they will have to be the ones to tell a group of Mexicans who
might be members of a gang that they aren't welcome because of their ethnicity, they are the ones who will have to tell all the female customers that their store says that women should be home changing diapers and ironing her husband's suit, not handling the money. If there is to be any violence, these innocent kids punching the registers or stocking the shelves will be the victims, not the store owners who are the ones actually carrying around the prejudices.
And this is precisely what WILL happen should you get your way, Jeff ... all because you want uber-Christian bakers to have the right to refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding. The thing is, I can understand their position, Jeff. I really can. Yet they have chosen to work in a business that will bring them into contact with homosexuals. The alternative to baking their cake is, as I said, the complete disintegration of all the progress we have made against racism, sexism, and bigotry since 1865, and that is NOT an exaggeration.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
You just had to go there again, huh?
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Yep. If you keep using sexual predators as comparisons to homosexuality, I'm going to keep going there. One good absurdity deserves another.
Comparing one thing that is legal with another thing that is not is ridiculous. PLUS, trying to associate homosexuality with sexual
predation* is just a way of soiling homosexuality. It's akin to how a lot of right-wingers like to compare the Obama administration to Nazis. It's not about facts, it's about making people associate one with the other so that people will hate Obama as much as they hate Hitler. It's a cheap tactic since it rarely has anything to do with truth.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Your arguments are starting to sounding more and more like gasps of desperation so you just throw whatever you can against the wall like bringing up Duggar out of nowhere.
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Actually no. My reference to the Duggars was meant to be absurd. Because now you understand how WE feel about arguments that always seem to have sexual predators in close proximity to homosexuals. That is equally absurd. I'm not even saying you were comparing gays to sexual predators, but for some reason, when fundamentalists talk about homosexuals, sexual predators always seem to get brought up in one way or another.
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Originally Posted by jeffbase40
I am not one to judge people's lifestyles. I just want no part of it. Neither does Christian bakers.
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A baker made the choice to work with the general public. If a person wants no part of particular segments of the general public, he or she should not be in a career where one has to work with the general public.
Our society has decided some time ago that discrimination is bad and unhealthy. It's like a cancer in the bowels that, no matter how you spin it, will ultimately prove to be harmful and will inevitably have to be removed.
It's not that I don't care about religious freedom ... but as someone who has studied history since I was old enough to read (I literally jumped from Mother Goose stories right to
The Battle Off Midway Island by Theodore Taylor) I can tell you that open, government-sanctioned discrimination will ALWAYS lead to civil discord, rioting, and eventually, violence even if it's on a small scale. People take discrimination
personally, Jeff.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
If I owned a paper material store and someone came in wanting to order posters and told me that they would be used to make fun of retarded or homeless people, I would show them the door as well. It's all about the situation, not the person.
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Being a homosexual is as intrinsic to a person as race, ethnicity, or gender. I know you don't want to accept that, but every gay person in the world will tell you that they didn't choose their homosexuality any more than you chose your heterosexuality.
So when a homosexual person is told that they are being refused service because the baker's religion sees homosexuality as a sin, that is a personal sleight against the homosexual people involved. In other words, it IS against the person. You're saying that their marriage is sinful because of WHO THEY ARE.
I'm not sure why you don't get that fact.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
Such weak sauce. Do you honestly think you speak for EVERYBODY? But that's the kind of attitude I see from your side. You think everyone either agrees with you, or should bow down to your opinions. If a few oppose it then they should be verbally savaged.
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I speak for the vast majority, Jeff. If that weren't true, then gay marriage would still be illegal and poll numbers would still show a majority of Americans opposing same sex marriage. In addition, people on this forum would be correcting me, but they're not.
And the only people who get verbally savaged by me are those who actually believe that I should be forced to obey the Bible ... that everyone should be forced to obey through the use of the law ... in complete contravention of the 1st Amendment.
You yourself said that the Founders said that the government could not declare an official religion. The moment the entire nation must obey the dictates of specific Biblical rules that a small but vocal group of fundamentalist Christians want enforced, well guess what ... the government has just declared an official religion. Do you understand what
de facto and
de juror means? Just because Obama doesn't get up behind the podium and officially announce America's official religion doesn't mean that Congress and the Supreme Court, as well as individual states, can't pass enough religious laws to have a
de facto official religion which is just as unconstitutional as a
de juror official religion.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffbase40
The disgusting irony is your side is only invested in gay rights because it is a fast and easy way to scapegoat and wreck Christians.
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What a load of manure you're smearing all over this thread. If you read this post, I never once bashed Christianity. Not one single time. I laid out for you the legal and social ramifications of the things you've been saying and why I don't agree with them.
Period.
Your penchant for seeing persecution and hatred and "atheism vs. Christianity" everywhere you look is what makes it nigh impossible to converse with you. In fact, this is the very attitude that causes war, violence, and generational hatred -- when you've become utterly convinced that "we" are doing nothing but trying to destroy you, wreck you, persecute you; that we are your enemy and thus everything we say and do must be adversarial. THIS is precisely how religious wars begin, why terrorism happens, and why it goes on for hundreds if not thousands of years. The ability to reason, to think, to negotiate, to communicate, and to differentiate between hostility and firmness completely goes away. All that is left is mistrust, anger, hatred, religious fervor, fanaticism, and a certainty that those who oppose you in any way are the enemy.
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