Posted on 05/08/2009 4:28:43 AM PDT by steve-b
Believe it or not, often I can see the other side of an argument. I know that tough gun control laws save lives and make our communities safer, for example, but I also see clarity in the Second Amendment. I support affirmative action, but I realize that providing opportunity to some worthy individuals can mean denying opportunity to others. Thinking about some issues involves discerning among subtly graded shades of gray.
On some issues, though, I really don't see anything but black and white. Among them is the "question" of granting full equal rights to gay and lesbian Americans, which really isn't a question at all. It's a long-overdue imperative, one that the nation is finally beginning to acknowledge....
Favoring "civil unions" that accord all the rights and benefits of marriage -- but that withhold the word marriage, and with it, I guess, society's approval -- amounts to another dodge. I'm concerned here with the way the law sees the relationship, not the way any particular church or religious leader sees it; that's for worshipers, clergy and the Almighty to work out. Marriage is not just a sacrament but also a contract, and the contractual aspect is a matter of statute, not scripture.
Obama took the "civil unions" route during last year's campaign and has stuck with it. While I see the political calculation -- that was basically the position of all the major Democratic candidates -- I never understood the logic. If semantics are the only difference between a civil union and a marriage, why go to the trouble of drawing a distinction? If there are genuine differences that the law should recognize, what are they?...
It ain't what you don't know that hurts, it's what you know that just ain't so.
Gay marriage is not a fundamental civil right.
I am not a Christian, and I have no problem with gay people. One of my best friends is gay.
But since when has marriage between people of the same sex been considered a "fundamental civil right"?
Answer: Since gay people decided it would be a shortcut to "acceptance"--just get the law to SAY it's so, and wheee! Everyone will accept gay people as equals.
It's a lazy, embarrassingly dishonest attempt twisting reality to fit a model that has never, ever existed in any society.
This is the definitive word on gays and gay marriage/civil unions.....
Rom 1:24 Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves,
Rom 1:25 who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
Rom 1:26 For this reason God gave them up to vile passions. For even their women exchanged the natural use for what is against nature.
Rom 1:27 Likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due.
How can you 'know' something that isn't true? But even if it were true, you're right - we still have a clear right to bear arms which precedes and trumps any gov't law or action.
Gay people have exactly the same rights as I do. They can marry anyone they want, so long as the other person is of the opposite sex.
My pickup truck is blue. But I say it’s red, and I want a law forcing everybody else to call it red.
“Gay Marriage” is the same thing. They can call their relationships anything they want, but that won’t make it a marriage. Don’t try to force me to call your relationship something it ain’t.
The gay bishop is not only a self-centered malignant narcissist intent on destroying his church, he's an idiot too.
Liberal tripe.
I know that tough gun control laws save lives and make our communities safer, for example,
One cannot know what is not so. One who does not know the difference between knowledge and belief is not to be trusted in his opinions.
Gay people have exactly the same right as hetero people to marry a person of the opposite sex and to spend the subsequent years trying to figure out how something so very different from oneself could still be, nominally at least, human.
He’s also in competition for the title of ‘Creepiest Cleric’ in the news. The race appears to be between “Roddy’ Robinson and Rev. Katherine ‘Rags’ Ragsdale who spent some 40 minutes praising open and free access to ALL abortions as a ‘blessing’. She has been selected as the next head of the Episcopal Divinity School in, of all places, Cambridge, mASS (surprise, surprise). Check it out here:
http://spectator.org/http://spectator.org/archives/2009/05/08/high-priestess-of-abortion
http://folsomstreetfair.org/photos/folsom-2008/index.php?page=2
Sorry Eugene, dressing up anal sex with flowery civil rights language does not work anymore.
See the gay “marriage” annual convention above.
This is their favorite canard and obviously Gene 'Grouper' Robinson has swallowed it hook line sinker and boat.
THEY HAVE EQUAL RIGHTS. The constant cries of discrimination and second-class citizen status are red herrings. Loving v Virginia involved a MAN and a WOMAN.
We don't call a hand a foot. We don't call a foot a hand. Language is the outgrowth of man's attempts to interact with and describe his environment. Marriage is marriage because it provides the potential for procreation and - not to be dramatic - literally the survival of the species.
The battle is on two fronts: the usual gaggle of leftists who believe that a court's decision can change minds and hearts and a subsegment of the left that believes a court decision will somehow magically translate into societal acceptance.
Even 'less do it cos we're nice peepul' writers like Gene Robinson acknowledge that societal acceptance is the goal, not equal legal standing, insurance, etc.
Last but not least is the constant trumpeting of the longevity of gay relationships. 'I've been with my partner for 18 years etc.' IRRELEVANT. Emotions do not a Constitutional argument make although plenty of people are attempting to engineer one.
If two adults of whatever sex want to live together there's nothing stopping them from doing so. No law restricts who can and cannot be named as a beneficiary in a Will. And Power of Attorney may freely be granted and revoked between consenting adults.
The legal foundations of marriage are based upon society's interest in the protection of any children which may issue from that marriage, for by definition they represent the future of that society. The state has no say in the religious dimensions of marriage (and in the U.S. that prohibition is explicit in the 1st Amendment) other than to note that such foundations exist and are part of every faith and creed.
This “guy” being a bishop pretty much explains why church attendance in New Hampshire is among the lowest in the nation.(only 24% attend church regularly).
Well, that's the nub of the issue.
SOCIETY DOESN'T APPROVE.
And, furthermore, as far as compelled approval goes, 51% just doesn't cut it. For the full force of the government to compel adherence to some moral and symbolic gesture, a huge supermajority should be required - like 2/3 of the Congress, and 3/4 of the states.
Anything less destroys social cohesion and engenders tyranny.
We’ve all seen in vivid detail what homosexuals brought to the Catholic church.Now they want to bring that same “magic” to marriage.
http://www.nationalreview.com/03june02/kurtz060302.asp
When I was in graduate school, I saw a letter to the editor of the college rag that pretty much summed up what the whole push is for gay “marriage.”
A girl was complaining that because she’s a lesbian, her family doesn’t accept her. If only it were possible for her to “marry” her partner, she opined, then her family would realize that her love for her partner is perfectly normal, and they would accept her.
Of course, if she would have applied some logic, she would have realized that even if she got a legal document saying she’s “married” to her girlfriend, her family would still be reacting to the fact that she’s mentally ill... no document can change that.
With such a stunning display of anti-intellect, one wonders how she could get by in college.
Take the contractual aspect away and leave the sacrament alone.
That would eliminate the "issue".
Let courts decide property rights based on individual cases.
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