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D.C. legalizes same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage was legalized today in the nation’s capital, making it the sixth US jurisdiction where the practice is legal.
The Religious Freedom and Civil Marriage Equality Amendment Act, which allowed same-sex couples to marry in Washington, was passed in December 2009, but because Washington is a federal district, the law had to undergo a congressional review until now.
Opponents of the bill filed court papers with Chief Justice John Roberts asking the Supreme Court to stop the law from taking effect so that they could hold a referendum on the issue. Roberts, however, denied the request, concluding that the “high court should defer to local matters in the federal district of Washington,” CNN reported. He also stated that opponents can pursue a ballot initiative to give D.C. voters a chance to repeal the marriage act after it becomes law.
Currently, same-sex marriage is also legal in Connecticut, Iowa, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont.
back to top198 Comments to “D.C. legalizes same-sex marriage”
How bigoted can you get? Are people who want to marry several constenting adults whom they love (polygamists) second class citizens? What about their rights to visit their various partners in hospitals? How cruel they are in DC. They also discriminate blatantly against polyamorists too. Why can’t they marry each other?
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While it is sad that this country is slowly turning away from traditional morals, I am glad that Justice Roberts followed Constitutional protocol over personal beliefs. Take note, all you who fear a Conservative court.
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There is zero civil marriage equality in DC and in the “Marriage Equality Amendment Act” for polygamists and polysamorists. What does DC have against equality? This allows same-sex couples to marry, but blatantly shuns same-sex triples and quads, and multiple-sex triples and quads and more! How totally dehumanizing! On what legal basis can they deny marriage equality to so many human beings who are so in love?
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It was the votes of African-Americans in California that made the difference and upheld Prop 8 (preserving marriage as a union between one man and one woman). If African-Americans (as well as other decent American citizens) are allowed to have their say at a ballot box, this may not stand.
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sin is sin
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I know there is all kinds of wailing and gnashing of teeth among the usual social conservatives over this … but let me reassure you: The advent of marriage equality for Gay couples will have absolutely ZERO effect on “traditional marriage.” The first state to allow Gay couples to marry, Massachusetts, still has the lowest divorce rate in the country. In all the states where Gay couples are allowed to legally marry or enter into civil unions, Straight couples continue to date, get engaged, marry, and build lives and families together as they always have. To be honest, if you think that YOUR marriage is going to suffer because the Gay couple down the street is allowed to get married also, I think YOU’RE the person who needs counseling.
From a purely Constitutional standpoint, marriage equality for Gay couples has been a long time coming. The only difference between Gay and Straight couples is the sexual orientation of the two people in the relationship. It has nothing to do with religion, since the only thing a church can offer any couple is a ceremony; it is the federal government that bestows the 1,138 legal benefits, according the Government Accounting Office.
It also has nothing to do with raising children, since a couple does not need to be married to have children, nor is the ability or even desire to have children a prerequisite for obtaining a marriage license.
This is about equal treatment as stipulated by the 14th Amendment. You can quote Scripture until the cows come home, but the fact remains that there is simply no Constitutional justification for denying law-abiding, taxpaying Gay couples the exact same legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities that Straight couples have always taken for granted. And it’s CERTAINLY not something that should be part of a popularity contest.
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6. But what about Christian businesses such as caterers and Photographers? Will they be allowed to turn down a job doing a gay wedding or will they be forced to violate their conscience or go out of business? What about a Christian run adoption agency. Will they be allowed to turn down Gay couples? What about a Christian run dating service?
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PolishBear, when put to a vote by the people of this nation, GLBT Community loses. That is why DC would not permitt the people of DC to vote on this issue.
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kBells
The Catholic Church has closed their adoption agency in DC. They knew that if they stay in DC. They would be force to permit the adoption to gay couples. Which goes against their faith.
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Polishbear in 6 is right about various things, as far as they go. The behavior of most of these perverts will have little immediate effect on the rest of us. But his/her post underscores why the Christian approach on this topic often misses the mark. It’s because it barely acknowledges God in the equation, and how He relates to and judges nations. It’s fine for us Christians to work in the courts, etc., to try keeping these absurd laws from the light of day, but if the argument against this selfish behavior isn’t primarily and prominently based on God’s clear condemnation of it, then there’s nothing to distinguish the argument from the “whatever’s right in his own eyes” morality of the degenerates.
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I used to see signs in business doors proclaiming “We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone”. If you’re a Christian caterer or wedding photographer and you reject a gay couple’s offer to hire you, presumably that couple has a yellow pages directory. In many cities they even have a “pink directory”.
The spillover from gay marriage laws is the invariable “curriculum changes” seen in those states. Homosexuality is normalized at the younger ages via bulletin boards, kid lit in the school library etc. I wont even mention what happens later with sex ed.
And since most parents lack vouchers to send their children to private schools..
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From a public policy perspective, When Government officials institute policies like this in the Nation’s capital, that type of “in your face” attitude, only serves to further alienate the elected public officials in DC from the rest of the country. It also add momentum to secessionists who are looking for excuses to withdraw from the union
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It would seem difficult, over time, to forbid such, based on the man-made documents of the of the U.S.
It’s all passing away.
“Behold, the nations [are] as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he taketh up the isles as a very little thing.” (Isa 40:15)
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Joe B those is charge of DC had a Chance to put this up for a vote by the people of DC. But rejected out right. They are afraid to let the people vote on this issue.
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Satan seeks to destroy the image of God’s holiness in marriage by creating an atmosphere of acceptability around behavior which deviates from God’s standards. When satan does this successfully, that image is greatly blurred. When society buys into his lies, then marriage no longer faithfully re-enacts the story of salvation. When we buy the physical lie, we lose the spiritual truth.
One of the great ploys that satan uses to devastate the image of God’s holiness (the others being fornication, adultery and divorce) is to make homosexuality acceptable as an ‘alternative’ lifestyle. Satan wants to make it legal, then acceptable, then even desirable. However, it’s actually a smokescreen. His ultimate goal is to promote the lie that people can actually find spiritual fulfillment outside of God. If the male-female relationship in marriage represents man’s spiritual union with God, then homosexual or lesbian relationships represent spiritual union without God, i.e. spiritual satisfaction with satan. There is no spiritual union with God except in a marriage done God’s way.
Satan’s ploys are crushing society, which is terrible, but the spiritual effect that he is having is even more devastating. The physical and emotional consequences of these sins are horrendous, but when the spiritual significance is attached, then their gravity is beyond comprehension.
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“but the fact remains that there is simply no Constitutional justification for denying law-abiding, taxpaying Gay couples the exact same legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities that Straight couples have always taken for granted.”
They already have the exact same legal benefits, protections, and responsibilitites. The confusion of a relationship in which both partners are on the same side of a binary, complementary sexual divide with a relationship that unites partners across that divide underlies that bit of self-deceiving arrogation of civil rights language. The two are defintionally not the same and equality does not apply to intrinsically differenct things. The institution of marriage has throughout the history of civilization referred to a relationship that unites separate sexes. People of any “sexual orientation” and of appropriate age, degree of consanguinity, and freedom from other marriage committments already have the same legal access to marriage as it has been defined throughout the history of western civilization.
Scandinavian nations that have had the longest experience with authorized same sex “marriages” have experienced precipitous drops in overall marriage rates. Households in which the adults are unmarried have the highest rates of domestic and child abuse, and children who grow up in those living arrangements experience the highest rates of social pathologies and poverty. The damage to our rising generation and to the health of our civilization is not something that should be left to a popularity contest or trivialized to placate narcisstic hedonists.
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#6 – “The advent of marriage equality for Gay couples will have absolutely ZERO effect on “traditional marriage.”
1. It’s not marriage equality. It’s not even marriage. But it’s not equality either in any sense as long as consenting adults in love who are polygamists and polyamorists also get to redefine marriage further to enforce euqlity for them too.
2. And to aver that an unprecidented extreme and radical redefintion of marriage at its core will have ZERO effect on “traditional marriage” is absurd and wrong on its face.
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#6 – “In all the states where Gay couples are allowed to legally marry or enter into civil unions, Straight couples continue to date, get engaged, marry, and build lives and families together as they always have.”
Of course, straight couples would also continue to date, get engaged, marry, and build lives and families together as they always have even if guitar picks could legally marry elephant dung (which, by the way, is considered an art medium in some circles).
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#6 – “To be honest, if you think that YOUR marriage is going to suffer because the Gay couple down the street is allowed to get married also, I think YOU’RE the person who needs counseling.”
This is a mindlessly blind advocate making up an argument that no one ever made or thought and actually thinking it makes sense to oppose it. Put the stinking straw away polishbear. We are not talking about my marriage and never were, but the definition of marriage itself in our society.
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I consider murder and torture and rape as evil. As I am a nihilist, I have no basis for these irrational prejudices.
I think civil union or domestic partnership reasonable compromises. Whomever is unwilling or unable to compromise on these reasonable alternatives will lose. Hard to say who is winning the race to the bottom.
Worldmagblog is getting more reasonable. Time for it to split into a new denomination?
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Compromise on sin is the devil’s handiwork.
This makes a mockery of marriage, and God will not mocked.
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#6 – “…the only thing a church can offer any couple is a ceremony; it is the federal government that bestows the 1,138 legal benefits, according the Government Accounting Office.”
1. Astonishing ignorance. The church offers Wise biblical guidance, community support, an extended spiritual environment, high moral standards, ongoing educational enrichment, mutual commitment, rich fellowship, a rich heritage, personal and godly accountability, counseling, healthy instruction, spiritual identity, prayer support, encouragement, a legacy of love, a legacy of faith and fidelity, a future of support, and much more. Or, does Polishbear not consider the above as “things?”
2. Polsihbear, do you support the federal government blatantly reusing those 1,138 legal benefits to loving polygamists and polyamorists?
_____________
The fact remains that there is simply no Constitutional justification for denying law-abiding, taxpaying homosexual couples, homosexual triples and quads, heterosexual quadrulpes & quintuples, and multi-sex groupings and same-sex siblings and same-sex parent and adult child combinations the exact same legal benefits, protections, and responsibilities that Straight couples have always taken for granted… or is there?
In the wise words of John Adams:
“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” (Adams, Oct. 11, 1798).
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Joel, what the left refused to admit. Is through out our Nation’s History. People have debated what marriage was to look like. The end result has always been one man and one woman, for marriage. The problem with today society, is the people have debated what marriage should like over and over again, an has voted for marriage to be between one man and one woman. But judges and people in power have decide that they have the rights to denied the people the vote or say what marriage is to look like.
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There is no such binary >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersexuality
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I have a question. Has anyone ever been arrested for NOT getting a marriage license? Is it legal for couples to co-habitate, have children and act like “family” without the state’s permission? Of course it’s legal! The First Amendment says so: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…” News flash! Marriage has always been a religious act, which is a constitutionally protected right from government interference. Therefore, Christians are not required to get a license. But Christians need to be careful of who they have marry them. You see, most pastors are “licensed” by the state and cannot marry couples without a marriage license. Otherwise, they are in violation of their agent status. It’s time Christians start taking this protection seriously.
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You people fight it out amongst yourselves. I am tired of being told how stupid I am and intolerant when I express my opinions. I’ll just hang out on the chatty World Views.
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If this nation would ever be a theocracy-hodge-podge via calculated coup, both simple Bible believers AND homosexuals would be among the hunted.
They’d both be waving down taxis to get out of Dodge.
:-O
“They shall put you out of the synagogues: yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will think that he doeth God service.” (Joh 16:2)
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Kim who called you stupid and intolerant?
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Through the victory at Calvary, fornicators, homosexuals, adulterers, etc. can experience changed lives, through the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and be delivered from their past sins.
AND yes, liberated from sinful THINKING and AFFECTIONS in these realms.
“How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?” (Heb 9:14)
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Scandinavian nations that have had the longest experience with authorized same sex “marriages” have experienced precipitous drops in overall marriage rates.
Canada was the first country to legalize same sex marriage and people are still getting married. The decline in marriage has occurred throughout the western world with or without gay marraige
Households in which the adults are unmarried have the highest rates of domestic and child abuse, and children who grow up in those living arrangements experience the highest rates of social pathologies and poverty.
This would be an argument to extend marriage to gay couples. Why withhold these benefits?
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hrw – it is against the law in Canada to preach about gay life style being a sin over the air wars also.
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This action will have no legal effect on the ability of caterers and photographers to accept or refuse business.
Besides, do these so-called Christian caterers refuse other engagements because they believe that the marriage is sinful? I doubt it. If so, they’d have to refuse to serve food for improper re-marriages of divorcees, interfaith marriages, etc. So, these so-called Christian caterers would be singling out one type of allegedly improper relationship from among other allegedly improper relationships. That seems to be a bit odd.
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Which, Pastor Roy, would be a violation of several First Amendment clauses in the US, but freedom of speech doesn’t matter to Canadians, certainly not the ones on the left, and they are literally too stupid to see the danger.
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I can “fire” a client any time I want, and that should be true for any caterer or photographer, etc., etc.
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Who said that gay marriages will hurt traditional marriage? I don’t think that works so much. It was a piece of rhetoric, used as a desperate stopgap measure.
No, the damage being done to society, marriage, and morality is far less quantifiable than all that, and has far more to do with the corruption of education, I think.
This is an awful lot of trouble and stress over, what, hypothetical hospital visitation rights and some tax benefit? For heaven’s sake, just allow visitation, and clarify the tax code! We’d ALL love to see that, I’m sure.
I like what CCC said. Marriage is a religious issue: the civil government’s use of the idea is misguided. Use something else to judge tax and property rights. Or, if you must, make a civil union type thing for that purpose, and leave that open to everyone.
The gay advocates are right, I think: a secular government has no business regulating marriage like this. But allowing gay marriage doesn’t solve the problem they’ve uncovered. I think they ought to get out of the marriage business entirely.
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And, no, I was not calling HRW stupid, just Canadians in general.
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Nonsense, TJS Catflower,
Marriage is a civic and cultural issue whether you like it or not. It lays the very foundation of civilization. All people, religious or not, have a legitimate interest in it and the gov’t (here in America) is all the people.
The government is the people and we sure do have legit business regulating marriage for our future.
If the gov’t gets out of the marriage business altogether, then the only rule left is absolutely anything goes. And so will our nation.
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People have been sued for refusing to photograph gay weddings. E-Harmony has been forced to match gay people and Catholic charities was forced out of Mass. for refusing to give children to Gay couples. I know videographers who will not shoot a wedding if they have moral problem with the marriage.
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I really don’t think gays are as interested in rights as much as they are in forcing the rest of us to affirm them.
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http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91486340
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Post 40 BTW is case after case where “gay rights ” won out over religious liberty, including a Christan photographer who did not want to shoot gay weddings.
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#37: Why is it a civic and cultural issue? Don’t you think we’re already at the point where anything goes?
As for marriage’s effect on culture: sounds like a term paper. This is just me, thinking out loud, with no education or sources at all, really. So my thoughts on the matter will necessarily be over-simplified. Enlighten me.
If you’re going to take that argument, though, you’ll have to come up with solid definitions and reasons why gay couples can’t provide the same function as straight ones.
Is it government’s business to set and regulate the culture, anyway? A secular government will favor a secular world and a secular culture. Giving government this kind of power is a mistake. It will turn on us. We will lose. We almost have already.
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I agree with KBells at 39.
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You lost already. Past the tipping point.
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TJS Catflower,
First, I was in a hurry when I wrote the last post to you and I did not go back over and take out over-stated words like “nonesense.” That was a first impuse word and I’m sorry I used it to you.
Second, no I do not think we are already at the point of “anything goes.” Not by a long shot. We still have some decent laws and standards. Otherwise, the homosexual militants would not be so tied up in a wad over them and wanting to change them.
Third, homosexual couples (or triples for that matter) cannot provide a mom and a dad in the home for the children they bear or raise. The mom role is too precious and absolutely cannot be replaced by some dude ‘lover’ in the home. The dad role cannot be filled by some lesbian replacement. You diminish motherhood and fatherhood when you replace it with homosexual alternatives. Homosexuals absolutely cannot provide a context for modeling the complementary love of a man and woman (profoundly ‘other’ to each other) to the children or anyone else in a home. Children reap the confusion and chaos of not fully knowing how to develop into well-functioning complimentary male-female relationships and not knowing whether the ones they will love will overcome such confusion themselves. It creates sexual chaos. It is utterly destructive of the things children most need from family and culture.
Fourth, legalize homosexual marriage and all sorts of draconian discrimination laws and lawsuits will follow depriving us of freedom of conscience and freedom of speech in public.
Fifth, you simply do not seem to grasp how fundamentally central marriage (one man and one woman) is to human civilization. The government need not regulate much of anything about how a husband and wife choose to live their lives and make decisions, but the very definition of marriage itself is far far more than a mere “regulation.” It is the WHOLE baby, not just the bath water. With all due respect, you seem to be in a moral coma, TJS.
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#39 KBells “I really don’t think gays are as interested in rights as much as they are in forcing the rest of us to affirm them. “
Correct. Otherwise they would not mind calling it a Civil Union or anything else. It is not marriage. Their agenda is to redefine marriage in their own image.
Matrimony is Latin for mother (matre) and money, i.e. monetary protection or right, just patrimony refers to legal entitlement. So is gay “marriage” about giving a woman legal monetary entitlement for her protection?
In marriage there is a husband and wife. And think about what the word husband means, i.e. keeper of the vineyard. In other words, the wife who bears the fruit is cared for by her husbandman. In gay “marriage” there can be no fruit. They’ll be redefining these words next.
Similarly some feminists refuse to call themselves wives or even women. They make it womyn. All of this is merely rebellion against nature’s God and who he has made them to be. Read all about it in Romans 1.
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Otherwise, the homosexual militants would not be so tied up in a wad over them and wanting to change them.
Does this represent an understanding that there are all sorts of homosexuals just as there are all sorts of Christians? The very same Christians who do not like to be lumped into one stereotyped group–such as the very primitive variety found at worldmagblog–are perfectly happy to stereotype all homosexuals into a silly and dumb and dismissive label such as “militant.”
Most homosexuals I have known–and I have known quite a few–just want to live their lives, just like most other people. If the wmb’ers did not live by stereotypes and silly labels, what would you live by?
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Correct. Otherwise they would not mind calling it a Civil Union or anything else.
Does this mean you suddenly don’t mind calling it “Civil Union,” as they do in a few places, or other variations such as domestic partnership? Don’t be such a tease.
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Third, homosexual couples (or triples for that matter) cannot provide a mom and a dad in the home for the children they bear or raise.
This is nonsense on so many levels. For one thing, lots of heterosexual couples fail these criteria by a million miles, just as lots do well. It’s not hard to create babies. It’s easy and fun. Bearing them is a little more difficult, but most women succeed well enough.
Being parents…ah, that’s difficult.
It’s more difficult for homosexuals to parent, but not impossible. Some succeed. Some do not.
The comment I cite was apparently written by someone who lives mostly in a fantasy world, which he shares with lots of other people who live in a fantasy world, where perhaps they alleviate their pain and misery by posting scores of bitter and negative comments on a daily basis.
(This is a cheerful though misanthropic comment, on the other hand.)
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Wow. I mean, WOW, #10. Have you ever read anything so hateful? I really thought this kind of horrifying thought was behind us…
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A moral coma? Yes, actually, that is rather accurate, in areas of my life. However, my current problems don’t really relate to my views on this issue, although the general attitude may have leaked through. I haven’t said a single thing on this thread about the morality of homosexuality. I was trying to be pragmatic, and come up with an idea that everyone could be equally unhappy with.
Homosexual couples do not provide a mother and a father. This is damaging to children. All of this is true. Not as damaging as divorce, probably, but still.
What would you do to fix that? Supporters will probably say that children get their role-models elsewhere, and would perhaps latch on to that in an attempt to give government educators more power over the children.
You should have a secular reason to have a secular government allow marriage in one case but not another. (I’ve admitted before that my disapproval of the homosexual lifestyle comes entirely from religion.) Perhaps you are suggesting we shouldn’t have a secular government? I don’t think you’ll get very far with that idea in this life, although it is probably the best solution.
The reason I thought government should get out of marriage is precisely because I do not want them to have the power to define, re-define, and enforce it. The church should do that.
What does the government do with marriage? Apparently, tax benefits, visitation, and property rights. None of that is important to the idea of marriage, and yet they are using it in an attempt to redefine marriage. They are right, I think. There is no good reason to deny gay people those things. And therefore: my thought that those things shouldn’t be tied to marriage. Then, it would not be tied to a secular government that is intent on dragging it down the drain.
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What we have now is more or less unprecedented: a culture that denies religious authority. The problem is, I don’t know how I would fix the issue without causing a worse problem. Forcing religion is never a good choice.
This was the original reason to keep government limited, after all: to prevent its interference in religion and God-given rights.
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I’m afraid that I pretty much agree with TJS Catlover. Other than God’s law (which I do take seriously), I find no secular reason for banning homosexual marriage, or — unfortunately — polygamous marriage or other similar arrangements.
Unlike most homosexual advocates, I think the arguments for gay marriage fit virtually identically for those advocating polyamorous or polygamous, etc. marriages.
I think homosexuality is morally wrong. And, yes, governments DO enforce morality all the time when it benefits society. I’m just not sure that a secular society can use morality to ban homosexuality unless it can be proven to hurt others, and I’m not sure that it can be proven to do so.
I lean toward keeping the term “marriage” in the province of churches, and the government can come up with some other legal arrangement for consenting adults.
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TRS, I would go along with if it weren’t for all the anti-discrimination laws that would try to force people to celebrate these unions against their conscience. Look at the link oat Post 40.
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TRS wrote; “Other than God’s law (which I do take seriously), I find no secular reason for banning homosexual marriage, or — unfortunately — polygamous marriage or other similar arrangements.”
This is ridiculous. Your inability to find a decent reason (secular or not) for preserving the definition of marriage as one man and one woman reveals a profound, well, lack of decency on your part, and a lack of reason.
This inability of yours is hurtful to our nation’s children and their future and ours.
* It hurts a much higher number of children who need a mom and a dad in the home and won’t get them (this will undermine that value and priority).
* It hurts decent adoption agencies.
* It hurts us all in the vast increase in sexual confusion.
* It hurts all in breaking down any definition of marriage (you basically said you find no reason for just about ANY substantive definition of marriage).
* It hurts children who lose focus on the definition of family.
* It hurts children who will lose focus on the value of family.
Homosexual marriage will break down the very definition of words like “father”, “mother”, “grandpa”, “grandma” and much more.
* It hurts God deeply.
* It shatters one of God’s most sacred gifts.
TRS, your admitted blindness to the hurt you cause does NOT make your views or actions ethical, nor does it make them any less hurtful.
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TRS wrote; “I’m just not sure that a secular society can use morality to ban homosexuality unless it can be proven to hurt others, and I’m not sure that it can be proven to do so.”
“Hurt” is NOT the only standard for law or ethics, TRS. Where did you ever get these notions?
If free poitical speech “hurts” others, that does NOT mean it can be banned or censored legally.
If discipline “hurts” a child, that does NOT mean it is wrong or immoral. Actually, it is often born of love.
Frankly, TRS, the TRUTH often “hurts!” Do you want to let truth be banned? Keeping your word often hurts at the perceptual level, but decent people do it anyway!
There is much more to ethics than the cheap notion that unless it “hurts others,” it is fine. Who are you to say what “hurts others” in the short or long run? Tiger Woods did NOT want to “hurt” his children. He just did not perceive or see how his actions were IN FACT hurting his children. He thought what he did would be find as long as it did not hurt others, so not only did he act indecently, he ALSO indecently covered it up to protect others from being “hurt.” TRS, you scare me. Tthere is much more to morality than the perception of hurting others. Real hurt goes beyond your limited perception of it TRS. And there is ACTUALLY such a thing as right and wrong!
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Most homosexual activists I have known just want to control other people’s attitudes and lives, destroy the freedoms of others (like the Boy Scouts), have more access to please in more places and in more ways, change our culture, and they live by bigoted stereotypes regarding those with whom they disagree and give silly labels to others (labels like “breeders’, “haters” and so on).
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I meant, “access to pleasure in more places…” in my post above.
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#49 – Indeed, homosexual couples (or triples for that matter) cannot provide a mom and a dad in the home for the children they bear or raise. This is obvious. I am not just talking about “creating babies”, but creating families with the mom and dad of those babies loving each other and living in the home together to raise the children together. Homosexual groupings simply cannot provide this. Never have, never will–no exceptions.
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TJS Catflower wrote; “I was trying to be pragmatic, and come up with an idea that everyone could be equally unhappy with.”
Good luck with that one. Why couldn’t homosexuals be “happy” with the Boy Scouts simply being free to follow their own policies? Making angry homosexual activists happy is not possible.
TJS Catflower wrote: “You should have a secular reason to have a secular government allow marriage in one case but not another.”
Where do you get this “should?” How about a DECENT reason, secular or not? We are not a totally secular nation. And there is no way to totally isolate secular and sacred reasons in a mixed society. In your attempt to isloate them, TJS, why do you give ALL power to the secularist side? When you give ALL the power to the secularists, and demand reasons ONLY on their terms and by their standardds, you have forced a complete loss on those who base any values on their faith.
If the government gets out of marriage altogether, then it simply and for all practical purposes becomes ANYTHING anyone wants it to be.
TJS Catflower wrote; “What does the government do with marriage?”
I already answered this. Are you just not reading my posts?
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Joel Mark,
A small correction: it’s TJS Catlover, not Catflower.
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NJLawyer – freedom of speech does not matter to those who support the GLBT Community. I was told last night on the locally newspaper that if the Christian Chaplains have a problem with the gay life style, they Christian Chaplain should be thrown out of the Military.
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tjs catlover 03.04.10 AT 12:47 AM
What we have now is more or less unprecedented: a culture that denies religious authority.
–
This is the same reason why society said it was wrong for a man to have more then wife or a woman to have more then one husband. Why people can not marry within their own family. What age people can marry.
The problem is when the debate on the above issue happen over marriage, our society had some type of moral back ground to look at, in order to make a wise decision. Today after years of be demonized by people who hate the idea of a moral standard for people live like. Our society does not have some type of moral back ground to look at, in order to make a wise decision.
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this is why we are facing a society that is so willing to embrace sin an call it right and take the Christian Faith an call is wrong.
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Thanks Pauline,
I am actually sight impaired. I deal with tiny blind spots and sometimes, my mind fills in the visual blanks. No offense was ever intended. Thanks again.
Joel
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When the government acts to legalize same-sex marriage it will necessarily increase it’s legal and financial and even personal oversight over marriage in our culture. Government always has to enforce its actions. That’s what governments do. It will have to manage all sorts of benefits on all sorts of newfound pretexts. It will get more into the adoption business. It will get more into the censorship business. Public schools will be force to sanction and praise homosexual marriage and teach it to children. It will lead to many more new legal definition changes. It will determine private insurance questions and benefit entitlements. Prive businesses will be forced, against their consciences, to submit to the homosexualist agenda.
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Joel,
the government will also have to label any group that speaks out against the homosexualist agenda as being bigots and then revoke all funding and tax’s exempt status.
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Kbells and NJL, up in the 30 posts somewhere and any of you with the same opinion:
I for one couldn’t give a rat’s behind what you think of me and mine. Attitudes on this board have been clear that the notion of hating the sin and loving the sinner is not something ya’ll demonstrate nor that compassion is in your lexicon unless condemning the horrors of sexual sin of others.
For me and mine, I do want visitation rights in hospital, clear legal authority on wills, health care and tax benefits. For those who sneer back, but you have them – Fine. Here’s my deal, tax breaks for couples like mine so we don’t have to pay for you. This should appeal to the right wingers among you who endless belly-ache about taxes.
Oh and Pastor Roy, I believe your speech is frequently offensive and appalling, but I defend your right to speak. So take your stereotypes and put them where they belong.
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Joel Mark,
I’m reading your posts, they’re simply not convincing.
First of all, I don’t appreciate (and I doubt that TJS Catlover does either) having my opinions twisted, added to, and belittled.
Secondly, I said quite clearly that I believe in an absolute, moral right and wrong, and that homosexuality is wrong. However, in our government, OTHER THAN THE BIBLE, I do not see any reasons that make sense for banning it.
Every reason you give either goes back to the Bible (and God’s Word on the subject) or could be equally applied to unmarried heterosexual couples, single-parent households, and so on. Not one of your reasons for banning homosexual unions is exclusive to homosexual unions.
And, kbells, I *do* agree with you. A photographer, a Christian group, whatever should have the right NOT to service a homosexual couple based on religious reasons, EXCEPT when it is an emergency situation (no doctor or dentist or fireman or policeman etc. should be able to refuse emergency services to anyone. Non-emergency services, though…absolutely.)
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Most homosexual activists I have known just want to control other people’s attitudes and lives, destroy the freedoms of others (like the Boy Scouts), have more access to please in more places and in more ways, change our culture, and they live by bigoted stereotypes regarding those with whom they disagree and give silly labels to others (labels like “breeders’, “haters” and so on).
I am so glad that the person who posted this comment does not engage in generalizations, stereotypes, wild accusations, try to tell other people how to live their lives (outside of trying to ban murder, rape, and torture), or spend much of his time posting useless comments on a forum for religious fanatics to read and applaud, as I waste my time. Well they seldom read and applaud my comments, to be fair.
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#67
homosexualist agenda
What is the “homosexualist agenda”?
How can I distinguish this from the “homo hysteri”c agenda?
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Random, I was responding to the generalization you posted already at #47. If you can generalize, then I can do so to illustrate the weakness of your generalizations.
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I would be more than happy if someone could give me some SECULUAR reasons that I could really believe for banning homosexual unions. But, I’ve simply never heard any convincing reasons.
I know of lots of good moral and biblical reasons.
But, no secular reasons.
I would be okay (at this point…you can still convince me if you stop belittling me while doing it), with marriage being only allowed between men and women, some sort of “legal unions” for others, and PLENTY of protections for people who do not want to endorse homosexuality. (In other words, freedom for the Boy Scouts, freedom for non-emergency services to be referred to someone else, and no forcing of the agenda in public schools.)
Although, I know that this last is impossible. Many homosexuals don’t just want rights and to live their lives (as Random says), they want full ACCEPTANCE, which is something no Christian can ever really give.
Tolerance, certainly. Acceptance, no.
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wow so much anger and hate from #68
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TRS
Why do you think our Nation step up an said marriage is only between one man and one woman. When the debate happen over having more then one wives and husbands?
Why do you think our Nation step up an said marriage is only between one man and one woman, when the debate happen over what age people can marry?
Why do you think our Nation step up an said people can not marry within their own family. when the debate happen over it?
Where did the people get the strenght and moral right to say no to those type of marriage?
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TRS wrote; “I don’t appreciate… having my opinions twisted, added to, and belittled.”
That sounds like an accusation. If so, you have accused me falsely and did not even bother to illustrate your accusation or back it up. I identified what it was I disagreed with you on and responded honestly and cllearly and all my opinions are my own. You owe me an apology, TRS.
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#76
No, Joel Mark. I don’t. You owe me one.
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TRS,
I have expressed a host of good reasons for opposing the enforced legalization of same-sex marriage and have not referred to the Bible. Not once. Yet you claim (for me, and falsely) that every reason I gave “either goes back to the Bible (and God’s Word on the subject) or could be equally applied to unmarried heterosexual couples, single-parent households, and so on.”
That’s a direct mischaracterization of my reasons. Speak for yourself, TRS. I do not recall making any application or even a mention of heterosexual couples, single-parent houseeholds and so on, nor do I think such relationships should be given the status of marriage–not until those people actually and legally get married themselves. And I think there are some similar and some different extra-biblical reasons for not enforcing a change in the legal definition of marriage to accomodate those groups. You are conflating and blurring and overly dichotomizing the issue in my view in order to accomodate radical changes in the legal definition of marriage.
TRS wrote; “Not one of your reasons for banning homosexual unions is exclusive to homosexual unions.”
I disagree, but so what if they’re not? Who said they need to be exclusive? They are still good reasons. And you are still ignoring them. There are a lot of other legalized definition changes I would also oppose with the same reasons (and with other reasons too). Your point is completely irrelevant to mine.
______________
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TRS in my debate on the issue for Gay’s in the Military. I have been told by many who support it. They have no problem and believe that all Christian Chaplains and Soldier who believe homosexual is morally wrong should be kicked out of the Military. This is coming from the same group, who are yelling, kicking and screaming that they can not servie in the Military. This group of people will not be happy until they are the ones telling people who to live.
The Christian Church and the Christian are viewed as their enemy. The reason we are the ones standing up an saying it is ok to say no them.
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If same-sex marriage was legalized, Christian photographers, adoption agencies and others would face horrible lawsuits (you know they would, and they already are) to defend their alleged right to deny service a homosexual couple and they would probably not win. People like TRS can have a decent opinion about this not being appropriate, but until this opinion is backed up in law or legislation, Christians will still face all that nonsense without a gool legal leg to stand on. Also, we could NOT even have Christian judges in the first place because an actual Christian judge could not stand by the new laws in good conscience. They would have to step down or participate against their conscience.
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“reveals a profound, well, lack of decency on your part, and a lack of reason.”
-Joel Mark to TRS
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TRS, you do owe me an apology but I do not expect it. But even worse, you totally ignore my points. Yet you continue to stand by your disparaging and false accusations against me. At least respond to me intelligently.
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“Real hurt goes beyond your limited perception of it TRS. And there is ACTUALLY such a thing as right and wrong!”
- Joel Mark to TRS despite the fact that she had already said (and has said many times over the years) that she believes in absolute right and wrong, and who NEVER even implied on this thread that she did not.
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“Do you want to let truth be banned?”
- Joel Mark to TRS despite the fact that TRS never had implied any such thing.
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I could go on, but I won’t.
And, again, I most certainly have read your arguments. I find them unconvincing and even completely off the mark in many cases.
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Oh, and calling TJS Catlover in a “moral coma” for his opinions would also be belittling IMO. (He took it well. I wouldn’t have.)
We happen to be Christians. You are shooting members of your own team because we don’t believe exactly as you do.
You place words in our mouths, ideas in our heads that we have not expressed and do not believe.
And, your points just simply didn’t merit a response one by one. I found them completely unconvincing.
And, if I’m on your “team” and I don’t buy them, how are you going to “sell” them to the vast majority of the rest of the country who are NOT on your “team?”
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Folks
The GLBT Community do not want people looking at the past debates on marriage. The reason is, when people step back, an ask the question why have our society in the marriage debate always go back to one man and one woman. People come to a understand it is ok to say no to Gay marriage and out nation will not fall apart.
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TRS, I stand by my point that what you wrote does, in my view, reveal a lack of decency on your part. You wrote that you could find no secular reason for opposing homosexual marriage, or polygamous marriage or other similar arrangements. That conveys an anything goes legal ethic and you seem willing to let it fly, no matter who it hurts. In my opinion, it is indecent not to oppose such radical and consequential legal changes. Too many lives and our culture itself is at stake. Again, your inability to find a decent reason (secular or not) for opposing such harmful and hurtful enforced changes reveals a profound lack of decency on your part.
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TRS, Joel it is ok to have a disagreement.
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TRS, your claim to find no reason to oppose this legal enforcement of a change in the defintion of marriage belies your claim to believe in right and wrong. That was my point. Your view is as if you really did not think there was a right and a wrong to apply here. You can say one thing and hold a position that contradict your claim.
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Joel – the question that those who support gay marriage will not answer is why has our society, when ever the debate happens over marriage alsways went back to marriage being between one man and one woman.
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Regarding #84,
TRS wrote at #53, “I’m just not sure that a secular society can use morality to ban homosexuality unless it can be proven to hurt others, and I’m not sure that it can be proven to do so.”
I disagree with both your point and your premise. Homosexuality can be shown to hurt others, especially children and teens (like a 4-fold suicide rate, and more). But we were talking about same-sex “marriage” and changing the definition of marriage to legalize it. Plus, I disagree that our perception of hurt is even the right criteria for such moral questions. To illustrate my point, I said that the truth can hurt. Is that hurt an adequate reason for legislating against it?
Thus, I never slightly implied that you were saying that you wanted truth to be banned. Are you missing my point intentionally?
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#90
I disagree. I said that I can find no SECULAR reason. I can find plenty of Biblical reasons.
You keep accusing me of not reading your posts, and I must ask the same of you. Are you actually reading mine?
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TRS have you looked at my posting? I would love you and Joel to answer the question.
Why do you think our Nation step up an said marriage is only between one man and one woman. When the debate happen over having more then one wives and husbands?
Why do you think our Nation step up an said marriage is only between one man and one woman, when the debate happen over what age people can marry?
Why do you think our Nation step up an said people can not marry within their own family. when the debate happen over it?
Where did the people get the strenght and moral right to say no to those type of marriage?
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Joel Mark,
You may disagree, but telling me that I have a lack of decency for my legitimate opinion is belittling and rude.
I completely accept and believe the biblical position on homosexuality. But, unless you are going to run our country as a theocracy, I have yet to be convinced by any of the secular arguments for banning it that you have suggested.
That is a a disagreement and a difference of opinion. It does not give you the right to tell me that I have no decency. That is a personal attack and unkind to boot.
I happen to be a very decent person, with strong standards of morality. We disagree on how those standards should be applied in the political arena. That is all.
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Pastor Roy,
Partly, I haven’t answered because it is often difficult to understand what you are writing. I understand that this is not your fault, but it takes more of my time to decipher it, and so I often skip it when I don’t have the time or don’t want to give it. My apologies. I have a brother with dyslexia, so I know that it is not your fault, and I do not mean to belittle you. I’m just explaining why I sometimes skip your posts. Laziness on my part.
“Why do you think our Nation step up an said marriage is only between one man and one woman. When the debate happen over having more then one wives and husbands?”
******I think they did this because they were against the Mormons. I think a good case can be made from the Bible for only one man/one woman marriages, but I’ve also heard good cases (although I don’t accept them) for polygamous marriages from the Bible (certainly if we are going by example!)
So, I honestly think, though, that the nation went against polygamy because of its antagonism toward the Mormon faith.******
Why do you think our Nation step up an said marriage is only between one man and one woman, when the debate happen over what age people can marry?
*******When did this happen? I would need to see the arguments and the time period under discussion to answer this. I imagine that they simply ASSUMED it would be one man and one woman, and as to why they made the ages where they did, I could only guess without researching it.******
Why do you think our Nation step up an said people can not marry within their own family. when the debate happen over it?
*******I think there is plenty of evidence, scientific and psychological, that marriage within a family is damaging. Children of close unions are more likely to be deformed. All the way around it causes familial disunity, jealousies and difficulties. There are reams of studies that confirm this.******
Where did the people get the strenght and moral right to say no to those type of marriage?
******I think that it is largely the result of societal pressure. People believe something is morally wrong and abhorrent, and most of us prefer to “get along” with the consensus around us.
Originally, I think this societal consensus came from the Bible, although the taboo against familial marriage has been pretty consistent around the globe (even in non-Christian countries) except for a few notable exceptions (Egypt and the royal European families of the Middle Ages and Renaissance). ******
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TRS wrote; “You are shooting members of your own team because we don’t believe exactly as you do.”
We do disagree. And I am simply expressing my views on an issue that I consider extremely destructive. I cannot know who is really on what “team” on a blog like this. I can only go by what is said and respond to it. I have been careful not to place any words in anyone’s mouth. But I do try to illustrate the logical upshot, in my opinion, of various positions.
I cannot control what you “buy” or not TRS and I offer my views for the consideration of all who wish to read them, accept them or not. But whatever the “vast majority of the rest of the country” thinks, these days, is not much of an ethical guide.
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TRS what is the different between those arguments and the ones being made today against same sex marriage?
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TRS 03.04.10 AT 2:29 PM
Pastor Roy,
Partly, I haven’t answered because it is often difficult to understand what you are writing. I understand that this is not your fault, but it takes more of my time to decipher it, and so I often skip it when I don’t have the time or don’t want to give it. My apologies. I have a brother with dyslexia, so I know that it is not your fault, and I do not mean to belittle you. I’m just explaining why I sometimes skip your posts. Laziness on my part
–
at lest you are honest.
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TRS, it was what you wrote that in my view revealed a lack of decency. Don’t take it so personally. I don’t mean it that way. But the harn your views, in my opinion, will do to children in our nation and to our future indeed calls for a frank response.
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#98
Pastor Roy,
There are lots of differences.
Mormons are not advocating same-sex unions. The Bible does not give examples of same-sex unions. Societal pressure has changed from a Biblical basis to a different basis. There are no serious scientific studies that I know of that show explicitly that homosexual unions will damage children genetically, nor even necessarily psychologically (although I’m sure that the latter could be argued.)
And, for the rest, I’m not sure the question makes sense to me.
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TRS wrote; “But, unless you are going to run our country as a theocracy, I have yet to be convinced by any of the secular arguments for banning it that you have suggested.”
Our nation has NEVER been a “theocracy” TRS. Never close. Yet, we have been a great Christian nation throughout our past and we have successfully stoood by principles founded in Christian values and convictions. And when we fell short of our convictions and ideals, we often applied Christian values to work to correct our wrongs. Christians have every right to express those convictions to preserve what is right and correct what is wrong.
I do have a right to express what sort of views I think lack decency. You have a right to disagree.
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68. CB. I don’t’ have a problem with you getting tax breaks. You should, of course be able to decide who you leave your stuff or you kids and who visits you in the hospital. What you shouldn’t have a right to do is force me to take your picture, on church property or help you find a mate or adopt a kid. Get rid of all the anti-discrimination laws and you can call yourself anything you want.
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#103
That’s pretty much where I’m at.
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Atheists, supposed chemical-onlyites, might suggest a separation from the distinction of being “PERSONS”, since they’re only chemicals.
Thus, there could be, in a given nation, “Entity Compounds” that could reside in relative close proximity to each other.
Sodiumites, calciumites, potassiumites, etc.
Marriage would then clearly follow infallible, Biblical positions.
Christians would be the deciders and thinkers due to being MORE than simply chemistry.
And we know that a “sound mind” begins at new birth…
“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (2Ti 1:7)
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TRS – The arguments put out by the GLBT Community and their supports are the same arguments put out by those who believe it is ok to have more then one wives and husbands.
1. Their relationship are between two loving adults.
2. That they should have the right to marry who they want.
3. That what they do in the bed room is their own business.
4. They are being targeted by Christian who are using the Government to force their moral values, views and ideas on to them.
These arguments were used also when the debate came about what age and if you can marry with in ones family. An are being used today.
So TRS if these arguments failed back then, why are they winning now?
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The arguments failed back then because we had different societal standards (more Bible-based) and because most people had a strong dislike for the Mormon church.
Today, our societal standards are not as bible-based, and there is not the same prejudice against the Mormon church.
Again, I have never argued that it is wrong biblically. But you can’t enforce biblical rules on a secular society that no longer accepts them.
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Whoops!
I have never argued that it is NOT wrong biblically.
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that is the problem, our society had a secants of some type of moral standards. But I would point out that around the 1960’s, we started to see our nations moral standards come under attack. After 50 years of attacking and rewriting our nation history and understand of our founding father views and our nation moral standards has declined into a stated of immoral standards.
This is why the arguments being used today for Gay Rights seem to be working.
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I hope you can understand what I wrote.
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#109
Okay, but as TJS Catlover said, what is you answer to that? Do we force people to accept Biblical morality?
See, I don’t agree that we can or should do that. We can be depressed all we want that society no longer uses the Bible as its general moral code, and we can work to spread the Gospel and change people’s hearts, but I don’t think we can force the laws to change back to Biblically-based laws unless we have a majority who believe that way.
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#107 – “But you can’t enforce biblical rules on a secular society that no longer accepts them.”
But you sure can advocate for them, unless the said “secular” society is no longer free. I wish that radical secularists had thought that you can’t enforce secular rules on a free and predominantly Christian society that did not accept them.
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TRS, having moral standard as nation does not mean we had a Christian Standard as a nation.
Look at CA an Prop 8. Not the most friendly location for the Christian Faith. But they still voted down gay marrige.
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But you sure can advocate for them, unless the said “secular” society is no longer free. I wish that radical secularists had thought that you can’t enforce secular rules on a free and predominantly Christian society that did not accept them.
******Now see? I can absolutely agree with you on these two statements. I see no problem advocating for keeping marriage between a man and a woman (although I think we’re going to lose, and — when we do — it might be nice if we could at least get the compromise of leaving the word “marriage” to the traditional definition and give them something else), and I also agree that radical secularists ought to show the same respect for us (but it will never happen, so don’t hold your breath!)
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Our Nation has struggled with moral vlaues, time and time again.
But time and time again as a Nation was have found the strenght to say no to immoral views.
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TRS God’s Word says that Society will embrace sin.
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I’m unaware of any Bible passage that admonished anyone for catering a gay wedding. There are many reasons why the first amendment does not protect the ability of anyone to adhere to his/her conscience, but protects only religious practice. There is no great Christian tradition of individuals not catering gay weddings. It’s not in the book of worship, and it’s not in the Bible!
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mynock – a case could be made that because they disaprove of same sex marriage and if they catering it. It could give the impression that they support same sex marriage. So they do not want to give such an impression.
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#117: Immaterial. You let them make their own choices and individual decisions, even if they’re wrong. You do not get to force people to believe and think as you do.
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Legalizing same sex marriage implicitly says it’s ok to engage in homosexuality.
Anybody ever heard of a gay teen being counseled to remain a virgin until marriage?
STD’s are rampant in the homosexual community now. Advocating for same sex marriage only makes it worse as kids are taught that same sex relations are ok.
What does it cost to treat all these diseases? How does that impact health insurance costs? What is the cost of developing new antibiotics as, for instance, over 25 percent of the syphilis cases in the homosexual community are resistant to the standard antibiotic?
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tjs catlover – why can they force their beliefs onto the rest of society?
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#102: Oh, certainly we have a right to. It’s just not working so well. We need a better solution. We can keep fighting this way, and we will win some (New York?) and we will lose some (D.C?). And then, the ones that we win will be whittled down, attacked, and probably eventually overturned (California?).
Meanwhile, the education system grows ever more subversive and all-encompassing, and our arguments, either through actual bigotry or careless speech, alienate vast numbers of people. Honestly, have you ever seen sign-wielding anti-gay protesters do anything useful? The way they go about it is all wrong. It makes even me want to smack them.
Or, we can try something better.
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#121: They… can’t? Mynock was just saying that Christians are not called to refuse to serve or associate with gay people. Indeed, though s/he probably doesn’t know or believe it, tghe truth is quite the opposite.
I pointed out that you cannot force people to do the right thing, or to be consistent. You must let them make personal decisions, in the end, even if they’re wrong.
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Addendum to #122: And, eventually, we will no longer have that right.
The government may be the most powerful tool available, but using it is a huge mistake. If we use the government to force down gay couples, it undermines our conservative goals, and alienates us from most people. And, that’s if we’re successful.
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tjs catlover – We need a better solution.
We can educate people, We can point why it is wrong all day long.
God’s Word has the finial say. In the last day God’s Word tells us man will not endure sound doctrine. This is why we see the changes in our education system and in churches.
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tjs catlover, sorry the Christian are not the ones using government to force down gay couples. It is the GLBT Community that is using the government to force down their moral values, views and ideas onto the rest of scoiety.
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#119, TJS Catlover wrote; “You do not get to force people to believe and think as you do.”
This is exactly what the homosexual activists are trying to do by using the law to enforce a radical redefintion of marriage.
Anything the government does is, by definition, a use of force or a threat to do so. Otherwise, there is no way to back up the laws or policies it passes and thus no order to society. If you do not believe anyone can force anyone else to do or think anything, fine, but in that case you don’t believe in government at all.
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My post # 30
Scandinavian nations that have had the longest experience with authorized same sex “marriages” have experienced precipitous drops in overall marriage rates.
Canada was the first country to legalize same sex marriage and people are still getting married. The decline in marriage has occurred throughout the western world with or without gay marraige
Households in which the adults are unmarried have the highest rates of domestic and child abuse, and children who grow up in those living arrangements experience the highest rates of social pathologies and poverty.
This would be an argument to extend marriage to gay couples. Why withhold these benefits?
Pastor Roy’s Response #31
hrw – it is against the law in Canada to preach about gay life style being a sin over the air wars also.
Can someone please tell what his response has to do with my post?
Or is simply easier to change the subject and focus on the person or his attributes — ie nationality
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TJS Catlover wrote; “If we use the government to force down gay couples, it undermines our conservative goals, and alienates us from most people.”
Who is talking about “focing down gay couples?” We are specifically talking about a legal definition of marriage itself are we not? We are no more talking about “forcing down gay couples” as we are about forcing down homosexual triples, quadruples, quintuples, and heterosexual triples, quadruples, quintuples, or same-sex sibling couples or triples or various-sex groupings or any other combination of consenting adults who claim to be in love.
And how does in undermine conservative goals to advocate for them? If alienating others is your criteria for hindering yourself or others from from doing what is right, they you can forget about ever doing anything that is right. Don’t be intimidated. Don’t be afraid of success.
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HRW, Pator Roy was making an intelligent point based on actual experience already seen in Canada. If you legally sanction same-sex marriage, then you are likely to empower lawsuits and other forms of public opposition to anyone who refuses to accept that legal measure and says so. They can be falsely charged with hate and other “thought crimes.” Any Christian who is a judge or an educator or a landlord may have to violate their conscience or lose their career or property, if laws or definitions like this are passed and draconian measures are used to enforce them or punish dissenters. And such draconian tactics are all too common for homosexual activists. Consider how vicious they are the the Boy Scouts.
Once passed, policies, definitions and laws have to be enforced don’t thy? Lawmakers will have stronger grounds for using alleged “hate-crime” claims to prevent public statements (preachers included) that the law contradicts, based on non-discrimination rationales.
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hate crime laws preceded gay marriage in Canada. Many of the suits you talk about preceded gay marriage. Personally I opppose hate crime laws especially in terms of speech — let the idiots speak so the world knows who they are.
However, it doesn’t remotely touch upon my statements which rebut previous comments
1) a decline in marriage rates occurred prior to gay marriage, the two have nothing to do with each other. In fact, Canada, the first country to legalize same sex marriage, hasn’t seen a change in the marriage rate.
2) the opening post suggested that marriage extends benefits to couples and their children not held by unmarried couples — I suggest this is a reason to favor extending marriage to include same sex couples.
Neither argument was addressed.
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Wow! I’ve never seen a Protestant religious schism take place right before my own eyes. Who will get to stay in charge of thw worldmagblog church and who will have to build a new church?
Right here in River City! Oh, I forget–that’s in Portland. I don’t live in Portland any more.
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Random, I think you are on the wrong thread.
This one’s about politics…?
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Property laws, such as civil marriage laws, are merely meant to establish default legal rules that reflect the usual social arrangements in our society. Such laws are not intended to establish morality, although they may say something about the morality of a culture. That’s all that civil marriage is: It’s a way of opting into a set of default rules to govern property disposition.
I don’t condone homosexual relationships, and in fact believe that they are sinful. But if same-sex relationships are becoming more common, I see no reason why the amoral rules of property law cannot be altered to reflect this change in society, regardless of how unwelcome such changes are.
I do think that there are some valid secular reasons for not encouraging gay relationships. But I just don’t see that gay relationships pose any direct harm on society. In contrast, polygamy almost always seems to co-exist with various forms of violence, particularly against women and children.
It’s certainly tougher for kids to grow up in a same-sex home than in a traditional home. On the other hand, there is no evidence that same-sex parents abuse or molest their children at rates any different from the national average. The same cannot be said of polygamist family arrangements, where emotional and physical abuse of children is common and where molestation of young girls occurs at an alarming rate. Same-sex coupling and polygamy differ socially, at least in the degree to which they inflict violence on innocent women and children. Therefore, there is strong evidence for continuing to refuse legal recognition for polygamous unions, while allowing same-sex couples to opt into the legal incidents of civil marriage.
The anti-discrimination issue is puzzling. Do you discriminate against gluttons? against people who got improper divorces? against idolaters? against philanderers? Probably not. So, even if you believe that homosexual conduct is a sin, why do you feel compelled to discriminate against this particular type of sinner as opposed to other sinners? Although I’m a Christian, I have gay friends. Heck, my girlfriend and I have even gone out to dinner with a gay couple. Get a grip, folks.
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hrw your broughtn up Canada. “the two have nothing to do with each other. In fact, Canada, the first country to legalize same sex marriage, hasn’t seen a change in the marriage rate.” to try an show Canada in an open minded way. But you left out the facts if a Christian Show airs over Radio or TV Station. The truth about same sex relationship being a sin. The Christian Show, the Station that aired is subject to Canada Hate Crime Law.
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” So, even if you believe that homosexual conduct is a sin, why do you feel compelled to discriminate against this particular type of sinner as opposed to other sinners? ” rsd – the question that needs to be asked is why they feel the need to force their moral values, views and ideas onto soceity?
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Roy
The only reason I brought up Canada is because the opening post stated that Scandinavian countries had the longest experience with same sex marriage and their marriage rate was going down. The first proposition is false (Canada was first) and the second proposition has nothing to do with the first. It happens that I am Canadian but that’s not why I brought Canada into the discussion. It was merely to correct the opening post’s error.
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RSD, by taking part in the wedding you are celebrating something you consider a sin. I know a Baptist photographer who would decline to shoot a wedding in a bar. I know Catholic videographers who would not shoot the wedding of a fellow Catholic marrying outside the church without a dispensation. I personally would want to shoot the wedding of some guy who left his wife and kids to marry a young bimbo. I don’t see a problem taking a gay person portrait, but by taking part in the wedding you are affirming it. The same should apply to a matching making service. Fixing them up is different than selling them a sandwich. One is enabling the behavior the other is not.
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That should be “wouldn’t want to shoot the wedding of some guy who left his wife and kids”
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HRW wrote; “hate crime laws preceded gay marriage in Canada.”
Of course. That was my point. And they are used as a pretext for punishing free speech that comes from a Christian mindset.
HRW wrote; “Many of the suits you talk about preceded gay marriage.”
So? And same-sex marriage laws only serve to empower and fuel more injustice of that very nature.
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Pastor Roy, I clearly saw the obvious connection.
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Does anyone here agree with me that abortion is a far worse crime than homosexual behavior? If America can’t get its act straight on abortion, what makes anyone think that regulating homosexual behavior will make God’s face to shine upon it? Regulating homosexual behavior is insignificant when compared to abortion. The only consequence of homosexual behavior that has any real significance is what happens on judgment day, and that’s between the sinner and God. But abortion, on the other hand, is the willful, deliberate, snuffing out of a human being, akin to ritual human sacrifices of the pagan nations surrounding Israel. This country is on a collision course with disaster unless it recognizes the pure evil of abortion and treats it as the murder it is.
As I’ve stated before, marriage is a religious institution that is protected from government interference by the First Amendment. Why Christians can’t see the damage that licensing marriages has done to this God-ordained institution, is beyond me. Let the pagan law makers have their fun. Just keep your hands off the First Amendment!
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#142: I do.
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Kbells at 103
You’ve seen me post on this topic before and so ought to recall that I have no issue with churches that want to conduct marriages according to its adherents doctrines. I don’t believe religious people should be forced into silence or to act in a way contrary to their values. It’s almost impossible to understand how I can state that more clearly and I have stated it that clearly in years past and yet people on this board circle back and circle to the same wide brush to paint people with. You all yelp like banishees and cry discrimination when that is done to you (yes I have seen folks on this board, including you do so). But when it comes to to put the shoe on the other foot, well, that’s another story.
Having read on this topic on these boards for a few years now, I have concluded that compassion is in short supply, hence my op.
Pastor Roy,
See above. And please understand I’m not so much angry as disgusted. 140 some odd posts most of which discuss sanctity of marriage and how the LGBT community is ruining it, etc. etc. etc. Here’s a challenge for you and your cohort: If you really believe what you are saying, start lobbying legislators to tighten up the divorce code. Because really, divorce and the ease in which it can be obtained is the much greater threat to sanctified marriage than what other people do under the auspices of a state issued license. In other words log, please see your own speck.
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Does anyone here agree with me that the erosion of the the institution of marriage and of the family itself is far worse than the decline of the economy?
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When the Lord Jesus defined marriage as (FROM THE BEGINNING) “…male and female”, and those “two” becoming “one,” he also spoke of a man leaving “his father and mother and be united to his wife.” (See Matthew 19:4-6). He meant it for all mankind and from the very start.
I stand by his definition for all time.
Jesus continued, saying, “Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate.”
Marriage is, therefore, both as an institution and in particular, SACRED.
Human life is also sacred. Thus the preservation of marriage and the protection of the innocent unborn are equally high priorities, regardless what politicians think or say and regardless of how much other Americans spit on God’s plan and all that is sacred. Just don’t expect me to join you.
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hrw , Thank you for clearing thay up for me. I hope you understand why I wrote what I did.
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Joel Mark 03.05.10 AT 9:49 AM
Does anyone here agree with me that the erosion of the the institution of marriage and of the family itself is far worse than the decline of the economy?
–
They go hand and hand.
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CCC wrote; “The only consequence of homosexual behavior that has any real significance is what happens on judgment day, and that’s between the sinner and God.”
Dead wrong, CCC. The consequences of homosexual behavior are multifaceted and grave. It breaks down the legitimate need that men and women were made for meeting in each other. For teens, it leads to a 400% increase in the suicide rate. It distorts and pervets God’s intention for us here and now, long before judgment day. It breeds and thrives on sexual chaos and confusion. But far worse than all the consequences of homosexuality are the consequences of a stubborn refusal to admit it is wrong and repent of it. It is the failure to repent that makes the consequences eternally grave.
CCC, marriage is not merely or only a religious institution. Jesus even made it clear that there would be no giving in marriage in heaven. It was meant for earth and for mankind. It is a civic AND sacred insitution, regardless of what any politician sayts or does. It has physical, emotional, social and spiritual ramifications. It is the center-point of all else that is civic in our society.
Marriage is a civic
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Joel – the question I find my self asking if homosexual behavior is a private matter between two loving adults. Why must they feel the needs to bring it in to the public light and work so hard to change laws to meet this private matter? If it is a private matter why are they working so hard to have churches change God’s Word to meet their private matter?
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#144
CB,
“banishees”
A banshee is a noisy Irish ghost. (I was terrified as a child by the one in “Darby O’Gill and the Little People”, starring Sean Connery in his first major gig!)
A banishee is one who has been banished by the banisher?
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John
LOL. Spelling, not my long suit!
Pastor Roy,
If I may — you might do better to direct a question about a person to someone who is actually of that persuasion, rather than to someone who is not. Would you ask a Christian how it feels to be vilified for being a secular humanist? Or a secular humanist how it feels to be vilified for being a Christian? Or why either would bring their private values into public life, work to change laws to reflect those values or show up at funereals and other gatherings to preach their values to a group that may not be receptive? If you truly want to understand people, then you need to speak with them and listen before judging.
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144. Then let me rephrase that. “I really don’t think that “most radical gay marriage supporters” are as interested in rights as much as they are in forcing the rest of us to affirm them.” If what you say in 144 is true than let’s get rid of the anti-discrimination laws and live and let live.
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kBells – they need the anti-discrimination laws in order to push their rights on to people
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LOLO CoyoteBlue “If you truly want to understand people, then you need to speak with them and listen before judging”
LOLO
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#153 You couldn’t be more reasonable and entreatable than that, but I doubt you’ll get many takers. Civil unions were passed in Connecticut and immediately the gay lobby set about suing for ‘marriage’, and also began an unsuccessful push to punish the Catholic church for supporting the traditional position on marriage. This is about forcing social acceptance, not hospital visitation. “Rights” talk regarding this issue is a red herring.
#155 I’m sure you listen to your brother and understand him much better than many others do.
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#145
I do. But, I still put abortion ahead of the erosion of marriage. It should be bloody obvious.
Joel, Are you saying you believe that every Christian couple should be made to go to the local courthouse and apply for a marriage license before they can marry? Then please answer this question: “If a man and a man marry with a State marriage license, and a man and woman marry without a State marriage license – who’s really married? Is it the two men with a marriage license, or the man and woman without a marriage license?”
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I can see the WMB obsession with bigotry against gays is unabated…
Aren’t we due for a pro-fetus thread about now?
You people are so pathetic!
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158. Relabeling religious freedom bigotry in an effort to shut people up is pretty pathetic. It’s the new McCarthyism.
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I agree with you, Joel, that traditional marriage is worth protecting. But do evangelicals really have a leg to stand on when it comes to arguing in favor of traditional marriage? Sadly, evangelicals get divorced at rates that are at least as high, if not higher, than the non-evangelical population. Thus, scores of evangelicals have already implicitly accepted that marriage is more defined by individual desire than by anything sacred.
So, sorry, Joel, you can’t play the “sacred” card anymore. You had it in your hand when no-fault divorce came along, but you decided to fold. Unfortunately, you can’t pull the sacred card back out of the discard pile. Them’s the rules.
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RSD,
It is simply false that evangelicals get divorced at rates that are at least as high, if not higher, than the non-evangelical population. That is a bogus unfounded myth. People who attend church regularly have been shown to have significantly lower divorce rates than the population.
What did I have in my hand when no-fault divorce came along? You are not making sense, RSD. I have not advocated for no-fault divorce or even brought it up as a topic. We are talking here about the radical re-defintion of marriage being forced on those who do not want it.
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KBells,
Sure — any couple that meets state legal requirements for a marriage license should recieve one. that’s pretty non-discriminatory. It is the Christian lobby that is writing discrimination into constitutions, so it’s ironic to hear you champion non-discriminatory application of the law — ya’ll had to write discrimination into constitutions because courts usually interpret non-discriminatory application of the law to be just that.
Pastor Roy
See I offer dialogue and you laugh and you wonder why I think your commentary is often both offensive and apalling.
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Joel– Permitting no-fault divorce to occur on a widespread basis is also a radical redefinition of marriage.
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When we started trying to adopt the first place we went to would not work with us because of our age. Although I disagreed with them we did not file an age discrimination suit, we did not go to the press and whine about the injustice, we simple went to anther adoption agency. If they truly believed it was in the best interest of the child to be placed with younger people than forcing them to go against what they believed was the right would have been a greater injustice than us having to make another phone call.
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CCC – the man and the woman. It’s not marriage by any stretch (legal or not) if it is two or more people of the same sex.
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CoyoteBlue wrote; “Any couple that meets state legal requirements for a marriage license should recieve one. that’s pretty non-discriminatory.”
It is VERY discriminatory, Coyoteblue, if you are demanding that it can ONLY be ‘couples.’ You would be blatantly discriminating against triples, quadruples and quintuples and more, all of whom may be consenting adults who claim to be very much in love. Are you implying that polygamists are second class citizens who we can discriminate against with impunity? Who are you, Coyoteblue, to limit “marriage equality” rights ONLY to “couples?” That’s not marriage equality at all. How could anyone justify writing such discrimination as this into the constitution?
_______________
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CoyoteBlue – Pastor Roy
See I offer dialogue and you laugh and you wonder why I think your commentary is often both offensive and apalling.
–
I point you to DJ posting at 156 “#155 I’m sure you listen to your brother and understand him much better than many others do.”
You see she know as other that my brother is gay. So I do not have to ask other who are gay about gays rights.
Also for the record my best friend in KS is gay, my fellow co work at my out side job is gay.
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CoyoteBlue – you act like I do not speak to people or have a dialogue with people who are gay or support gay rights. this show how you have no idea what people know about issues.
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#165 Joel wrote,
Agreed! Think about it. Of what import is the marriage license then? Why should Christians submit to statists who impose a marriage license law, when the statists themselves, pervert the meaning of marriage? To play nice? To keep the peace? Because they’d get in a lot of trouble?
A marriage license is more than most people think. It is a three-party, legally binding contract between the husband, the wife and the state. It literally usurps what “God hath joined together” (Mat 19:6). And when the state makes no-fault divorce quick and easy, and bastardizes the meaning of marriage, it has become a godless institution.
So why do you rail at me for saying that marriage is first and foremost a religious institution, and that the state has perverted it, and has no business interfering with it? The state can do what it wants. Christians, however, are bound by the revealed Truth of God, to disobey man-made laws that contradict God’s laws. I foresee the Roman Colloseum reopening (metaphorically) to make sport of us.
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Why do Christians let the unclean fingers of the statists touch the institute of holy matrimony? This raises another point. Why do pastors let the unclean fingers of the state touch their holy calling into the ministry? I’m talking about state licensure. What an ungodly alliance!
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Joel (166),
It’s not clear to me why you continue to make a false comparison between same-sex coupling and polygamy. As I mentioned above (134), there are stark differences between these two. In particular, polygamous social arrangements almost invariably lead to violence against innocent women and children and to molestation of young girls.
By continuing to insist on the equivalence between same-sex coupling and polygamy, you apparently think that the violence and sexual abuse associated with polygamy are not that big of a deal. That says a lot more about the hardness of your heart than it does about that of any one else’s.
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160# RSD wrote,
If a wolf puts on the skin of a sheep, does that make it a sheep? In medical terms, it’s called a false positive. In biblical terms, it’s explained in the good tree/bad tree parable. One the ‘fruits of the good tree’ that Joel touched on in #161 is regular church attendance.
The point is, you’re assuming that people who get divorced AND say they’re ‘evangelicals’, are truly evangelicals. You shouldn’t assume that the people taking those polls know the Truth about those so-called ‘evangelicals’. Polls should be treated with the same suspicion as politician’s campaign promises.
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RSD, and I assume you think that homosexuality has no problems? “We don’t approve of what we think you will do after you get married” is a bad reason for not letting people get married. The very definition of marriage (one male and one female, adults, consenting, non-relatives) limits marriage. Once we throw out that definition, we throw out any limitations. Saying we accept homosexual marriage because we “like” it but we don’t accept bigamy or other non-marriages as marriage because we don’t like them is the height of absurdity.
If you take away the male-and-female part of the equation, you remove any reason at all to limit marriage to TWO people. If nothing else, a person who claims to be bi-sexual should be allowed to have one of each (and each person that person married should also be allowed one of each). Throw out the definition of marriage, and you throw out marriage itself. Throw out the definition of sin (which includes homosexuality), and you might as well throw out everything else that makes a civil society, because you’ve destroyed its foundation. A society that thumbs its nose at God so profoundly as to label homosexual sin “marriage” is on its way to the dustbin of history.
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Oh, and RSD, it would only show Joel Mark’s “hardness of heart” if he were arguing for polygamy without having his tongue in his cheek. He isn’t really arguing for it (as I’m sure you know) but arguing that it is no more harmful than homosexuality, and it is also logically inconsistent to allow one and not the other. Actually, it’s far more consistent, morally, to allow polygamy than to allow homosexual “marriage,” because at least polygamy gets the male / female part right.
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CCC,
In my mind, a marriage license does not trump God’s will or Jesus’ definition of marriage at all. And that is not proof that a marriage license has no value at all, especially at the this-worldly level (a level very important to Christians who care–even though it is not the ultimate or eternal level).
So the marriage license has serious import at the this-worldly level. They provide earthly definition and order and promote important common values. Christians are called to obey governing authorities and the Bible cared enough about those authorities to make that point to Christians — and calling us to respect that authority.
A marriage license does not necessarily usurp what “God hath joined together” (Mat 19:6) — except, of course, in Washington DC and other states where marriage has been legally perverted. Then, it does.
When a state makes no-fault divorce quick and easy, that does not make Marriage itself, as a civic and sacred institution, a godless one at all. It’s just lousy policy for those hard-hearted people who want to dissolve marriages illegitimately. The dissolving part is what is godless, not the uniting or marrying part.
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CCC wrote; “The state can do what it wants.”
This is what I disagree with, CCC. The state should NOT be allowed to do what it wants. Can they kill people with impunity? Can they slaughter babies legally? Your rationale is that, yes, they can and Christians can ignore this or remain silent because we are bound by the Truth of God. Can the state redefine marriage because it wants to? Not in the nation I love that should be accountable to the people. When the people grow too indecent to care about what the state does, we are sunk! There is nothing Christian about the sort of passivity that actually says, “The state can do what it wants.”
That’s where I disagree with you. And my ultimate citizenship remains in heaven. But I still have solid biblical grounds for caring about and participating in what we do in the here and now.
I am objecting to the willful redefinition and perversion of marriage by the state. You seem to want to give our society a blank check to define marriage however they please by isolating the traditional definition AWAY from the civic realm of concern. There is no reason for this isolation. That hurts a lot of people, especially children.
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RSD, if you favor a redefinition of marriage for same-sex couples, but expressly NOT for same-sex or dual-sex triples, or quadruples, then YOU are discriminating. All the above options can involve consenting adults who claim to be in love. Thus, you are treating an entire class of Americans as second class citizens. Why change the core definition of marriage for one advocacy group but expressly NOT for another when all involved are consenting adults and claiming to be in love?
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Cheryl: Evangelicals have already redefined marriage from its traditional Christian definition. Otherwise, we would not see such widespread divorce among evangelicals in the absence of any discipline of the offending couple. By in large, evangelicals have joined with the pagan culture in accepting the legitimacy of no-fault divorce. So, evangelicals cannot, without hypocrisy, claim that they have an interest in protecting the traditional Christian institution of marriage. If they had such an interest, they would not have caved in on the issue of no-fault divorce.
Joel: Every law discriminates. Doh! The issue is whether there is a legitimate state interest in making a distinction between certain classes of individuals. Our culture has already abandoned the notion of traditional marriage (and evangelicals have been complicit in that abandonment). Further, same-sex coupling inflicts only a minimal amount of collateral harm on society at large. Therefore, I see no substantial reason to exclude same-sex couples from the legal entitlements that are available to opposite-sex couples.
But as I’ve explained to you in numerous occasions, our national experience with polygamy has been universally negative. The collateral harm on society has been immense, including rampant emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of innocent women and children. You continue to trivialize the evil that occurs in places like Colorado City, Arizona. This says a lot about your negative attitudes toward women and children.
I continue to oppose you on this website because I do not believe that you demonstrate fruit consistent with Christian regeneration. In my opinion, you are an authoritarian bully, who has gravitated toward conservative Christianity because you hope that it will give justification for your desires to exercise unjustified authority over others. I spent a period of my childhood in a fundamentalist environment, and I understand your type well. I pray that one day you will find the richness that comes in knowing the richness, breadth, and fullness of Christ’s propitiating grace.
Peace in Christ.
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RSD – 178
There is no evidence to suggest that Evangelicals support “no fault divorce” that is nothing more than a flip comment from the left, unlearned in the Biblical beliefs of those who study the Word of God.
Next –
One of the great falacies within the liberal thought, which they use to further their agenda is; that Evangelicals either have as many or more divorces than those who aren’t Evangelicals.
The problem with this concept is this….. there is no proof, the next point is…. many people while married are NOT Christian Believers, however upon divorcing, come to know Jesus Christ as their Savior……. when asked after their divorce (survey, etc) they answer YES, I am divorced and YES I am an Evangelical Christian…..
The most important POINT IS THIS RSD:
They are divorced, but they were not truly Believers when they were married. If you ask the average person what being a Christian Believer means, they will for the most part say “to be a good person” – that isn’t the entry into the Kingdom of GOD. To believe in Christ as Savior, to repent of sin, to know that Christ was risen from the dead.
I hope this helps you understand the falacy of “majority Christians” and “no fault divorce” –
Watch what you say against Cheryl, your next to last paragraph is a personal attack, and as such is not allowed on this blog.
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RE: post #179
Both fallacy and fallacies were misspelled, they both need the extra little “l” -
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RSD- whether you were referring to Cheryl or Joel my comments regarding that paragraph stand.
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Joel,
In anger I overstated myself in the last paragraph of Post 178. That was wrong. I apologize.
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RSD wrote; “…our national experience with polygamy has been universally negative. The collateral harm on society has been immense, including rampant emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of innocent women and children.”
I agree with you. I think the same of homosexuality, although homosexuality is probably more harmful.
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RSD wrote; “I understand your type well.”
I disagree with you.
___________
I respect and accept your comments and apology at #182.
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#175 Joel wrote,
Does Mat 19:6 offer no proof that a state marriage license has no value at all?
So you think Christians should do as the unbelievers do? Why would you advocate Christians practice this unholy alliance with the state? That’s what a state marriage license is; worldly and unholy. Mat 19:6 says, “God has joined together”. Therefore, the man and woman need no more authority to wed. The marriage license is only important to worldly, unbelieving people, not Christians.
Only for non-Christians. Who are you arguing for, Christians or unbelievers? If you interpret Mathew 19:6 in a straightforward way, the marriage covenant is a three-way binding agreement between the man, the woman, and God. The state is only authorized by God to punish law breakers and evil-doers, such as a man who divorces his wife. But the state has perverted their God-given authority on that note, too!
The institution I was referring to as godless was the state government, not the institute of marriage. God is the author of marriage and has moral authority over every marriage, even between unbelievers. BTW, when I use the word “marriage”, I’m using it as defined in the Bible.
You still haven’t given me a biblical reason for Christians to be made to get a state marriage license.
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PastorRoy:
In the 1950s, the people of the Southern states would have voted down full civil rights for blacks. Our Constitution ensures that the civil rights of minorities are protected, EVEN WHEN the majority doesn’t support it.
I believe the case for gays will be much like it was for blacks. A generation ago, homosexuals were beginning to rebel against the social oppression that forced them to stay in the closet or else face reprisals. In this generation, the law is beginning to wake up to its obligation to protect their civil rights. A generation from now, most people will be wondering why it was ever controversial.
For now, religious organizations that oppose gay marriage are free to refuse to perform wedding ceremonies for same-sex couples. But civil marriage is a civil right. A same-sex couple should be able to get a marriage license and get married in the eyes of the state, regardless of whether you approve. And in an increasing number of states (and now a district), they can.
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Well, Joel, you have clearly aligned yourself with the notion that marriage is in the state’s jurisdiction and best interests, and that any couple, including Christians, who wish to marry MUST obtain a state license giving them that permission. Am I wrong? Then tell me, when is it okay for a Christian couple NOT to get a state marriage license? When the state allows it? Poppycock!
Since you disagreed with my point that state marriage licenses are unbiblical and unclean, you leave me no choice but to level the charge that you are a statist on this issue (It would certainly eliminate guessing if you would just admit it.) Here is a definition of statism that puts your marriage license stance squarely in this category:
When men forget God, they inevitably invent another god to take the place of the eternal, uncreated source of all causality. The state civil government has become the church for unbelievers. The government used to be administered by a majority of believing Christians. Well, the barbarians have crashed the gate and are running the show in the statehouse. And you are trying to appease the barbarians by Kow-towing to their licensing demands.
Now, let’s move on to state licensing of clergy. Are you clergy? Are you licensed with the state? Most clergy are. This is another unholy alliance.
Now, let’s move on to licensing of the church. Is your church incorporated with the state? Most churches are. This is another unholy alliance.
No wonder the Church in America is in shambles! It has ignorantly ceded it’s First Amendment rights for a bowl of pottage!
Yours truly,
CCC
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Pastor Roy at 168
It is an easy thing to show compassion and listen to those we love. It is also an easy thing to judge those we do not. I have read your posts and have only those as a guide to who you are and how you behave. Based on your posts, I still find your attitudes to be appalling and offensive. Show them to your brother or gay friend sometime. A second opinion from some one who knows you could be a good thing.
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CoyoteBlue 03.07.10 AT 5:33 PM
Pastor Roy at 168
It is an easy thing to show compassion and listen to those we love. It is also an easy thing to judge those we do not. I have read your posts and have only those as a guide to who you are and how you behave. Based on your posts, I still find your attitudes to be appalling and offensive. Show them to your brother or gay friend sometime. A second opinion from some one who knows you could be a good thing.
–
well God’s Word is the Standard by which I live
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CCC asked, “Does Mat 19:6 offer no proof that a state marriage license has no value at all?”
No proof at all. It is not even talking about state marriage licenses.
CCC asked, “So you think Christians should do as the unbelievers do?”
Huh? Sure, if it is the right thing to do and it does not violate God’s will. Believers and unbelievers all live respectfully under the same speed laws and many other civil laws. Should believers be able to break those laws and operate under their own rules, irrespective of our state laws? Should Mulims in America get to operate under Saria law? Romans 13 authorizes harmonious living for Christians at the civic level. It’s a biblical alliance at that level and not necessarily “ugly” at all. If a conflict is clear, we obay God over men.
Your view sounds like anarchy. I’m not interested in that. As a minister, I pronounce the couple marriage by the authority invested in me by God and by the state as well. Always have. So what?
The marriage license is important to Christians who are willing to live as grateful citizens in a free country in a spirit of civic harmony and order. We are willing to live by the same rules and standards that non-Christians must live under. AND we have a higher standard as well that trumps all if conflicts arise.
CCC wrote; “The institution I was referring to as godless was the state government, not the institute of marriage.”
But you were responding to me and I was talking about the institution of marriage.
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CCC wrote; “Since you disagreed with my point that state marriage licenses are unbiblical and unclean, you leave me no choice but to level the charge that you are a statist on this issue.”
Pure nonsense. But label me all you want. You kinda seem unhinged on this, CCC.
CCC wrote; “The state civil government has become the church for unbelievers.”
I agree. This has zero to do with anything I wrote or believe.
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RSD (someone else may have answered this above; I’ve only skimmed the posts since your 178): Indeed some so-called evangelicals have ignored unbiblical divorce. A friend of mine was hurt in such a way, by a church that refused to do church discipline against a spouse leaving without biblical warrant. (But the church wasn’t a sound church, either.)
But in my personal experience, I’ve seen a lot of churches that are willing to do church discipline in such cases. And anyway, the fact that some churches don’t do what they should doesn’t mean we suddenly get rid of all “the rules.” By that standard, let’s get rid of all the laws against killing one’s wife, if a church’s failure to do church discipline against divorce means that Christians can’t be against homosexual “marriage.” In a sense they’re two different issues. But I daresay that the individual Christian or congregation who is against homosexual marriage is also opposed to casual divorce–the one who is against the first and not the second is, indeed, a hypocrite, but I doubt you’ll find many with that particular mindset.
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CCC #170,
You’ve made some good points about state involvement in church organization. I have been debating this issue within myself for some time. There is no doubt that incorporating with the state can have an affect on the sermon on Sunday morning–and those who deny this, are really fooling themselves. I’ve seen it myself, even in very conservative churches. Though it may not happen every Sunday, if it moderates what a minister would otherwise have said even once, then it’s too much. (And I have personally seen ministers admonished over this.) But churches have been subject to the IRS for so long now, I’m not sure how that should be undone.
As far as legalizing homosexual marriage goes, I oppose that on practical and traditional grounds. Marriage (man/woman) has been a natural, legitimate, recognized building block of societies for thousands of years—and homosexual marriage has never been a part of that. We’ve weakened marriage through no-fault divorce, but that’s no reason to shoot it and put it out of its misery by changing its definition. In many areas our popular culture and our laws actually encourage divorce. The states can strengthen marriage laws. That would encourage people to consider well before they marry, and stay together when they do.
The other alternative seems to me to be legal contracts and arrangements for property rights, and then marry without the state involvement. The problem with that is the state would be invoked upon divorce because of property and child care. Family court takes everything out of the hands of the individuals (particularly the husband/fathers) and puts it in the hand of money-grubbing lawyers—usually preference is given to the wife/mother and her lawyer. I don’t see how you could keep the state out of marriage except by limiting divorce. And changing the definition of marriage is a big step in the wrong direction I think.
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DJ wrote; “There is no doubt that incorporating with the state can have an affect on the sermon on Sunday morning–and those who deny this, are really fooling themselves.”
It has never effected my preaching. It would only adversely effect the preaching of moral cowards and they should not be in the pulpit anyhow. If persecution comes, I will still praeach God’s Word.
I think that mosques should also have to incorporate with the US gov’t.
DJ wrote; “We’ve weakened marriage through no-fault divorce, but that’s no reason to shoot it and put it out of its misery by changing its definition.”
Well said.
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I think that mosques should also have to incorporate with the US gov’t.
They don’t already?? Are they tax exempt?
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DJ, you don’t know? Or do you? Why are you offering such opinions, then, if you don’t know how they already apply to mosques?
As Christians, we are to live in the world but not of the world. Living “in” the world calls for a decent level-field of public participation policies. Getting incorporated and getting licenses are basic mutual expectations in a free society that do not control us as free citizens. They do NOT force us to live “of” the world.
Joseph and Mary participated in registering for the census.
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#190 Joel wrote,
“Not even talking about state marriage licenses” IS the point! Where does scripture EVER speak of getting a state marriage license?
Why only important? That’s not very emphatic. Drivers licenses aren’t optional. Why aren’t you saying marriage licenses aren’t optional? Why aren’t you lobbying the state, demanding EVERYONE get permission from the state to marry. You could call it, “Joel’s Law” and anyone who doesn’t obey Joel’s law will be arrested and punished, even though you said yourself, in #165, “– the man and the woman.”
Your view sounds like anarchy.
Getting married without a state marriage license is anarchy? That’s a might broad brush you’re using, there.
We obviously differ on the exclusivity of God’s authority over all marriages in Mat 19:6. You believe the state has ’something’ over marriages, and I don’t. You kinda seem unbiblical on this, Joel.
#194 Joel wrote,
That is an unimpeachably statist view. It’s ironic isn’t it? The one religion that’s overrunning the world, is also the religion that understands and takes advantage of the First Amendment.
#196 Joel wrote,
Mutual expectations? Hah! It’s unilateral disarmament! All it is, is the Church ceding it’s First Amendment protection. It’s just more statist rhetoric. You are NOT free to speak your church’s mind. The laws of incorporation prohibit your church from expressing its views on political matters, such as denouncing a senator or congressman as a pro-abort, baby killer. The threat of losing your church’s tax-exempt status keeps you muzzled. Then the bully pulpit becomes quiet as a mouse. Remember, silence translates to tacit approval.
Here’s a riddle that unbelievers will have no problem figuring out. When is a day, not a day? Give up? When it’s used in Genesis 1! Get it? It’s analogous to your interpretation of Mat 19:6. We’re obviously at an impasse. Interesting, isn’t it?
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Why are you offering such opinions, then, if you don’t know how they already apply to mosques?
I didn’t bring up mosques Joel, you did. I would have thought they incorporate the same way as churches do. But since you brought it up you must be the expert on such things. Enlighten us. Please do… as long as you’re not wearing your old worn out Republican hat and offering the same old Repub platitudes.
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