Posted on 04/30/2015 7:06:42 AM PDT by lifeofgrace
Before the Supreme Court rules on enforcing gay marriage on all of us at the barrel of a government gun, we must consider how we answer legitimate questions, and how we conservatives and Bible-believing Christians can defend our ideals playing into the “hate and bigotry” the Left would so readily use to define us.
After being banned from Reddit groups /r/feminism and /r/LGBT for posting opinions they find disagreeable, I was finally asked an excellent question in response to my post on Jutice Alito’s line of questioning in Tuesday’s Supreme Court oral arguments on gay marriage.
The question illuminates much about the questioner and the liberal mindset. To liberals, it’s selfish to deprive someone else of a feeling of entitlement or affirmation, regardless of the harm caused to society through misplaced ideals. The post-modern mind rationalizes ideals away—if it doesn’t personally affect you in a pragmatic way, then you must be selfish.
Yet the slightest emotional twinge or “microaggression” in the mind of the hearer, seer, or reader of something disagreeable promotes a hailstorm of condemnation. Truly, the progressive left sees the world upside down, displacing actual ideals with craven self-interest.
My answer to the comment:
It’s not about me and mine–if it was that would be selfish. It’s about preserving those things in this country I and millions of others hold dear: our God, our Bible, and the freedom to follow both. When verses in the Bible are held as “hate speech” simply because somebody disagrees with them, or my church loses a tax status that other charities which agree with the “official” position retain, that harms not only me, but everyone who wishes to exercise the freedoms we cherish.In a Facebook thread on my post about Bruce Jenner—who I painted as a misogynist because he claims to be a woman versus simply wanting to be one as a transsexual—I received some comments supporting transsexuals. I believe we should pray for homosexual, bisexual, transgender and transsexual people, because they do suffer, and I would like to show them love and compassion (as Dr. Michael Brown has also stated, receiving widespread venom from the Left for tweeting this).How is that about same-sex marriage? I wish gay couples no ill, and if they wish to live together and have tax benefits awarded by the state, that’s a political matter. But it’s not marriage. Even the term “same-sex marriage” is, legally (for now) and institutionally an oxymoron. Marriage has always (historically for millennia) been one man and one woman. It’s the wonton redefinition of the word to something that frames the issue of same-sex couples having a “right” to it–to transform a social debate into a legal challenge for civil rights, I have a problem with.
And I think it’s very selfish of those who support the redefinition of marriage to pursue this strategy in obtaining benefits conveyed by the government at the expense of liberty for everyone. There’s no reason to do it this way–if equality was the issue, then civil unions fit perfectly, but civil unions are not good enough for the LGBT activists. They equate “dignity” with approval–whether it’s approval forced by the gun barrel or freely given. The Bible and those who follow it will never approve of same-sex marriage, so the gun barrel it must be. And that’s incredibly narrow-minded and selfish of people who have systematically rejected every other option.
But they reject that love if it comes with a Biblical worldview—they wish to be accepted as-is, and would rather have the Bible edited or excised than simply recognize a contrary viewpoint (although the Biblical viewpoint has been around for millennia).
One commenter wrote:
I do not personally know any transsexuals, but I do know several transgenders, who, as children and teenagers, were very unhappy and, in some cases, had attempted or contemplated suicide rather than be persecuted by friends, family or society. I thank God these people were finally able to "come out" in our society, and are now living happy, productive lives. Some are married and have children and are great families, with a positive goal for their future. It is unfortunate that some people think they have the right to interfere in the lives of these wonderful, loving friends of mine. Unlike some others, my wife and I don't feel threatened at all by transgenders. In fact, I'd rather associate with most transgenders than with fanatical Christians. God bless diversity.Yes, God bless diversity. Natural diversity. I wouldn’t consider psychological disorders to be diversity worth blessing, but again, the Biblical worldview is ignored, even while God is invoked.
How do we answer such heartfelt opinions?
I answered:
i don't feel threatened in the least by transgenders or transsexuals or LGB-etcetera.Again, it’s about ideals, not people. People do things, say things and achieve things, but ideals drive movements. It’s not LGBT people who trouble me, it’s the ideal that their worldview defeats my—and millions of others—devotion to a Biblical worldview and my Constitutional liberty to adhere to it.I do feel very threatened by the idea advanced by activists and progressive post-modernist thugs that those people are psychologically normal and have no disorder but Christians are delusional and hateful for believing they do. And that's exactly where we are going. It's very hard--not impossible--to have compassion on people deserving of Christian love when even saying "God can heal you" is considered hate speech.
One of the best defenses of that liberty, from a purely secular viewpoint, appeared on Facebook in response to a post by evangelist Ray Comfort.
The commenter wrote this jewel:
I would not ask, let alone force, a Jewish deli owner to serve me a pulled pork sandwich. I would not ask nor force a believer in Islam to serve me in a bar so I could get drunk. I would not ask nor force someone who believes that we can be reincarnated into animals to make me a steak to eat. I would not ask nor force a Catholic to make me any sort of meat on Ash Wednesday. I would not ask nor force a Hindu to make for me Cow Skin Rug. I would not ask nor force someone who practices Jainism to sell me Fig Newtons. I would not ask nor force someone of Bahá’í faith to serve me a Jack Daniels in my Coke. I would not ask nor force a Mormon believer to serve me my morning coffee. I would not ask nor force someone who practices Rastafarianism to serve me pretty much anything mass-produced in Americas' food factories. I would not ask nor force someone at a Seventh Day Adventist church to serve coffee at church. I would not ask nor force someone who practices Sikhism to serve me Kosher foods. I would not ask nor force someone who practices Yazidism to serve me corned beef and cabbage. WHY? Because we live in America, and our brothers and sisters have fought long and hard for our rights to believe whatever we want to believe, and for our rights as business owners to refuse service to anyone we would choose to refuse service to. YET, we must force anyone who happens to believe that supporting the homosexual lifestyle will send their very selves to Hell to serve them wedding cakes and help them to get married? You do not gain rights by stripping others of theirs. If I'm not happy with the service I do or do not receive at any place of business, do you know what I do? I simply take my money elsewhere. Instead of throwing a tantrum and demanding that they do things my way, I just take my money to the person who can do the job for me and can do it well. Even a five year old is capable of such a thing.I can add nothing more to that eloquent description of how our liberty should be employed. We should all memorize this argument and live by it. It may be all we have left in the Brave New World.
(crosspost from RedState.com)
How I answer gay questions, hell no drop your fetish.
An “asstatistic”? ;-) Perhaps my religious circles are far different from yours but of all the local pastors and those that I know of with a national ministry, I know one who is divorced and he resigned from the ministry. We are quite conservative so have never been part of a “country club church” and divorce is not accepted or overlooked. In our church it disqualifies a man from serving as an elder.
How does one obey the Lord while ignoring the normalization of sin?
How does gay marriage affect or my family in a negative way?
Every time my kids were exposed to gays (usually media, but every now and then on the streets showing public affection) I had to go into an explanation of biblical sin. Even without any specific exposure I had to make sure my kids knew it is a sin. I had to inoculate my kids as they were growing up, to prepare then for the onslaught of the perversion that was going to be thrust in their face day in and day out.
So how does the perversion truly affect me? Greatly!! And I am sick of it. And I am sick of them for forcing me to have to deal with their perversion with my children.
Here's the problem, Regal: You may believe in "Live and Let Live," but the LGBT activists won't LET you live and let live. They'll come after you.
Don't you realize that if a marriage predicated on sodomy is legal, it cements in homosexuals a "protected class"? (It has already happened.)
Don't you realize that if homosexuals are a "protected class," it is ILLEGAL to do or say anything that might offend or exclude them -- that is, anything that is less than celebratory of their sexual proclivities?
ILLEGAL to sell goods or services related to weddings, carry on any kind of matrimonial ministry, do counseling related to marriage, educate kids about sex and decency, unless you positively portray and promote sodomy and lesbianism as the equivalent of true marriage?
You wanted it, you got it. Good and hard.
Why would I need a link, if i were a resident of that area, at the time?
It was becuase of them, and that very activity, that i stopped giving blood.
“Don’t you realize that if a marriage predicated on sodomy is legal, it cements in homosexuals a “protected class”?”
_____________
Just not true.
Are heterosexual marriages predicated on the use and manipulation of penises and vaginas? (Heterosexuals also perform sodomy, by the way.) Would you consider homosexual marriage ok, if they were forbidden to have intercourse?
This is getting way out of control. We should not be basing policy on genitals and sexual positions. Everything about your argument is based on hyperbole and fear.
“Don’t you realize that if homosexuals are a “protected class,” it is ILLEGAL to do or say anything that might offend or exclude them — that is, anything that is less than celebratory of their sexual proclivities?”
I have studied protected classes in law school, and this is just not true. They are getting you riled up over nothing and that is exactly what they hope to do. Don’t let them!!!!
No; homosexual marriage should be legally established only if they are able to perform PIV intercourse. So gay marriage would have to be between a gay man and a gay woman. One might argue about mixed trannies, though I consider that a no-go since that would not involve an actual male and an actual female.
Marriage is inherently "about" lawful sexual union. That's what defines marriage and distinguishes it from any other kind of affiliation, partnership, or social unit.
What defines it is intercourse which is procreative in form, if not always in outcome. The infertile can marry; the impotent cannot. If from the beginning, and permanently, the male cannot penetrate and deposit sperm in the vagina of the female, the marriage is null because it lacks sexual (PIV) consummation.
Law cannot, enforceably, prevent sodomy in any kind of pairing, heterosexual or homosexual. The law should, however, refrain from valorizing sodomy as a legally recognized constituent element of marriage. Permitting couples to do whatever kind of herky-jerky they want to do in bed, is fine: I suppose it's inevitable, since it's outside of the scope of enforcement (unless the sexual practice provides evidence of wrong-doing: beatings that leave marks, forcible entry that damages internal organs, for instance.)
That is quite different from legally-recognizing deviant intercourse, as an integral or defining aspect of marriage.
Answer me this: why does the State have any public interest in marriage at all, any more than it has a public interest in any other form of friendship? What business is it for the State to license people who want to grind shoulders, give foot-rubs, or specialize in mutual back-massages? Or share some couple-y kind of intimate ping-pong, or gourmet cooking, or bonsai?
The State has no interest in regulating any personal association unless it has, at the very least, some relationship to procreative potential. If the kind of intercourse you do, is the kind of intercourse that can make babies: then, yes, there is a public interest, because of the potential of generating a small person whose interests are to be protected.
Absent that kind of intercourse, the State has no business whatsoever reaching its long arms into our lives and loves.
"Everything about your argument is based on hyperbole and fear."
Bollocks. Everything I listed is aggression against our liberties, and is already happening. I'm not a paranoid predicting these aggressions: I am an observer reporting them. "What's already happened" is not hyperbole, it is real: and fearing incursions into liberty is realism. I fear tyranny. I hate it. It is a righteous fear and hate.
As I said,
“Don’t you realize that if homosexuals are a “protected class,” it is ILLEGAL to do or say anything that might offend or exclude them — that is, anything that is less than celebratory of their sexual proclivities?”
You responded: "I have studied protected classes in law school, and this is just not true."
Wrong-o. LGBT are a protected class (LINK). Perhaps you didn't realize this. This is a terrible situation. It must not be extended and advanced. It must be rolled back.
You can answer on this thread, or in a Personal Message if you wish. Thanks.
Wow. A Freeper who agrees with Bill Clinton. I guess he really DIDN’T have sexual relations with that woman. Never thought I’d see the day...
I’d just as soon end the discussion now, because as I said earlier, this much detail of anyone’s life, I don’t want to know.
Don't you think there's a reason I specified PIV intercourse? It's the only kind of intercourse that's relevant to marriage, precisely because it has the procreative form.
The only relevance to your comment (and this is tenuous) is that if all Bill Clinton did was squirmy frottage and oral-genital contact, those would not be "marriage acts." In wedlock they would not constitute consummation; in extramarital hijinx (at least in some legal systems) they would not constitute adultery.
Though morally it was certainly infidelity, unreasonable behavior, sexual exploitation of a subordinate, and conduct unbecoming his office.
If he were my employee doing this on the job, I would have fired im. Wouldn't you?
Your argument can only be described as lunacy, because I am too polite to call them stupidity.
Don’t bother to reply. I’m allergic to ignorance and have too much to get done today to have to take a Benadryl.
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