“Dobson and other Christian conservatives support an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would bar gay marriage nationally. Thompson has said he would support a constitutional amendment that would prohibit states from imposing their gay marriage laws on other states, which falls well short of that.”
I’m with Fred on that one too. Dobson and others like him want the Feds to impose THEIR beliefs on the states but not other people’s beliefs. They can’t have it both ways. The likes of marriage, abortion, drinking age, speed limits, etc. are all STATE issues. I’m sorry but you can’t legislate morality and you should not even try. The federal government is too much involved in things the constitution doesn’t give them permission to be involved in and marriage is one of them.
Oh, and by the way, I’m a former youth pastor, so my Christian credentials are solid.
>Oh and by the way, I’m a former youth pastor, so my Christian credentials are solid.<
But your Biblical knowledge is not! That a man lay with a man is an abomination to God. He made man and he made woman for man. And he said go forth and multiply. God’s law cannot be legislated away, but it can be legislated into man’s law.
I used to have an '8' on a Sunday school pin when I was young. That meant I went 8 years without missing more than 2 Sundays a year. Beat that! LOL
you can’t legislate morality
So, are you truly arguing that we should have immoral laws? Correlation between moral and civil codes does not make a theocracy.
When morality and civil law conflict or coincide, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, or (God forbid) atheists, have every right to fight it out in the civil arena. Your oft-repeated statement is not only sloppy logic; it is a call to cowardice.
That is why you are a former pastor
With apologies to The Princess Bride, "No good. I've known too many youth pastors."
All humor aside, I agree 100% with you. Sen. Thompson is one of the few candidates unwilling to impose a "social conservative" agenda upon the States. He is one of the few who takes federalism seriously - at least to the extent that Sen. Thompson takes **anything** seriously.
There's the rub, and the reason I am hesitant to support Sen. Thompson. What's he done? He has less of a record than even Barack Obama!
How about "Don't kill people...Don't steal, etc..." Those are laws legislating morality. Yes we DO need laws legislating morality in this country on things that are fundamentally right and wrong. Abortion and homosexuality are chipping away at the moral foundation of this nation. We need leaders that recognize this.
I am 100% in agreement with you....
Oh yeah, that seals it.
Most of the "youth pastors" I've known have been liberal idiots.
Bingo, he’s essentially a Nanny-Statist when it comes to what he believes. If everyone in a particular community want to have gay marraige, fine. I won’t live there and as long as the rest of the country isn’t forced to recognize it then they’ll all stay put. Thompson’s view of the issue is more in line with our constitutional republican founding. If today the Fed can say what’s moral for the entire country then the Fed will forever set the moral guidance and I for one don’t trust the tapeworms in DC to make good decisions regarding morality. They’ll end up using it as another excuse to consolidate power and we’ll lose that much more liberty in how we raise our families. Dobson’s dream would hurt the family in the long run rather than strengthen it.
Virtually all law is at its core a legislation of morality. For example - laws against murder are a legislation of the moral law “thou shalt not kill.” Your federalism concerns would be appropriate if we were trying to use the courts to impose a ban on gay marriage - like the liberals did with abortion. However, we are talking about a constitutional amendment here. Constitutional amendments are by definition constitutional and thus are not subject to concerns about federalism.