Tennessee county beats hasty retreat from call to ban homosexuals

Associated Press ^ | March 18, 2004 | BILL POOVEY

[tomball]

The county that was the site of the Scopes "Monkey Trial" over the teaching of evolution Thursday reversed its call to ban homosexuals.

Rhea County commissioners took about three minutes to retreat from a request to amend state law so the county can charge homosexuals with crimes against nature. The Tuesday measure passed 8-0.

[narses]

Your strawman games are a hoot. We've gone from solitary drunkedness to public drunkedness. Your illogic is amusing. Are you in favor of making both public and private vice criminal, or just those which poses a clear and present threat to society, or none of them?

[Jaded]

And, as we all know, excessive masturbation can cause blindness.

That's just for guys right? I heard it would fall off. You made warm milk come out of my nose. Bad sinkspur

(levity break)

[AntiGuv]

I reject anyone to the extent that they are wrong and embrace anyone to the extent that they are right. Some people are more wrong than others. Some people far more so. Case in point.

By further example, Osama bin Laden condemns homosexuality. Obviously you embrace his position on that count. I assume that you reject him in other matters, however.

Thomas Jefferson was right much more often than he was wrong. He was not right by virtue of Thomas Jefferson in those instances where he was right.

[sinkspur]

We've gone from solitary drunkedness to public drunkedness

Nope. You, drunk in your own home, are more of a physical danger to your family than two fornicating adults are to each other. I never said anything about public drunkenness.

Are you in favor of making both public and private vice criminal, or just those which poses a clear and present threat to society, or none of them?

Only that which presents a clear physical danger to society should be illegal. That includes, of course, incest, which is usually non-consensual, and bestiality, which is abuse of a beast.

[AntiGuv]

Yes, I have no doubt that we have much farther to go. In fact, I will bet my life that three centuries from now someone will be saying: By and large, the past was a crude, brutish, ignorant, backwards, limited, oppressive time that I have no desire to see revived.

[jwalsh07]

A sense of humor is an integral part of being a human being. Sister Anne beat that into me in third grade. :-}

[AntiGuv]

He was not right by virtue of being Thomas Jefferson in those instances where he was right.

[timm22]

Mortal and venial sins relate to three seperate questions, knowledge, gravity and action. In the cases argued here the issue is also harm to others and society.

Is it correct to say that you support laws against mortal sins, as long as those sins also harm others and/or society?

If that is so, what is the dividing line between which sins are grave enough to be mortal and which are not? Since every action can be argued to affect others in some way, how do you propose we determine which actions significantly harm society enough that they deserve to be prohibited?

[narses]

You have yet to articulate what moral code you derive your sense of right and wrong from. You reject the Corpus Juris Civilis of Western Civilization, so you ought to be willing to ID where your code comes from and why it ought to supplant the Great Body of Laws that are our common heritage and the FOUNDATION of our form of government and culture.

[narses]

The short answer is our legislative process, based on the common body of laws that are our heritage. The long answer could take days and volumes.

[narses]

"...You, drunk in your own home, are more of a physical danger to your family..."

How is that SOLITARY? Is English a foreign language 'deacon'?

"Only that which presents a clear physical danger to society should be illegal"

So drunk driving that harms no one, polygamy and homosexual marriage ought to be legal?

[narses]

Good Sister Anne, Good Sister!

[narses]

Progress indeed. Soddom and Gommorah.

[sinkspur]

So drunk driving that harms no one, polygamy and homosexual marriage ought to be legal?

Drunk driving IS a danger, just as your drunkenness would be, polygamy and gay marriage contradicts the definition of marriage.

[TradicalRC]

BTW, the reason why we live in a secular nation is so that people with one belief system, such as myself, need not tell people of another belief system, such as yourself, just how wrong they are. That prevents a great deal of acrimony and sooner or later that route results in people getting killed.

Ah yes, at one time we were considered a Christian nation; now we are a secular nation. That is, Secularism is the official State Religion and we can all be taxed to support it. Our laws will support it and thereby negate any other belief from usurping the rightful place of Secularism.

[AntiGuv]

My moral code is best described as humanism; i.e., a modern, nontheistic, rationalist system of belief and action that holds that man is capable of self-fulfillment, ethical conduct, etc. without recourse to supernaturalism.

[AntiGuv]

Well, immediately after I wrote that I realized that that phrasing was a bit vague. I was referring to the system of government not to the society in general.

We are by and large a Christian nation with an imperfectly secular government.

[AntiGuv]

Actually let me reword that one more time for utmost precision: We are by and large a partially and selectively Christian nation with an imperfectly secular system of government.

[timm22]

The short answer is our legislative process, based on the common body of laws that are our heritage. The long answer could take days and volumes.

I must say, that sounds suspiciously like majoritarianism. It also sounds like an abandonment of the Rule of Law. I think, quite possibly, it could lead to totalitarianism.

[narses]

My moral code is best described as humanism; i.e., a modern, nontheistic, rationalist system of belief and action that holds that man is capable of self-fulfillment, ethical conduct, etc. without recourse to supernaturalism.

So why is you version of 'humanism' any better than say that of Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot or the many who have rejected "supernaturalism" (as you call Christianity)? You certainly have every right to articulate your creed, but how and why are you claiming it is superior to mine?