And now there’s the stories that some people are lobbying for a Constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages.
Putting aside that, as a general rule, amendments best serve the commonweal when they *expand* the rights of the people rather than restrict them, wouldn’t such an amendment put the final lie to the notion that we have separation of church and state in this country? After all, marriage, that bwessed awangement, that dweam wiffin a dweam, is a religious ceremony. An amendment that attempts to define what marriage is (a union between male and female only) is, by definition, an amendment that is curtailing religious freedom.
I mean, once the precedent is set, why stop there? Why not introduce an amendment that says, “Marriage is a union between male and female that will only be recognized by the government if it’s done as a sacrament from our lord, Jesus Christ.” Is it likely? No. But once the government is allowed to dictate the specifics of the religious ceremony in any aspect, they can dictate it in every aspect.
PAD
• 
After all, marriage, that bwessed awangement, that dweam wiffin a dweam, is a religious ceremony.
Then why, praytell, is the IRS taxing differently for married couples? Do you consider the tax laws to be violating the establishment clause?
(Personally, I think that marriage is an outmoded concept, and that the government should completely ignore it, with regards to tax laws and otherwise. But that’s just me….)
Wow. A lot of discussion and rhetoric being tossed around on this topic. Personally, I see no problem maintaining the status quo where gay marriage is concerned. What is the point in changing ANYthing?
I guess what really needs to be done on the topic, is a definition of WHAT a marriage is.
Most religions see marriage as a means to an end, that end being procreation.
The law sees a marriage as a binding of a man and a woman to each other financially, and in matters of survivorship and establishment of next-of-kin.
There are methods past the procreation obstacles presented to same-sex couples, and with some legal papers showing financial inter-dependency, these couples are, to all intents and purposes, married.
I guess I don’t get the fuss.
There is NOTHING that a man and a woman can do, with regards to marriage, that a man and a man, or a woman and a woman cannot do.
So they are not legally recognized as “married”. Who cares? Why push for it?
What is the need to have that particular title? (Unless it has to do with the whole divorce end of things. If you get divorced, you can really stick it to your ex. Maybe the homosexuals what that legal recognition?)
I know couples who are not married, and have several children together. They refer to each other as “husband” and “wife”, and everyone knows them as married. There are some, who if you told them that they were not, who would react with shock.
So what’s the big need to be “recognized”, and given “rights”? The only real reason I can see for this to be pursued by homosexuals, is to force acceptance of their choices. If I choose to not recognize a homosexual union, why tell me that I legally MUST? (see the portion of Mr. Pennington’s post below)
I guess I just don’t get it.
I think having ANY constitutional amendment regarding homosexuality, is detrimental, and unnecessary.
If it were to happen, we might as well scrap the work of the founding fathers, have another constitutional congress, and start over from scratch, making sure that things are spelled out for those who are to dense to take some things at face value.
Mark Pennington posted:
The only place where I would draw the line is if my pastor were told he _had_ to perform a wedding for a gay couple.
This is what is meant by the church/state separation.
By law (as laid down in the constitution), a church cannot be told by the government that it MUST perform a ritual or ceremony in a certain way. In contrast, the church (a vague phrase), cannot tell the state that it MUST enact a policy that favors it.
That’s all. It has nothing to do with oaths of office, erection of monuments in public, prayers in school, or “unilateral” holiday displays.
If more people understood this, and lightened up a bit, I think we’d be happier as a nation.
To end all this on a happy note, Happy New Year. May it be prosperous for all.
What is the point in changing ANYthing?
Because an evil inequity exists, and it is the duty of a free people to fight inequity.
There are methods past the procreation obstacles presented to same-sex couples, and with some legal papers showing financial inter-dependency, these couples are, to all intents and purposes, married.
Not even remotely true. There are hundreds of rights and priveleges inherent in marriage that are flatly denied to gay couples for no other reason than the gender of the participants.
A married person’s spouse is legally their family and next of kin, and can make medical decisions for them. In many jurisdictions in this country, particularly the Backward South, a gay partner won’t even be allowed in the hospital room of a seriously ill partner.
If my boyfriend were to develop cancer and be put in the ICU to die, his family could (and being Baptists, would) block me from even seeing him. If we were legally married, they could not do that. He won’t even speak to his parents anymore, and lives with me, but they would be in charge of his care, because I am not his family — and because we can’t get married I cannot become his family! How is that “to all intents and purposes married?”
I guess I don’t get the fuss.
Because you clearly don’t understand the issue.
There is NOTHING that a man and a woman can do, with regards to marriage, that a man and a man, or a woman and a woman cannot do.
Oh yeah? How about inherit the spouses estate without paying death taxes? If my boyfriend and I were to start a business together, and it were to grow to be worth, say, millions of dollars, and he died, I would pay tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars on the inheritance of his half of the business. If we were a married couple, I would pay nothing.
In fact, I would be lucky to inherit anything at all — because his family could contest his will, and since they’re his “family” and I’m “not,” they would have a strong hand in court. If we were married their contestation would be laughed out of the legal chambers.
The same goes for children adopted by one partner: if we were married, a child adopted by me or my boyfriend would automatically also be under my guardianship. For gays, that’s not the case. So if he dies, I could lose our child. Or, once again, his family could take it.
And these, while hypotheticals, are NOT uncommon occurrences.
My boyfriend and I pay more in taxes than an equivelent married couple. We cannot live in my hometown, because of zoning laws that disallow two persons who are not related from living together, unless one person pays the other person rent (which I would then have to pay taxes on). If we were married, we wouldn’t have to do that.
What is the need to have that particular title?
The word is meaningless. Call it “Spadoinkle” instead of marriage for all I care. So long as the social institution of Spadoinkle gives me all of the rights and priveleges inherent in straight marriage.
I know couples who are not married, and have several children together. They refer to each other as “husband” and “wife”, and everyone knows them as married.
In most states, if they’ve been living together for more than 7 years, they are married, whether they had a ceremony or not. In any of the situations I listed above the state would treat them as a married couple. I could live with my boyfriend for 70 years and still be, in the eyes of the state, little more than a stranger to him.
The only real reason I can see for this to be pursued by homosexuals, is to force acceptance of their choices.
Homosexuality is not a choice.
If I choose to not recognize a homosexual union, why tell me that I legally MUST?
I could give a crap what you think of my relationship. I care that the state recognize my relationship and accord me the rights that would be inherent in it were my boyfriend a husband.
I guess I just don’t get it.
Clearly.
I think having ANY constitutional amendment regarding homosexuality, is detrimental, and unnecessary.
Then be sure to vote Democrat.
>Nobody has ever tried to claim >that the Constitution gives an >individual immunity to US laws, >if that person tries to use that >as a loophole of some form. (That >*I* know of, anyway. 😉 )
>Wildcat
Of course they have. Here’s a case:
Reynolds v. United States 98 U.S. 145 (1878) (ruling that polygamy does not fall into the category of ‘religious freedom’)
And another:
United States v. Lee 455 U.S. 252 (1982) (upholding the conviction of an Amish employer who failed to withhold payroll taxes)
And yet one more:
Lyng v. Northwest Indian Cemetery Protective Assoc., 485 U.S. 439 (1988) (overturning an effort by Native Americans to halt the development of government owned land because it would disrupt sacred religious sites)
Off the top of my head, I can think of a couple others: a case regarding Native American use of peyote in religious rituals, a Muslim woman wishing to keep her veil on for her driver’s license photo even though it would obscure her identity.
And so on and so forth, but you get the picture.
-Dave OConnell
Man, I’ve been on call the last coulple of weeks, and I miss a whole bunch of rousing debate. Peter, I just want to address some of the statements you made above.
1. “wouldn’t such an amendment put the final lie to the notion that we have separation of church” & “once the precedent is set, why stop there? Why not introduce an amendment that says, “Marriage is a union between male and female that will only be recognized by the government if it’s done as a sacrament from our lord, Jesus Christ.”
Come on, dude. Listen to me carefully ALL LAW has its origins somewhere in religion. ALL LAW. You might as well, say that laws against murder and perjury ,to quote you, “put the final lie to the notion that we have separation of church”. And to elaborate on a point you made, why stop there, why not have the law say, “Do no murder, because your neighbor was made in the image of God and the Lord your God is holy”. Just think about it.
2. There can NEVER be homosexual marriage. Never. Marriage originated with God and its design involved one man and one woman. Period. No discussion. Sure, people don’t follow that plan, but then its NOT marriage. You can have guys in black robes say all they want that Marriage is what they say it is, but they might as well..
Declare the law of Gravity unconstitutional (its not fair how things fall & break all the time)
the laws of thermodynamics unconstituional (this whole entropy thing is just not fair)
See my point. In closing, let me say that rights do not come from the government, but from God. Our founding fathers knew this. They said it is the job of the governement to secure these rights. With this issue of homosexual marriage the government would be claiming a right that never originated with God, but from the governement. THAT is a direction that our country should be weary of walking down.
Everyone seems to miss one of the major benefits of marriage when discussing gay unions — spousal privilege. If I kill someone and, in desperation, confess to my wife, she can’t be compelled to testify. If my “spouse” is a man, though, he can be compelled to testify. This sort of thing would affect people from “minor” criminal matters (tax fraud or something like that) to life and death (capital cases).
However, it is important to stress that most of these rights were designed to protect families as defined by a couple with kids (again, many couples are childless but that was considered an unfortunate fluke of nature, a tragedy). This is why a husband and wife are considered “next of kin,” and why the estate laws are structured the way they are.
And living wills can “fix” most of the inequities… except for spousal privilege. The latter is the major reason I would support granting legal recognition of gay unions.
Folks:
The political fireworks surrounding the enactment of such an Amendment, while spectacular, likely won’t be the first instance where the Feds get involved in the issue of so-called “same-sex” marriages. Rather, the issue will more likely and quietly be addressed when someone is claiming Social Security benefits of a partner. In that case, one issue is whether a civil union (like that recognized in Vermont) is enough like “marriage” to meet the requirements of Federal Social Security law. That may not be an issue if the first claim lodged is of someone married in Massachusetts (if/when laws and regulations are enacted which comply with the November ruling of the state’s Supreme Judicial Court). The issue might develop even sooner if/when the Social Security Agency creates regulations clarifying what is “marriage” for purposes of receiving SS benefits. (Most of the time, regulations are created after a public hearing; if that happens, then that hearing will be… complicated).
George Guay
There is no “god”, rights do NOT come from “an invisible man in the sky”.
THe laws against murder are not religious, they’re based on the freedom to live.
We need a crusade again, but this time let the aethiests run it.
“Do you believe in God/Jahweh/Allah/whatever?”
“Yes.”
“That’s fine. Do you plan to preach about it to people who don’t want to hear it and try to pass laws based on your beliefs?”
“Yes.”
BLAMBLAMBLAMBLAMBLAM!!!
“Execution complete, NEXT!”
Come on, dude. Listen to me carefully ALL LAW has its origins somewhere in religion. ALL LAW.
‘Scuse me while I take great offense to this.
Laws have their origin, generally speaking, in ensuring that a society can run smoothly. Religion is certainly one basis that can be used for that, but it’s far from the only one.
Exactly what religious tenet is behind a 65-mph speed limit? Exactly what religious belief underlies laws surrounding insider trading?
And while we’re at it … WHOSE religion is it that you think laws find their foundation in? Christianity? Judaism? Islam? Wicca?
I’m an atheist. I see no reason why laws forming the basis of a smoothly-running society need to be based in religion — and if you say otherwise, you’re also implying that either (a) said laws don’t apply to me and I can rape and pillage with impunity, or (b) somehow as an atheist I “don’t count.”
Please choose.
You can have guys in black robes say all they want that Marriage is what they say it is, but they might as well..
Declare the law of Gravity unconstitutional (its not fair how things fall & break all the time)
Okay, now we’ve moved from the atheist in me objecting to the physics teacher in me calling bûllšhìŧ. 🙂
Are you seriously insisting that your religious beliefs have the same status as observable physical laws? Gravity (or thermodynamics, to use your other example) is not something that CAN be legislated, Chris — things are gonna accelerate at 9.8 m/s/s in a vacuum near Earth’s surface no matter what you try to enact.
Marriage is a religious and legal construct, not a physical effect. If it were something as immutable as gravity, doesn’t that imply that divorce is somehow impossible?
Now, if you want to say that your particular church can’t sanction gay marriage without giving up its basis, that’s your church’s call to make. You cannot, however, expand that out to society at large.
In closing, let me say that rights do not come from the government, but from God.
Wrong. God ain’t mentioned in the Constitution, kiddo — and with the possible exceptions of folks like Antonin Scalia and Roy Moore, the Constitution is what jurists look at when examining rights — not the Bible, not the Torah, not the Koran, and not my little notebook talking about the grand design of the great Womplehoozit.
TWL
Craig:
Bush just acts like he doesn’t deserve any criticisms.
Dennis:
Don’t know where you’re pulling this interpretation from (hey, what are you doing to that Monkey’s butt?!), but the leading Dems platform is mostly based on nothing but pure hatred.
Well … no.
Hatred implies an irrational and purely personal objection to Bush.
Hatred isn’t what Dean’s displaying, much as the GOP is going to try to call his campaign “hate speech” and try to prevent him from making headway.
What’s fueling Dean’s campaign is anger. Anger at policies that have turned us into a pariah internationally. Anger at Bush leading us into a war based on flat-out lies before Congress (which, BTW, should be at least as impeachable as lying about a bløwjøb). Anger at many, many things.
Now sure, it’s possible that anger can spin out of control and warp into hatred — but anger is a perfectly legitimate thing on which to base a campaign.
(I also disagree that Dean’s campaign is based on “nothing but” anger, but that’s another discussion entirely.)
TWL
I have knowledge of both the insurance AND legal professions, and know that if you file the appropriate paperwork with the courts, you will have all the same rights as people who are married. All. Regardless of families’ wishes.
Being married does NOT automatically convey the rights you are talking about (with the exception of the income tax, but that would be a petition to the IRS). Look at some cases where a spouse dies, and the family of the deceased has in fact, limited if not prevented an estate from passing on to a new spouse, or one who is said to be seeking financially (Anna Nicole Smith anyone?).
I also know that if my wife’s family were to convince a court that I was an unworthy parent, upon her death, that I could be stripped of my rights as a father.
Through some paperwork, all the same rights conveyed to a heterosexual couple can be had by a homosexual couple.
So a little extra work is needed by a homosexual couple. Is that so bad? Would not having to go an extra mile prove your love for one another?
Chris raises an interesting point, but I would remove God, just to keep the radicals from saying that the view is that of a religious nut.
Look at humans.
The human body is designed in a certain way. There is man, and there is woman. They have certain parts that are designed to compliment one another. The use of these natural compliments results in more people.
This is the design of sex, like it or not. The nature is for a man and a woman to join and create life. That it can be very pleasurable is a side-effect.
To accept ANY other form of sex is to accept that which is not natural.
This explanation has nothing to do with God, it has to do with what is designed into the human form.
In order to raise children, the family unit was established. The family consists of a man and a woman, the parents, and a child (or children).
The basis for this family unit, is the parents. Since some recognition of this basis was needed, we have marriage.
Marriage, by definition (Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary) is: “the institution whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family.”
To echo Chris, marriage is NOT, and by definition, can never be, about anything other than a man and a woman.
I would go so far as to argue that those who are seeking to change the definition of marriage, just to suit their own desires, do not understand the situation fully. The union they seek is one that goes against human nature, and to seek to gain the rights that they are presently denied is to do nothing more than to force others to accept their choices (homosexuality IS a choice. There is no genetic evidence that has ever been accepted by those in authority, the AMA for instance, to show otherwise).
Tim Lynch posted:
“Now, if you want to say that your particular church can’t sanction gay marriage without giving up its basis, that’s your church’s call to make. You cannot, however, expand that out to society at large.”
Society at large is being told that it MUST accept and validate the decisions of a very few people to pursue homosexual relationships, and grant them privileges based upon some sense of “fairness”.
How is this different than a religion saying that society at large must accept and validate polygamy, and in fact have such protected under the first amendment?
This is almost to a point of a religion. Homosexuals seek to have society recognize something that many disagree with, simply for their own convenience. Many religions have sought to do the same for years, and been rebuffed by the “separation of church and state” argument.
If you seek to allow homosexual marriages, how, in good conscience can you seek to legally tell a man he may not marry a minor or a man to 7 wives?
In closing, let me say that rights do not come from the government, but from God.
Well, thankfully, no one died and made you god.
Pun intended.
I am not a religious man, and I am married. Do you have a problem with that? Too bad.
Why I am I married if I’m not religious? Well, I’d say that’s because marriage in this country isn’t a religious institution as some people, such as yourself, try and make it out to be.
So get off your high horse, because you are one of those Bible-thumpers that we’ve been talking about.
homosexuality IS a choice
If you believe that, you are ignorant of the truth.
“All law has its origins in religion.”
There was a time when that was the prevailing thought. Wars of religion in which thousands of died simply because they worshipped the wrong God, or worshipped the right God but in the wrong way. To hold to a particular religion was considered a political act…even an act of war.
But there was a change in thinking since then. A change which dictated that it was possible–even preferable–to have morality that was not dictated by, or separated from, religion. That virtue stemmed not from God’s will, but from what best benefited society.
It’s possible this seachange in philosophy slipped by you because it was pretty recent: Three and a half centuries ago, put forward by philosophers such as Spinoza and Bayle. Not that their writings were immediately accepted: They weren’t. They were condemned and persecuted for it. Eventually, though, the wisdom of their views was accepted and embraced. The situation in Ireland of Protestants vs. Catholics may be tragic…but it’s also the only holdover from a philosophy that once embraced much of Europe, so that should be considered progress.
So, in sum, saying that all laws stem from religion is thinking that’s 350 years out of date. The rest of your opinions about gay rights, I think, is about a thousand or so years beyond that. You may want to consider updating your thinking.
PAD
Marriage, by definition (Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary) is: “the institution whereby men and women are joined in a special kind of social and legal dependence for the purpose of founding and maintaining a family.”
marriage is NOT, and by definition, can never be, about anything other than a man and a woman.
Wolfknight, a reading of the definition you supply in the first quote does not prove your point in the second quote. If the defintion had said “the institution whereby a man and a woman are joined”, then it would. The definition you supplied implies that at least two men and two women are needed to have a marriage. So I guess by definition, marriage actually requires homesexual polygamy. Thanks for clearing that up!
I wrote:
“Now, if you want to say that your particular church can’t sanction gay marriage without giving up its basis, that’s your church’s call to make. You cannot, however, expand that out to society at large.”
Wolfknight responded:
Society at large is being told that it MUST accept and validate the decisions of a very few people to pursue homosexual relationships, and grant them privileges based upon some sense of “fairness”.
How is this different than a religion saying that society at large must accept and validate polygamy, and in fact have such protected under the first amendment?
Honestly? I’m not sure it is particularly different: some cultures, after all, have thrived perfectly well with polygamy.
Now legally, I think the step from our current definition of marriage to polygamy is quite a bit larger than the step to gay marriage. Same-sex marriage is still two people who want to join lives together and would like legal sanction for same — it’s just two people who happen to be both male or both female.
I guess “marriage” to me implies a certain level of exclusivity. Same-sex marriage can be exclusive quite nicely — polygamy, pretty much by definition, cannot.
The other point I’d disagree with is that you say this is due to a “very few people” interested in pursuing same-sex relationships.
Leaving aside for a moment the fact that this strongly suggests “tyranny of the majority” issues can and should be brought up, I’m curious about where you get the “very few” claim. Are you claiming that homosexuality is very rare, or that very few homosexuals are interested in long-term relationships?
My experience suggests neither is true. I know quite a few gay people (granted, over the last decade-plus I’ve lived in either LA or the SF Bay area), and most of them who are adults are in long-term relationships. At the school where I teach, for example, a higher fraction of gay people are in committed relationships than straight people.
So I’m not sure I agree with your premise here.
This is almost to a point of a religion. Homosexuals seek to have society recognize something that many disagree with, simply for their own convenience
If your partner is in the hospital and you aren’t allowed to visit them because “you’re not a relative”, I would call that a good deal more than inconvenience. If you cannot adopt children because “you’re not married”, I would call that a good deal more than inconvenience.
Perhaps you would not.
If you seek to allow homosexual marriages, how, in good conscience can you seek to legally tell a man he may not marry a minor or a man to 7 wives?
I think I’ve addressed the polygamy issue earlier. As for “marrying a minor,” it’s easy to point to specific harm being done there: age of consent laws exist because society recognizes that informed consent cannot be given before a certain age. (Granted, a hard and fast rule doesn’t entirely make sense, but that’s the legal system for you.)
So I don’t see the problem there.
TWL
Mr. Pennington wrote:
I’m a pretty easy-going guy. Raised Jewish and, after some life-changing stuff that’s too long to go into here, “converted” to Christianity.
Ahem. I’m sorry to say, but I find your claim hard to swallow, Mr. Pennington. Especially regarding the “raised” part in your post. Would you care to elaborate?
I’ve read the Bible a few times, different translations. I don’t claim to know it front to back or anything, but there are a couple of passages I do know:
1) Judge not, unless you wish to face judgement.
2) Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.
Ummm, that may indeed be part of the New Testament, or the Hebrew bible, but, it does not prove that you’re really Jewish, I’m afraid.
How do I know that you’re not just making up what you say to fortify your presentation of yourself as actually knowing a lot about the bible or being Jewish?
Marriage originated with God and its design involved one man and one woman. Period. No discussion.
Oop sorry you’re wrong but we have some great parting gifts for you. Tell him what he won Don Pardo. Seriously, I suggest you read some history, Marriage was originally concieved as nothing more then a way to insure the family name and all the wealth and property that went with it was carried on. The one man/one woman thing is a realitivaly recent invention, for much of human history, (and indeed this is still true in sizable chunks of the world today), marriage consisted of one man and several wives, and this was even allowed under acient Hebrew law, (really, read the old testiment, lots of people with multiple wives and God seemed cool with the idea at the time). You can climb on your religious high horse all you want but the idea of marrige, and the constraints and restrictions of that institution, are entirly a human invention and have changed and adapted to changes in society and social attitudes thoughout human history. It wasn’t all that long ago that the idea of marrying someone because you “love them” would have gotten raised eyebrows. Society changed so did the idea of what a marriage is. A blink of the eye ago in human history, the majority of marriges were arranged with money exchanged for the bride, (women were considered property up till a few centuries ago you know), society changed so did marriage. Futher back most men had several wives, and with good reason, had to spread that seed and get that all important male hier to carry on the family name and trade, and since so many women tended to die in childbirth and so many infints didn’t survive to be adults (comman childhood ailments that we laught at today being downright deadly back then)it made complete and total sense to hedge your bets and procreate with several women at the same time. Society of course changed and the concept of marriage changed with it. (Small digression, one of my biggest problem with Bibical films, and indeed many historical films that are not bibical, is that they present the world as if it was the same as it is today except they don’t have cars or electricity. Life in Christ time, and even further back, (and in some cases even more recently) was completly different on practically every level then what we know today and attitudes about everything were completly different and would seem alien to most people today. Biggest pet peeve is the way women are presented in historical and bibical movies, as if they had the same attitudes, desires, needs, (not to mention hygene habits), as a woman in 2004 America. Drives me absolutly nuts. End of digression). My point: Society is changing again, (in more ways then one actually) and eventually, whether you like it or not the concept of marriage will change with it. May not be in our lifetime but it will happen. It’s really only a matter of time.
Craig J. Ries wrote:
Well, thankfully, no one died and made you god.
Pun intended.
Ah ah ah, Mr. Ries, this isn’t your website, and you are in no position to tell anyone else here how to run their business. So, now you’re insulting another poster here as well? I suggest you apologize to Chris for your very unkind response.
I am not a religious man, and I am married. Do you have a problem with that? Too bad.
Words don’t prove anything, I’m afraid. How do I know that you’re really married? How does anyone else here, in fact?
So get off your high horse, because you are one of those Bible-thumpers that we’ve been talking about.
And you sound like one of those anti-religious extremists whom even we Democrats are worried about, because they ruin our reputation. Tsk tsk tsk. Mr. Ries, you and your bigotry. It’s one thing to disagree, it’s another to just go out and insult someone whom you don’t know personally and never even met before. All because the internet enables you to get away with it, as you apparently seem to think. And it apparently makes no difference to you if others find your behavior degrading as well, does it?
You’ve been caught with your pants down insulting more than a few people here, and once again, you do so on a website that doesn’t even belong to you, with complete disregard for Mr. David and Mr. Hauman, respectively. What a shame. You could’ve set a much better example by disagreeing politely, instead, you choose to make a fool out of yourself by just being snide and cynical, which is in complete contrast to what comic books like Superman and Spider-Man are all about, if we were to use those as examples.
he urgency of this issue cannot be overstated. This summer, a Canadian court ruled that Canada’s ban on homosexual “marriage” was unconstitutional. Since then, the city of Toronto has issued 757 marriage licenses to same-sex couples. One-third of those couples were from the United States .
Three weeks after the Canadian court decision, in Lawrence v. Texas, the United States Supreme Court ruled Texas’s law against sodomy unconstitutional. Homosexual advocates were ecstatic about the decision, claiming that it would lead to the legalization of same-sex “marriage” here in the United States .
I agree. That was a terrible court decision. And I think it will lead, eventually, to the legalization of much more: polygamy, incest, pedophilia, and even bëšŧìálìŧÿ. As Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent, the decision in Lawrence v. Texas “effectively decrees the end of all morals legislation.”
As Professor J. Budziszewski of the University of Texas puts it, it’s an “oxymoron.” Therefore, it must not be legalized. We have to work from an understanding of the natural order, which is clear to anyone who actually observes human relationships and how they work. In his excellent book The Clash of Orthodoxies, Princeton professor Robert George explains that marriage is consummated by an act that is reproductive in nature, whether or not it actually leads to the birth of a child. And it creates an organic unity that homosexual acts do not and cannot.
And that’s not even considering the fact that life expectancy for homosexual males is twenty to thirty years less than that for heterosexual males, according to several studies. We should not be urging our government to sanction a practice that is so destructive to the health of the individual and society. And these are good, strong arguments based on the common good.
Recently Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania (R) spoke at the Heritage Foundation about the “Necessity of Marriage.”
He began by reminding his audience that one of the purposes of government, laid out in the Preamble to the Constitution, is to “promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.”
The “general welfare” is not about individual gain, said Santorum, but about the common good—what is beneficial to all Americans. In contrast, the so-called “right to privacy,” which has been at the heart of many of the Supreme Court’s recent decisions, has only self-interest in mind. The right to privacy—which is not even in the Constitution, but rather has been “found” by an activist court—started with the sexual revolution and has led to many so-called “rights” that are similarly self-centered. These include abortion and, now, with the Supreme Court’s recent Lawrencedecision, the right to any form of consensual sex. Santorum called the right to privacy a “me-centered” right.
In contrast, he said, marriage promotes the general welfare; it’s good for all of society. Promoting two-parent male/female marriages “affirms what the founders understood, promoting the common good.” Marriage itself illustrates this when spouses seek “to give of themselves to each other, rather than being self-interested.”
And the social benefits of marriage go on. According to a Heritage Foundation Center for Data Analysis Report, “child poverty would be nearly a third lower today if the traditional two-parent family had not deteriorated over the past three decades.” Marriage, according to a 1994 Justice Department report, also reduces the risk that both men and women will become victims of violence.
And, of course, marriages sustain the nation’s population, providing a future workforce. In Japan and many European countries, as people opt for singleness or for childless marriages, the growing elderly populations have too few young people working to support them.
Santorum acknowledged that the institution of marriage faces a lot of problems—problems like divorce and domestic violence. “But that doesn’t mean we should weaken it further” by redefining marriage to accommodate same-sex relationships, he said. It means instead that we need to shore it up and promote the “right way” to do marriage.
PAD wrote:
A change which dictated that it was possible–even preferable–to have morality that was not dictated by, or separated from, religion. That virtue stemmed not from God’s will, but from what best benefited society.
Mr. David, I can’t belive someone as intelligent as you is taking this line of arguing. Let me blunt: There is NO morality without God, all you have are those with power and those subject to that power. Check out the movie First Knight for a cool speech by King Arthur on this. I belive the technical term for this line of thinking is normative ethical reltivism which advocates, like you essentially said, that society decides for itself what is “good” or “bad” (and we could begin a whole other blog on what do we mean when we call something good or bad).I find too many flaws in this thinking, and eventually it ends up being self-refuting. Even in your post you refute your self: “Eventually, though, the wisdom of their views was accepted” Wisdom by defintion is the ability to discern or judge what is true, right, or lasting. You argue for societal relativism on the foundation of true truth. Unless you are going to tell me you are Hindu, so contradiction in truths are no big deal, your thinking is flawed and you are in error.
The only logical( & honest-there’s the rub) conclusion is that morality is something outside of ourselves (& society).
PAD,
The founding principles of America were strongly influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition. Rather than call America a “Christian nation,” which may imply a church-dominated state, it’s more accurate to say that Americais a nation profoundly influenced by Christian principles. Americans’ beliefs have become far more diverse than they were in the days of the nation’s founding, but the Christian principles still at work in our democratic institutions are the prime reason that those institutions do indeed work.
Our country’s Judeo-Christian and classical Greek heritages influenced what governmental institutions were designed to do and not do. They provided the background for our understanding that the nation must be one of “laws, not men,” as Oliver Wendell Holmes put it. Even the ideal of the “pursuit of happiness” comes from the Judeo-Christian tradition: The phrase describes the founders’ longing for a society of corporate justice, not individual license. “Happiness,” as used in the Declaration of Independence, means the pursuit of virtue (that is, goodness), not hedonism.
Another example: America’s founding fathers were also influenced by the Judeo-Christian teaching about the human tendency to abuse power. So they adopted the principle of the separation of powers. Within the government, power was diffused through a system of checks and balances so that no one branch could dominate another. The founders also assumed that what was then America’s Christian consensus would be the most powerful brake on the natural avarice of government. Because of its Judeo-Christian heritage, America has avoided the worst effects of humankind’s obsession with power.
Two other ideas—equality and the rule of law—are central to Western democracy, and they can be traced directly to our culture’s Christian heritage as well.
Take equality. As every schoolchild knows, the United States was, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “dedicated to the proposition that ‘all men are created equal.’ ” Where did that idea come from? Christianity, of course. The Christian tradition is the reason that the founders believed in something called “natural rights,” that is, a belief that we possess certain rights simply because we are human beings endowed by our Creator with these rights. The founders enumerated these rights as “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” which they saw as belonging to personhood itself. These rights are not dependent on the whim of a ruler—whether a king or a legislature—and they are not conferred on the people by themselves. They cannot be given or taken away, only honored or violated.
The idea of equality also proceeded from a Reformation doctrine known as coram Deo, which means “the face of God.” Reformer John Calvin taught that all men and women, regardless of social status, live their lives in the face of God. This meant that individuals did not have to approach God through either the church or the state. It relieved them from the oppressive power of tyrants. They stood before God in their full dignity as humans.
Crucially, the notion of coram Deo led to the insistence that the state’s role was limited. The state’s role wasn’t to rule over everybody but simply to ensure that the structures ordained by God—such as the family and the church—function properly. This idea of limited government was another core value of our democracy.
In Western democracy, equality means, more than anything else, equality before the law. And that brings us to the other great contribution of Christianity: the rule of law.
In the mid-seventeenth century, the Scottish clergyman Samuel Rutherford wrote a book that at the time was earth-shattering; It was titled Lex Rex, which means “the law is king.” Rutherford argued that ruler and ruled alike were subject to the same transcendent laws of God.
It’s impossible to overstate how essential this idea is to American democracy. We are a nation of laws and not men. That is, we are governed by the laws to which we consent, and the law applies to everyone equally.
These two Christian ideas, coram Deo and lex rex, influenced the founders and enabled them to break free from the tyrannical rule of King George III. These ideas helped the founders establish a model of government—of ordered liberty—that has been the envy of the world ever since.
When church people call America a “Christian nation,” they mean that Christian ideas are at the heart of our democracy. This is true. But it’s more accurate to say that America is a nation influenced by Christianity because the American state has never been controlled by the church and should not be.
Religion in Americatakes no direct part in the government or society, but it must, nevertheless, be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country.—Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America.
Words don’t prove anything, I’m afraid. How do I know that you’re really married? How does anyone else here, in fact?
If you are really this desperate to grasp as straws, I can find for you the Denver County, Colorado reception number of my marriage certificate.
And if that doesn’t satisfy you, I’m sure nothing will.
Tsk tsk tsk. Mr. Ries, you and your bigotry.
And you use your religion to throw terms such as “bigotry” and “antiseminist” at me. Why?
Just because I don’t believe in your god? That I believe that organized religion does more harm than good?
You’re showing that you’re the evidence to support my comments here.
All because the internet enables you to get away with it, as you apparently seem to think.
What am I hiding? I am using my real name here.
And it apparently makes no difference to you if others find your behavior degrading as well, does it?
I am blunt, and I am honest. Some people appreciate that sort of thing, you know.
You’ve been caught with your pants down insulting more than a few people here, and once again, you do so on a website that doesn’t even belong to you, with complete disregard for Mr. David and Mr. Hauman, respectively.
I can respect individuals without respecting everything they might happen to believe in.
But then, you are the only person calling me out here, and I am not the only person to turn the tables on you for your comments.
Your attempts to degrade people by making baseless accusations because you think your beliefs give you to the right to do so is just plain ridiculous.
Also, this country was not founded by Christians in the Judeo-Christian tradition; it was founded by Deists in the tradition of the Enlightenment. The only way to go against what this country stands for is to go against the rights of man, Reason, and the scientific method.
As a history teacher, I think you have the French Revolution confused, for the most part, with the American Revolution. Just stickin’ to the facts.
Chris babbbled meaninglessly: Let me blunt: There is NO morality without God, all you have are those with power and those subject to that power.
Bûllšhìŧ. There are millions upon millions of Americans, to say nothing of Europe and the rest of the world, who do not believe in God, yet lead perfectly moral lives (ie, they don’t harm other people).
Since the concepts of right and wrong predate all of our current religions (even the most ancient, Hinduism) it is a logical fallacy to insist that morality proceeds from that which it precedes.
Kirk
Chris: “In closing, let me say that rights do not come from the government, but from God.”
The idea that people have certain inalienable rights is a very appealing one — more appealing (to me) than the notion that the rights we enjoy are simply privileges a government can choose to grant or choose to take away as it sees fit.
Declaring that rights come from god seems like a handy way of establishing that concept of “inalienable rights”. If god says everyone should have them, who are we mere mortals to argue?
Which is why I find it puzzling that religious conservatives in this country regularly come out in opposition to inalienable rights, and it is generally secularists and religious liberals who stand up in support.
Take, for example, the question of whether illegal immigrants have the same rights to free speech, to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, to legal representation and due process, as US citizens. A number of such cases have come up before the Supreme Court, and routinely it is the conservatives justices who rule that such people are not entitled to these rights and protections.
If rights come from god, not from government, then why does god choose to grant so many more rights to people who are US citizens?
When courts have ruled that these people are entitled to the same legal protections as US citizens, conservatives tend to call it “judicial activism,” indicating the rights were not a gift from god after all.
It would seem that religious conservatives actually believe it is our government which is granting these rights to its citizens. Liberals — ironically even atheistic godless ones — seem much more comfortable with the idea of extending these rights to all people.
Which is not to say the rights do not come from god, only to say that if so then religious conservatives seem to have an extremely bad track record in carrying out god’s wishes on this matter.
That, to me, seems to be a good reason for leaving government in the hands of secularists. They seem much better at carrying out god’s intentions, even those who don’t believe in god.
Religion is just another human excuse to avoid taking responsibility for one’s self and to explain the unknown…
Why does “god” allow criminals who rape and kill to live and prosper but people who have never hurt anyone and only helped others suffer and die?
Why does “god” allow , to use a simple example, a little girl to be raped, tortured and killed? Don’t use that ridiculous “god gave everyone free will” garbage, because I seriously doubt that the victims of violence WANTED to be hurt/abused. So why did it happen? Become someone stronger came imposed their will upon them, with no concern for what the victim wanted. So much for “god believes in free will”, that’s just “Might makes right” and/or “survival of the fittest.”
Laws comes from a society of people deciding they want to AVOID being controlled by superstitions and degenerating to “survival of the fittest”… There is no “god” involved, religion is a way to avoid trying to fix the world’s problems, since you can’t fight “god’s will.”
I could not care any less about gays getting married, but these idiots who insist that theirs is the true religion and that everyone must bow down and kiss their god’s ášš just totally piss me off…
Let me blunt: There is NO morality without God, all you have are those with power and those subject to that power.
Let me be equally blunt, Chris.
Unless you are claiming that standards of morality do not apply to me and my wife (as we are both atheists), you are 100% dead wrong.
Now, if you’d like to come tell me to my face that I lack morality because I don’t share your faith in some supreme being, let me know. Otherwise, you’re taking advantage of the net’s anonymity to blow smoke and rant about that which you do not understand.
Cut it out.
TWL
Ummm, as much as I hate to cut in here, gentlemen, lay off of Chris, if you will, kindly. Be advised, by reacting the way you are, you are sinking to a very low level yourselves, and I want to point out that if there’s any law that NONE OF US are immume to, it’s God’s Law. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s now or later, we are not above it. None of us. Period. If I have to be the only one here to step in and defend Chris, not to mention PAD and Glenn also, I’ll do it, and do I have to mention that while I may be secular, that doesn’t mean that I’m an athiest, and I’m not.
I don’t want cause problems here any more than I for one have, and if I were you, I’d think that a very good idea too on your part. Bear in mind, as I’m sure you realize, that this is, first and foremost, Peter David’s property, and if you refuse to acknowledge that, you’re only giving the impression that you have no respect for other people’s property.
Avi, you’re as pathetic as Chris.
PAD has been participating in this discussion, and mostly he seems to be on the opposite side as CHris and you, so how is we are “I don’t want cause problems here any more than I for one have, and if I were you, I’d think that a very good idea too on your part. Bear in mind, as I’m sure you realize, that this is, first and foremost, Peter David’s property, and if you refuse to acknowledge that, you’re only giving the impression that you have no respect for other people’s property. “
How the hëll are we “disrespecting PAD’s property? IF PAD comes out and says, “Hey guys, it’s my board, stop picking on the babies like Chris and Avi!” ONLY THEN can we be not respecting PAD’s property by simply refuting the ludicrous statements about god…
It would seem that religious conservatives actually believe it is our government which is granting these rights to its citizens. Liberals — ironically even atheistic godless ones — seem much more comfortable with the idea of extending these rights to all people.
See, this kind of thing leaves me wondering where I truly fit in the politial spectrum.
Registered independant; ready and willing to rip Bush because he’s made himself ready and willing for such abuse; support the idea of removing Saddam, but hate how it was done.
But, yet, I don’t think that illegal aliens should have the same rights unless there is a well-founded reason (such as people trying to escape war).
Things like giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses, like in California, just boggles the mind and, to a degree, I’m glad Davis got recalled.
But then, I think recalls in general are a bad idea, that it undermines the whole point of voting somebody into office.
Ok, do these kinds of things make me more liberal or conservative?
I’d like to know so I can tell everybody who accuses me of being one or the other. 🙂
NONE OF US are immume to, it’s God’s Law
If PAD feels like I’ve been disrespecting him (which I’m not trying to be, regardless of my political or religious opinions), he’s obviously welcome to tell me as much.
But there is nothing worse than having religious dogma shoved down your throats when you don’t want it.
I don’t live by “God’s” law.
I should ask my Indian Hindu friend what it’s like to live by the laws of many gods.
If I had to pick a god to believe in, I’d have to go with Zues or Odin, sure they were arrogant, but they also weren’t afraid to show themselves and their power, unless another god I could mention…
TWL wrote;Now, if you’d like to come tell me to my face that I lack morality because I don’t share your faith in some supreme being, let me know. Otherwise, you’re taking advantage of the net’s anonymity to blow smoke and rant about that which you do not understand.
Excuse me, but what the hëll are you talking about? I am familar with the arguments Chris has mentioned, and believe me he’s standing on the shoulders of some great philosophers and debaters. At what point did Chris connect morality with a particular faith? All he did is say that a morality exists that is separate from ourselves. At no pont did he say “The source of this morality is Allah”, or “Jesus”, or “Yaweh”. You have just done ad hominem attacks without refuting his arguments. You are the one who sounds like do not understand crap, so you argue on a first grade level. Let me put it this way, if something’s true no matter how much you don’t belive it-it won’t go away, BUT if something is false, no matter how much someone believes in it-it won’t become real. So, don’t get so frickin’ agitated debating things like Truth, God, Morality, or the such because you might learn something, and if you don’t at least you’ve exercised your brain to know how to defend what you believe in.
Bladestar wrote: Religion is just another human excuse to avoid taking responsibility for one’s self and to explain the unknown… There is no “god” involved, religion is a way to avoid trying to fix the world’s problems, since you can’t fight “god’s will.”
With all due respect, your post shows a serious lack of understanding of the basic principles of Christianity. I won’t get into a long explanation, but the short answer to your questions is that Jesus promised eternal life after death, not a happy-go-lucky, puppies-and-sunshine-and-cotton-candy life on earth.
I fully respect your right to disagree over the existence of God or lack thereof. But it would really be nice if people made an attempt to actually understand things before they lashed out against them. And I don’t mean to pick at you personally, but your post appears very representative of the lack of understanding of modern Christian thought, which seems prevalent in the anti-religion posts in this thread.
The same lack of understanding apparently leads a lot of people to believe that all Christians are closed-minded homophobes, which is simply not the case. Such generalizations are as deeply wrong when made about Christians as they are when made about liberals, or Democrats, or gays, or any other groups.
Me:
Now, if you’d like to come tell me to my face that I lack morality because I don’t share your faith in some supreme being, let me know. Otherwise, you’re taking advantage of the net’s anonymity to blow smoke and rant about that which you do not understand.
Matt:
Excuse me, but what the hëll are you talking about? I am familar with the arguments Chris has mentioned, and believe me he’s standing on the shoulders of some great philosophers and debaters. At what point did Chris connect morality with a particular faith?
Gee … that’d be the moment he said “there is no morality without God.”
That statement in and of itself implies that (a) atheists have no well-defined morality and (b) anyone who professes to a faith that’s not monotheistic has no well-defined morality either. Neither (a) nor (b) has a “God” to hand down morality, and thus anyone in those two cases is lacking in morality.
Sorry, Matt — I’m not the one making the ad hominems here. I’m the one who’s looking at Chris’s arguments and taking them to their logical conclusion. You’re the one who came out of nowhere to accuse me of not exercising my brain.
And I don’t believe you’ve seen me agitated just yet. Ask folks like PAD, tyg, or Michael Rawdon what my prose looks like when I’m agitated.
And Avi Green weighed in with…
Ummm, as much as I hate to cut in here, gentlemen, lay off of Chris, if you will, kindly. Be advised, by reacting the way you are, you are sinking to a very low level yourselves, and I want to point out that if there’s any law that NONE OF US are immume to, it’s God’s Law.
I think you’re missing the point, Avi. Your God does not exist in my universe. Neither does Chris’s. As a result, neither does “God’s Law”, whatever that might be. That blanket claim Chris makes about laws doesn’t get any more plausible coming from you than it does from him.
(And no, I don’t think we’re showing a “lack of respect for PAD’s property” by posting on the subject here. He’s weighed in on this himself, and already posted opinions on some of Chris’s arguments. How is continuing the discussion showing a lack of respect?)
Christians: Catholics, Baptists, Lutherans, Protestants, All the various off-shoots of the Catholic tree, etc etc etc
They all claim to be “Christians” but have different beliefs.
Sorry Discord, but I see the school of “modern Christian thought” everyday. “Gays are evil!” “Gambling is evil! (but don’t forget Bingo this Monday!)” “God is on our side.” etc etc etc.
I see christianity as the actions of its members, and the “underlying principles of christianity” are meaningless when it’s members don’t even practive them.
And remember, the Al Qaeda terrorists who hijacked planes on 9/11 thought they were doing “god’s” work too….
I want to point out that if there’s any law that NONE OF US are immume to, it’s God’s Law.
Only if God exists. Which seems ever more doubtful. I hope God exists… but there’s no evidence that he does, and if he is out there, he’s certainly not the hatefilled monster God of right wing Christianity, conservative Judaism and fundamentalist Islam.
And it doesn’t matter whether it’s now or later, we are not above it. None of us. Period.
Your opinion. Nothing more.
I just made a few d100 rolls, asking “god” to guide the results with his will, and here are the results:
Abortion: OK
Partying: OK in moderation
Newspapers: Biased
Television: Why does “pay TV” like cable have so many commercials? TV is now offically the 11th sin.
Assisted Suicide: Only at the dying’s request
Hetero Marriage: Divorce rate too high, so stop getting married straight people.
Gay Marriage: Sure, they can learn to enjoy vicious divorce procedings just like the Hetero’s
Meat on Friday: Except Good Friday, go for it. On Good Friday, no eating from anything attached to a piece of wood (no Ka-bobs, even on metal skewers).
Priests molesting children and being pritected by the church: You’ll all burn, stop it already.
Weather: Partly cloudy, 30% chance of rain today, 40% chance of snow tomorrow, and 50% chance of giant meteors soon…
originally posted by Craig J Ries: “…this kind of thing leaves me wondering where I truly fit in the political spectrum.
“Registered independant; ready and willing to rip Bush because he’s made himself ready and willing for such abuse; support the idea of removing Saddam, but hate how it was done.
“But, yet, I don’t think that illegal aliens should have the same rights unless there is a well-founded reason (such as people trying to escape war).
“Things like giving illegal immigrants drivers licenses, like in California, just boggles the mind…”
Personally, I consider drivers licenses a privilege, not a right. (But then, I’m not a driver…)
I think it is quite reasonable that the US government grants US citizens more privileges than it grants to non-citizens. If we choose to extend some of those privileges (such as drivers licenses) to non-citizens that is a generous thing to to, but we are not obligated to do so.
However, when it comes to the things we consider rights, it’s a different story — or at least it is if one believes in inalienable human rights that are granted by god. If rights truly are granted by god, then it makes sense that these rights are possessed by all people, regardless of the country where they were born or currently reside.
That raises a number of questions, such as what is a right and what is a privilege.
I believe things such as freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of thought, freedom of religion, freedom from unreasonable search and seizure, freedom from torture, etc., are rights, not privileges.
On the other hand various programs set up by the US government on behalf of its citizens are privileges, not rights.
If the government votes to end Social Security, Medicare, farm subsidies, or various corporate welfare programs, that’s well within the government’s power. But if the government votes to suspend free speech, or to require people to take part in organized prayers, or to grant police the power to search and arrest people because they don’t like their looks (or their political beliefs) — well, if the rights in the constitution truly are inalienable then that isn’t supposed to be allowed. NOt even amending the constitution should be able to change that (unless, of course, it were possible to pass an amendment: “the following rights are no longer inalienable, and are retroactively declared not to be granted by god.”)
Reasonable people can (and do) disagree on what is a right and what is a privilege. From your posts you strike me as a reasonable person.
My apologies for clouding the issue by bringing the terms liberal and conservative into this. The point I was trying to make was not liberals-good/conservatives-bad. It was simply that the people who talk the loudest about “rights coming from god” often seem to be the ones who in practice are most hostile to the concept. They often seem — as in the case of gay marriage — to be the ones most eager to curtail or restrict these supposedly inalienable rights.
Wow, this discussion has shifted from a discussion of the amendment banning gay marriage to attacks on/for religion. As this topic approaches 100+ messages, I’d say both sides should focus a little more on the amendment issue and a little less on who are religious zealots and who are godless heathens.
(And if someone wants to attack me for suggestion moderation and consideration — BRING IT ON!!!!)
heh
Why can’t we all just get along?
Chris
PS-Good one, Steve.
There seems to be a great deal of confusion in the minds of those individuals pushing for the anti-equality amendment to the Constitution.
They seem to be confusing Civil Marriage (the one that gets you a marriage license, and provides 1.049 federal rights, privileges, and responsibilities, along with various state rights), and Religious Marriage (the ceremony that can be performed again and again, but without that little piece of paper is meaningless to the government).
Now, Civil Marriage is what is being fought for by gays and lesbians.
There are plenty of churches already who perform marriage ceremonies for same-sex couples (the Metropolitan Community Churches are the most well-known, but there are quite a few others).
The difficulty is that the various state agencies that handle marriage licenses refuse to recognize those ceremonies as “valid”.
Those same-sex couples applying for the license are needing it for the same reasons that opposite-sex couples need it.
To protect their families
As has been noted above, they need to be able to handle the medical decisions for their spouse should one or the other get injured. They need to be able to not have to worry about a vindictive family coming in and taking away a home because of the death of one member of the couple.
And since gays and lesbians do raise children, they need to be able to protect them the same way opposite-sex couples do.
So, let’s keep things in perspective.
Equal recognition of a same-sex Civil Marriage is what is being fought for – equality under the Constitution of the United States.
Nothing to do with religion at all.
Mr. David, I can’t belive someone as intelligent as you is taking this line of arguing. Let me blunt: There is NO morality without God, all you have are those with power and those subject to that power. Check out the movie First Knight for a cool speech by King Arthur on this.
Oh, well, far be it from me to believe philosophical arguments that have withstood the test of time over three and a half centuries over the sentiments expressed in a crappy Richard Gere movie.
NO morality without God. When I think of the travesties that have been committed in the name of God, the tortures, the murders…thousands upon thousands upon thousands of people, killed in the name of God. Has it occurred to you that the hijackers who flew airplanes into the Twin Towers drew their morality from what they belived THEIR God had to offer? Oh, but he was the wrong God, of course. Completely different from the God who urged Torquemada to annihilate the nonbelievers. But then, I’m sure no one was expecting a Spanish Inquisition.
You better hope that morality doesn’t stem from God, because if it does, He has a buttload to answer for.
PAD
Just to pull one piece of bull out of the Tichy posts…
And that’s not even considering the fact that life expectancy for homosexual males is twenty to thirty years less than that for heterosexual males, according to several studies.
Care to site those supposed studies? Because every citation I’ve seen of that circles back to the same study by Paul Cameron, a study which used a blatantly ridiculous method to estimate the average age of death of homosexual males. The use of such studies is the sort of desperate dishonesty used by the forces who are pretending to guard morality. For more information, you can check out http://slate.msn.com/id/2098/
Then of course there is his claim that “all men are created equal” is a Christian concept. Actually, quite the opposite is true; Christianity presumes that one man, Jesus, was not created equal.
Meanwhile, we have people like “Wolfknight” claiming things like To accept ANY other form of sex is to accept that which is not natural.
which is ridiculous, because not all things in nature are about reproduction. Non-reproductive sex acts of many kinds occur without man’s influence; they are natural.
Chris: Come on, dude. Listen to me carefully ALL LAW has its origins somewhere in religion. ALL LAW.
Luigi Novi: Wrong. Laws predate religion.
Chris: There can NEVER be homosexual marriage. Never.
Luigi Novi: There already is homosexual marriage, in this country and in others. Your statement is meaningless.
Chris: Marriage originated with God and its design involved one man and one woman. Period. No discussion.
Luigi Novi: Wrong. It’s not “period,” and it’s not “not discussion.” This is a discussion board, we’re discussing it, and as it so happens, marriage predates religion. Therefore, it did not originate with God, so you’re flat-out wrong. How could it originate from God, when it existed in civilizations before the Bible was written, and continues to exist today in societies that have not been touched by Western civilization or the Bible?
I’d like to add, by the way, that you are free to respond to this point, or run away from it like Avi Green did when I refuted several of his points. I will not, on the other hand, tell you that there is “no discussion” on it.
Chris: Sure, people don’t follow that plan, but then its NOT marriage. You can have guys in black robes say all they want that Marriage is what they say it is, but they might as well..Declare the law of Gravity unconstitutional (its not fair how things fall & break all the time)
Luigi Novi: Gravity is a natural phenomenon that can be documented, tested and proven by the scientific method. Marriage is not natural (it is a cultural more), and since it is not natural because man created it, it cannot be a scientific fact, and man can define or redefine its parameters however they choose.
Chris: See my point. In closing, let me say that rights do not come from the government, but from God.
Luigi Novi: Wrong again. Rights do not come from either God or the government. I believe they are inherent, and the government merely recognizes them. Rights cannot come from God, because the government says I can worship any religion I want, however I want. God doesn’t. He says I can have no other gods before him, must keep holy his Sabbath, etc.
Wolfknight: The human body is designed in a certain way. There is man, and there is woman. They have certain parts that are designed to compliment one another. The use of these natural compliments results in more people. This is the design of sex, like it or not. The nature is for a man and a woman to join and create life. That it can be very pleasurable is a side-effect. To accept ANY other form of sex is to accept that which is not natural.
Luigi Novi: Wrong. All behavior originates in the brain, and is therefore, by definition, natural. The idea that behavior which grants sexual gratification but isn’t part of procreation is not natural ignores two things:
1. Kissing, ear nibbling, fondling, oral sex, mášŧûrbáŧìøņ, anal sex, and other various behaviors incorporated into the sex act are perfectly natural, but do not lead to procreation.
2. Such acts exist in the animal kingdom, among various different types of animals. Bonobos, for example, participate in incest, pedophilia, homosexuality and prostitution. Are these behaviors artificial?
Wolfknight: The union they seek is one that goes against human nature, and to seek to gain the rights that they are presently denied is to do nothing more than to force others to accept their choices. Homosexuality IS a choice.
Luigi Novi: No it isn’t. Sexuality is inherent. If it is a choice, then what you’re saying is that homosexuals are actually heterosexuals, who feel attracted to members of the opposite sex, just like all other heterosexuals, but “choose” to mate with members of the same sex instead. How do you explain this?
Wolfknight: There is no genetic evidence that has ever been accepted by those in authority, the AMA for instance, to show otherwise).
Luigi Novi: Research into human and animal behavior, including aspects of sexuality such as homosexuality, is ongoing, and preliminary evidence suggests that it is inherent. To see how the The American Medical Association, The American Psychological Association, The American Psychiatric Association, and the American Academy of Pediatrics views homosexuality, go to: http://hcqsa.virtualave.net/apa_ama.html#ama
And if you want some evidence about the inherence of homosexuality, here is one study:
Is Homosexuality Biologically Caused?
Homosexuality May Not Be a Choice.
Some recent scientific discoveries have set off renewed controversy over the question of whether homosexuality is biologically caused. This is a complicated issue, and would take at least a book or two to deal with adequately, but we will summarize some of the recent research and then consider its implications.
Evidence concerning possible biological origins of homosexuality comes from three directions: Neuroanatomical research (comparing the brains of deceased homosexuals and heterosexuals); endocrinological studies (the study of hormones); and genetic research, including studies of twins, family pedigrees, studies of DNA markers in humans, and (believe it or not), studies of an unusual variety of the common fruit fly.
As a neat revenge for the decades of disparaging remarks about “fruits,” investigators in the genetics of sexual orientation have focused on the mating habits of a special type of fruit fly (Drosophilia melanogaster) dubbed “the fruitless fly.” This type of male fruit fly has the characteristic of being attracted to—and attracted by—other male fruit flies. These “gay” flies willingly mate with members of their own sex and do not reproduce. What makes this phenomenon particularly interesting to researchers is that the fruitless flies were found to have a very special genetic variation—only those flies with the variation behave “homosexually.” Although no direct conclusions can be drawn from this research to the case of human sexual orientation, the sex life of the fruitless fly suggests at least the possibility that genetics may contribute to sexual orientation in at least some species.
Investigators were encouraged by the fruitless fly findings, by pedigree (“family tree”) studies which showed without question that homosexuality indeed does run in families, and by numerous twin and adoption studies which showed that the closer the genetic similarity between siblings, the higher the likelihood that they would match up (both be gay) if one was gay. For example, in one typical study, identical male twins were twice as likely as fraternal twins to match up for homosexuality, and five times more likely to match up than adopted brothers.
The next step was to turn attention to human DNA. Preliminary studies isolated DNA markers on a region of the X-chromosome in a majority (but not all) of a sample of gay men. These genetic markers were not present in the DNA of the sample of straight men. Taken together, all of the above findings suggest a very high probability that at least some types of homosexuality in men are genetically influenced.
Another avenue of inquiry has been to compare brain structures of gay men, straight men, and straight women. In the well-publicized study of the Siman LeVay, differences were found in certain brain structures between gay men and straight men. Interestingly, the gay men’s structures were almost identical to those of the straight women. Thus, there may be a structural brain difference between those individuals—male or female—who are sexually oriented toward desiring men and those who are oriented toward desiring women. However, it is unclear whether these differences in brain structure are a (partial) cause or (partial) consequence of the differences in sexual orientation. It also should be remembered that LeVay’s work is only preliminary and needs to be related with the same results before his findings are considered truly valid.
Is homosexuality “biologically caused”? This is a question fraught with political implications. Many in the gay community welcome the notion of biological causation because they believe that if gayness were thought to have a biological base, it would imply that gays “can’t help” being the way they are and thus that they should not be “punished”—by courts, laws, or society in general—for being gay. Others in the gay community rail against biological notions, fearing that a Nazi-type campaign to genetically engineer gays out of the human race might be a result of a wide-spread acceptance of such notions.
Many scientists, however—gay and straight—consider both of these positions misguided. To clarify this, let’s first tackle our central question: Is homosexuality biologically caused? The answer is a resounding, unequivocal “Yes!” But then, all behavior is biologically caused! All behavior that originates in the brain is surely biological. Differences in behavior originate in differences in the brains. These differences can occur as a result of genetic inheritance, hormonal experience during pregnancy or childhood, environmental experiences, and any combination of these factors.
The confusion starts because people somehow have drawn the false conclusion that if differences originate in genetics or hormones they are somehow more immutable—that is, the person has less control over them and “can’t help himself (or herself).” From a scientific perspective, this is simply false. The underlying issue in this debate is thus not “biological vs. nonbiological,” but “sexual preference (a choice) vs. sexual orientation (a fact):–and it is now largely accepted among sexual scientists that one’s sexual orientation—does not affect its immutability or lack of immutability.
In any case, whether it is considered innate, immutable, environmental, or changeable, this factor alone is unlikely to have a very large impact on public attitudes. Consider sex offending, another sexual issue about which passions run high. Do we have a more tolerant attitude toward sex offenders who apparently “can’t help themselves”? Who continue to offend, regardless of arrests and incarcerations? Are such people treated more leniently than those who only offend once or twice and then stop? If anything, the opposite is true. Social disapproval of homosexuality is probably not very strongly linked to whether or not it’s considered to be innate or immutable.
Thus, the real question is whether or not homosexuality harms anyone. If it harms no one, it should be tolerated regardless of its origin. As two important researchers in the field recently concluded, “…Regardless of what causes homosexuals to be homosexuals and regardless of whether they are born, choose to be, can be made not to be, or can or cannot control their behavior as homosexuals, homosexual conduct ought not to be condemned morally or proscribed legally” (Greenberg & Bailey, 1993, p. 251.)
REFERENCES:
Bailey, J.M. & Pillard, R.C. (1991). A genetic study of male sexual orientation. Archives of General Psychiatry, 48, 1089-1096.
Greenberg, A.S. & Bailey, J.M. (1993). Do biological explanations of homosexuality have moral, legal, or policy implications? The Journal of Sex Research, 30, 245-251.
LeVay, S. (1991). A difference in hypothalamic structure between heterosexual men and homosexual men. Science, 253, 1034-1037.
Pattatucci, A.M. L & Hamer, D.H. (1995). The genetics of sexual orientation: From fruit flies to humans. In P.R. Abramson, & S.D. Pinkerton (Eds.) Sexual nature, sexual culture. Chicago University of Chicago Press.
Wolfknight: To echo Chris, marriage is NOT, and by definition, can never be, about anything other than a man and a woman.
Luigi Novi: Wrong again. It can never be this? Says who? Language is artificial, dude. Man created it. Man can change it. The definitions of words evolve all the time, and have been since language was first created. Marriage can mean whatever we want it to mean. I think the word should refer to the union between two consenting adults in love with one another who want to celebrate their pair bond and create a family unit. Is it possible that it may not come to mean this? Sure. But to say that it will “never” come to pass is a bit presumptuous.
Wolfknight: Homosexuals seek to have society recognize something that many disagree with, simply for their own convenience.
Luigi Novi: Homosexuals’ reasons for wanting to marry have nothing to do with convenience, any more than heterosexuals’.
Avi Green: let me say that rights do not come from the government, but from God
Craig J. Ries: Well, thankfully, no one died and made you god. Pun intended.
Avi Green: Ah ah ah, Mr. Ries, this isn’t your website, and you are in no position to tell anyone else here how to run their business.
Luigi Novi: What does Craig’s comment have to do with whose website it is, or telling someone how to run their business?
Avi Green: Words don’t prove anything, I’m afraid. How do I know that you’re really married? How does anyone else here, in fact?
Luigi Novi: So you’ve been participating in a weblog discussion all this while, and when someone presents a statement that you can’t refute, you resort to accusing him of lying, simply because you’re that unable to accept that one can be married and not be religious?
Sorry, Avi, but this response of yours is just plain bunk.
Avi Green: You’ve been caught with your pants down insulting more than a few people here, and once again, you do so on a website that doesn’t even belong to you, with complete disregard for Mr. David and Mr. Hauman, respectively.
Luigi Novi: Again, what does insulting someone have to do with whose site it is? Why are you now changing the subject to the issue of Peter and Glenn, and acting as if you and they are “on the same side”?
Avi Green: You could’ve set a much better example by disagreeing politely, instead, you choose to make a fool out of yourself by just being snide and cynical, which is in complete contrast to what comic books like Superman and Spider-Man are all about, if we were to use those as examples.
Luigi Novi: What are you talking about? What do comic books have to do with anything? Who said that their moral center here was defined by comic books? We’re not inside a comic book. This is real life, and while I do not consider insults to be the bedrock of solid debate or discourse, two-dimensional fictional characters from comic books are hardly the best models after which to pattern one’s debating behavior in particular or one’s life in general.
I also should point out that Spider-Man tends to mock and insult his enemies quite a bit while fighting them. 🙂
James Tichy: In Lawrence v. Texas, the United States Supreme Court ruled Texas’s law against sodomy unconstitutional. That was a terrible court decision. And I think it will lead, eventually, to the legalization of much more: polygamy, incest, pedophilia, and even bëšŧìálìŧÿ.
Luigi Novi: There is no way in hëll that homosexual sex is in any way analogous to any of those things.
Peter David: A change which dictated that it was possible–even preferable–to have morality that was not dictated by, or separated from, religion. That virtue stemmed not from God’s will, but from what best benefited society.
Chris: I belive the technical term for this line of thinking is normative ethical reltivism which advocates, like you essentially said, that society decides for itself what is “good” or “bad.”
Luigi Novi: Wrong. Moral relativism holds that all moral systems are equally valid. Peter never said that. In fact, he never once mentioned “other” moral systems, or their validity. All he said was that people eventually came up with the idea that laws of the state should be secular rather than religious, and benefit society. That has nothing to do with relativism.
Chris: and we could begin a whole other blog on what do we mean when we call something good or bad.
Luigi Novi: If you think societies and communities need an entire blog to figure out whether murder, rape, armed robbery or perjury are wrong, then your problem isn’t Peter’s statement, or relativism. It’s a bigoted view towards the idea of man’s ability to create a civil society and govern himself.
Chris: Let me blunt: There is NO morality without God, all you have are those with power and those subject to that power.
Luigi Novi: Putting aside the fact that morality and law exited before the Bible was written, which flat-out disproves that notion, we live in a very religious society, and we STILL have those with power and those subject to that power. The U.S. is the most religious and the most religiously diverse nation on the planet, and yet there are still innocent people subject to those in power who hurt them for their own selfish ends, so the idea that you don’t have this simply because you have God is false, and transparently so.
James Tichy: The founding principles of America were strongly influenced by the Judeo-Christian tradition.
Luigi Novi: And Native American culture, Ancient Greek philosophy, the Enlightenment, etc. What’s your point?
James Tichy: Rather than call America a “Christian nation,” which may imply a church-dominated state, it’s more accurate to say that Americais a nation profoundly influenced by Christian principles. Americans’ beliefs have become far more diverse than they were in the days of the nation’s founding, but the Christian principles still at work in our democratic institutions are the prime reason that those institutions do indeed work.
Luigi Novi: But the country is also founded on, and is run by, laws that are not only not Judeo-Christian, but antithetical to it. Freedom of religion, separation of church and state, the Fourteenth Ammendment, economic freedom, capitalism, general rule of law, and many other principles upon which our society rests are in direct conflict with many of the Commandments, and yet our country is better off with these principles than without them.
James Tichy: Take equality. As every schoolchild knows, the United States was, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “dedicated to the proposition that ‘all men are created equal.’ ” Where did that idea come from? Christianity, of course.
Luigi Novi: That’s a lie. There is nothing in Christianity that orders its followers to regard all others as equal, and many parts of the Bible encourage slavery. If Christianity was the source of equality, then why were people so opposed to abolishing slavery? For that matter, why did they start it in the first place? And why, a hundred years after it was abolished, did people still oppose simple things like allowing blacks to drink from the same fountains, sit where they wanted on the bus, to vote, etc.? Where in the Bible does it say all men are created equal?
James Tichy: John Calvin taught that all men and women, regardless of social status, live their lives in the face of God. This meant that individuals did not have to approach God through either the church or the state. Crucially, the notion of coram Deo led to the insistence that the state’s role was limited. In the mid-seventeenth century, the Scottish clergyman Samuel Rutherford wrote Lex Rex, which means “the law is king.” Rutherford argued that ruler and ruled alike were subject to the same transcendent laws of God. These two Christian ideas, coram Deo and lex rex, influenced the founders and enabled them to break free from the tyrannical rule of King George III.
Luigi Novi: In other words, coram Deo and lex rex originated from men. Not from Christianity. The fact that the two guys who came up with it were Christian didn’t mean the notions themselves were derived from Christianity, any more than Newtonian physics ws derived from Anglicanism, or Indian independence from Britain was derived from Hinduism.
Avi Green: Ummm, as much as I hate to cut in here, gentlemen, lay off of Chris, if you will, kindly. Be advised, by reacting the way you are, you are sinking to a very low level yourselves, and I want to point out that if there’s any law that NONE OF US are immume to, it’s God’s Law. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s now or later, we are not above it. None of us. Period.
Luigi Novi: Wrong. I am not bound by your God’s command to hold no gods before him. I am not bound by your God’s command not to take his name in vain. I am not bound by your God’s command to keep his Sabbath holy.
Bladestar: Religion is just another human excuse to avoid taking responsibility for one’s self and to explain the unknown…
Luigi Novi: I don’t think that’s why religion came to be, or why most people practice it. I think many people practice religion in order to live responsibly, even if many others do not. I personally think religion might have been a good way to use myth and legend and metaphor to view the human equation and the great passages of life. It is unfortunate that many turned it into something else.
Bladestar: Why does “god” allow criminals who rape and kill to live and prosper but people who have never hurt anyone and only helped others suffer and die?
Luigi Novi: I don’t think of these things as contradicting religious beliefs. Rather, I think people formulated the myths of religion in order to help explain them.
Tim Lynch: Now, if you’d like to come tell me to my face that I lack morality because I don’t share your faith in some supreme being, let me know. Otherwise, you’re taking advantage of the net’s anonymity to blow smoke and rant about that which you do not understand.
Matt: Excuse me, but what the hëll are you talking about? At what point did Chris connect morality with a particular faith? All he did is say that a morality exists that is separate from ourselves.
Luigi Novi: That is not all he said, and Tim didn’t say anything about a “particular” faith. You have to be either illiterate or dishonest to have missed it when Chris said:
Let me blunt: There is NO morality without God, all you have are those with power and those subject to that power.
Seems pretty clear to me that he said way more than just that morality exists separate from ourselves.
Matt: At no pont did he say “The source of this morality is Allah”, or “Jesus”, or “Yaweh”.
Luigi Novi: He said “God,” with a capital “G.” You’re wrong.
Matt: You have just done ad hominem attacks without refuting his arguments.
Luigi Novi: Tim’s response was not ad hominem. Tim responded to Chris’ statement that there is no morality without God, which Tim interpreted to mean that atheists are not moral (though I am not certain if this was a correct interpretation or not). Tim didn’t dismiss Chris’ statement because of some personal gripe, which is what an ad hominem argument really is.
Peter David: Oh, well, far be it from me to believe philosophical arguments that have withstood the test of time over three and a half centuries over the sentiments expressed in a crappy Richard Gere movie.
Luigi Novi: LOL. Good one, Peter.
Luigi Novi: All behavior originates in the brain, and is therefore, by definition, natural.
So, why do we try to treat things like Tourett’s syndrome, Autism, Kluver Busey Syndrome,etc? Because, we know that people affected with such conditions are not functioning optimally. They may be born that way, but no one says, “There’s nothing wrong here”. As far that Article you posted on whether homosexuality is choice or not, the article itself admits that studies done by Levay could be interpreted as not as a cause, but as a result of. The author of the article did a slight of hand, in his argument for homosexuality. Since the brain sends the commands to act out a compulsion therefore it is natural. End of story. Not so fast. Brain’s can malfunction, and besides that the author’s assumption of biological determinism is not without its faults. For example, some people argue that there is no Free Will, but that all our choices are determind by the chemcial arrangements in our brains and we are just carrying them out. Nice theory, except they spend so much time trying to get the rest of us to change our minds, that they betray their own theory. Because if there is no free will, why waste time telling people to think a certain way, or write books or articles on it? I will say this: Homosexuality is not genetic & it is not a choice.
PAD wrote:You better hope that morality doesn’t stem from God, because if it does, He has a buttload to answer for.
Try reading the book of Job for some insight into this.
ok–i knew this would degenerate into an argument about religion sooner or later, but i just wanted to ask one question.
i’m gay. i’ve been living with my boyfriend for 3 years. what harm would it do, to you personally or to the country as a whole, to let me marry him? (justice of the peace, marriage license–just like “normal” people.) keep in mind that i could care less if churches recognized the marriage or not–that really is their business.
PAD–i read you’re blog every day, well almost, but hardly ever have time to comment. i would just like to thank you for its existence.
I find it amusing that a few of the posters here have more or less indicated that they’re athiests, in all their needless contempt, and it’s already enough to make me laugh. Novi and Ries, if you think you’re getting anywhere by insulting even PAD’s God, think again. You’re already a laughing stock in your own way, and I think it’s past your bedtime. And make sure that the door doesn’t hit you in the ášš on the way out.
James Lynch writes well:
Wow, this discussion has shifted from a discussion of the amendment banning gay marriage to attacks on/for religion. As this topic approaches 100+ messages, I’d say both sides should focus a little more on the amendment issue and a little less on who are religious zealots and who are godless heathens.
Thanks for weighing in, James. You’ve hit it right on the nail, but frankly, with the way that they go to all that trouble to identify themselves as athiests and non-believers, well…I can’t tell you how much I’m beginning to laugh at them. I sent a link to one of my colleagues at work, and he told me he fell off his chair with laughter. See, there comes a point when they become so silly, they only end up making themselves look more like clowns! Ha ha!
I love you guys! Well, by “you guys” I of course mean Luigi Novi, Tim Lynch, Kirk McPike and Darren J Hudak. I love YOU guys. Some of you others… not so much.
And of course you’ve got to love Peter for giving us all a forum for this fascinating study in sociopolitical and religious fervor.