Culver Pictures
In an 1862 lithograph, a slave is depicted fleeing
toward Canada before the Civil War.
Posted on 11/23/2003 10:59:06 AM PST by putupon
Culver Pictures
In an 1862 lithograph, a slave is depicted fleeing
toward Canada before the Civil War.
VANCOUVER, British Columbia — Heaven was the word for Canada and the Negro sang of the hope that his escape on the Underground Railroad would carry him there," the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once noted in describing the codes American slaves used in their spirituals to fool their masters before taking flight.
Canada is heaven again for Lance W. Bateman and William E. Woods, two American men who were married here recently.
The wedding on Aug. 31 looked like a typical Hawaiian wedding, with the grooms wearing tropical ceremonial shirts made of pineapple fiber woven to look like fine silk and every guest wearing at least one orchid lei. Except the affair was in Canada, because the two men could not legally be married in Hawaii, where they live and to which they have returned.
As untraditional as the affair might seem, the men were actually following a long tradition of Americans coming here to break the conventions of the day, do something illegal, or simply live as they wished. The tradition goes back to the American Revolution, when 30,000 Loyalists flooded into Ontario and Nova Scotia to remain in the paternal embrace of King George III.
Mr. Woods, a 54-year-old public health administrator, and other gay-rights advocates are campaigning to encourage American gay couples to marry in Canada and then take their Canadian marriage licenses back home to press for the kind of pension, medical and other benefits that heterosexual married couples
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
If you mean that the traditional institution of marriage has some social utility, and that the state has a vested interest in promoting that institution for that reason, then I agree with you. However, that comes dangerously close to the argument the queers are using to expand the definition of marriage. Since all society benefits from marriage, why not expand it to include ALL citizens?
Religion is the only bulwark against advancing homosexual marriage as anything but a secular institution.
I just saw your above post. I'd like to be wrong but experience is a great teacher. I see it like this with hunter 112: Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. No more benefits of the doubt for hunter112 as far as I'm concerned.
Sorry, when I read the New Testament quotes, they seem to suggest slaves in the traditional sense, rather than "slaves to Christ". Like I said, I specifically left those references out. Clearly, if Paul uses slavery as a metaphor for one's relationship to God, that metaphor must have a commonplace everyday meaning to make sense. It appeared to me that our "modern notions" of slavery, specifically, one man owning another, would have been existant in Biblical times. Or, is what was practiced in parts of this nation from Colonial times to 1865 actually worse than what was practiced in Biblical times?
An especially big distinction is that one Greek work translated as "slave" in the popular but dumbed down translations such as the NIV is more accurately translated as "bondservant" in many of the passages.
Again, forgive me for taking it too literally. I guess that's one of the disadvantages of not having a preacher tell me what to think. I wonder if any of the words relating to homosexuality have been similarly misunderstood? I've seen websites where gays have tried to explain away Biblical passages by interpretation, it seems to be the game everybody can play. To me, it just seemed like trying to squeeze a drop of water out of a stone.
Puts a different light on the subject, doesn't it?
It's all in the interpretation. Right now, the legal system that is dealing with the issue of gay marriage, or civil unions, or the definition of marriage have only law to interpret, not anyone's religious scripture.
The Webster online dictionary defines serf as: "a member of a servile feudal class bound to the soil and subject to the will of his lord." There's nothing in this definition that suggests an end to the servitude.
I'm astonished, quite frankly.
I see what you mean. I think I'll follow your good example and retire from this thread for now.
Religion is the only bulwark against advancing homosexual marriage as anything but a secular institution.
Thank you for your fascinating post. It's funny: I had been thinking that your argument (post #63, below) came "dangerously" close to that of the same-sex marriage proponents, to wit: since the state cares not for the spiritual dimension, it might as well sanction gay marriage.
I guess no hetrosexual athiests are married then right? -Lone Voice in the hinterlands
"Married" in what sense? If they're atheists, they probably didn't opt for a church wedding. So that means they're married for the state's purposes, the very situation we've been discussing here. I repeat, the state does not require any spiritual dimension to endorse a relationship, nor should it. But the resulting union is a "marriage" in the same sense that a contract between me and my mechanic is. -IronJack
What there isn't, and what they want there to be, is an obligation on every governmental organization and every private company to recognize their little phoney compact as a union every bit as valid as a marriage between a man and a woman.
If it were possible, the Times should actually be embarrassed to compare the non-obligation of free people to recognize homo marriage to the actual ownership of one human being by another. It's a pathetic and demeaning comparison.
Typically, they agreed to servitude for a set period (like seven years) to secure passage to the new world.
I think the state should concern itself only with business relationships, and that marriage is only partly a business relationship. To the degree marriage is religious, the state can neither restrict nor endorse it.
I guess the question comes down to this: in whose eyes is it more important that you be married? The state's or the Church's? If the one refuses to concede the relationship sanctioned by the other -- if you're forced to choose between God and Caesar -- which do you choose?
In the long run, I think the answer is to legislatively define marriage as a union between man and woman, but to remove any and all (secular) obstacles from unions between same-sex couples. Then, whatever the homos choose to do, they can't call it "marriage," at least not in the legal sense.
The thing is, this whole skirmish is simply the prelude to the next homosexual battle: adoption of children.
As I've said, it's a great wedge issue for the Left. And it's got much more mileage in it before it's exhausted.
I thought I had already answered your question in post #51. But maybe my limited intelligence has failed me. As far as I am aware, baboons are found as natural residents of Africa and Arabia. However, since the discussion on the thread was in reference only to AIDS in Africa, I saw no reason to include Arabian baboons!!!
Further... I now notice that post #41 was deleted by the Moderator... which tends to tell me that someone was upset about my reference to people who I considered to be a species dumber than non-Arabian baboons, because they inserted soil with baboon urine inside their vaginas for sexual purposes. Now please stop trying to turn this into something that it is not!!!
You have not answered my question re: Are you referring to me?
I don't know. You surely appear to be a very intelligent person!!! But then again, tell me... are you stupid enough to insert mutendo wegudo -- soil with baboon urine -- inside your vagina ???
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