Posted on 07/30/2011 3:22:34 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
In a single dramatic hour Friday, the course of the San Angelo, Texas, trial against polygamous sect leader Warren Jeffs might have changed course.
With a rambling outburst that included a malediction against the prosecutors, a defense of polygamy, and direct quotes from "the Lord God," Jeffs broke his prolonged silence in the trial, then continued to interrupt proceedings throughout the rest of the day.
The outbursts could merely be a continuation of Mr. Jeffs's apparent legal tactic: delay. But they also have also effectively turned the courtroom into a pulpit for the leader of the breakaway Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who is now representing himself in the proceedings.
"No longer is it really a trial. He just wanted an occasion to give a sermon," Laurie Levenson, professor at the Loyola Law School, told CBS News.
Jeffs is charged with sexually assaulting two underage girls. If convicted, he could receive life in prison. He has claimed that, as the head of his church, he has the constitutional right to practice his own religion, which includes polygamy. The mainstream Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon church, repudiated polygamy more than a century ago.....
(Excerpt) Read more at csmonitor.com ...
Getting a little off-topic, are we? Obviously, choice two would always be worse than choice one. After a nuclear disaster or alien invasion or zombie attack, then repopulating the planet might require polygamy. That's why there are so many movies about those 'possible' eventualities. However, THIS thread is about the dangers posed by ACTUAL polygamists TODAY. Reality just isn't as much fun.
Actually I was trying to get you back onto the question I originally posed in post #9.
Now you’ve finally answered it, and what do you know, we came down on the same side.
Which is why I believe Government should have NO POSITION on the celebration of Communion. Why should it say one way or the other? By letting Government have a say in what is fundamentally a religious matter, we subjugate religion and faith to the will of Government.
If Government says that marriage must allow gays and other abhorrent types of marriage, then it must be OK, right? I for one refuse to allow Government to dictate what marriage is, since it has shown itself incapable of getting it right. The ever-increasing number of States and countries that sanction gay marriage is a sure-fire sign of that.
So I want to see marriage out of the hands of Government entirely. Don't even let it address marriage - one way or the other. None.
Much like Communion - Government should be mute on the topic, no statement for or against. Get out of religion altogether, for it is not the domain of edifices of man, but the domain of God.
Declaring that you cannot name Jesus in a prayer is the result of allowing Government to dictate what public prayer IS. It is because we have let Government decide what public prayer can consist, and thus it has broken down to Government deciding you cannot say Jesus or God, but you can say Creator or Great Spirit.
Government should be restricted from taking ANY position about prayer at all. And in the same vein, I think it should be restricted from taking ANY position regarding marriage. Get Government out of religion, or risk seeing religion become a tool of Government (as we've seen time and again as a species, over these last 3000 years, the world over).
HEB 13:17 PLACE MARK
The bad news is the state has the power to punish if you don’t buy into their claim that “gay marriage’ is possible. The good news is that they really can’t change the true definition of marriage, just like passing a law that the moon is made of cheese doesn’t make it so. The other good news is that some faiths aren’t ever going to accept “gay marriage”, no matter the punishment. It’s just a shame that the state has that power in the first place, in my opinion.
The sooner folks start looking to their faiths to define marriage instead of the ever devolving versions of the statists and homosexualists, the better off the institution will be, in my opinion.
That said, the state is never going to give up the institution, it provides too much control of the culture. Like I said, they love that many have been conditioned to think that marriage is whatever the state says it is because marriage comes from the state, in little pieces of paper.
I voted for a marriage amendment in my state, and would do so again, but I don’t think it is going to matter eventually.
Freegards
Posts are WAY too short!
They both are Orwellian redefinition of Black’s legal dictionary which states marriage is between one man and one woman.
Why would we allow the legal definition of marriage to be changed, when our legal definition is the only one which agrees with Natural Law Theory and God’s Law which is the basis of our legal system?
In the book, 1984, the way they made people believe 2+2 = 5 was to change the definition of words and teach lies as truth—like Heather has two mommies. Very silly and destroys logic in children (and that is not covering the mocking God/religious aspect). Polygamy is unequal worth of individuals which is totally unconstitutional also.
Such silly and stupid concepts trying to be made normal and natural by constant repetition...said over and over and over especially so young children hear so that perceptions can be changed and lies become the truth.
Exactly like how Solzhenitsyn described the Soviet Union’s version of “truth” and Orwell’s emphasis on how words were constantly being redefined-—so than history and words meant nothing.
I advise keeping our legal definition that sufficed for 200 years (and longer in Common Law) and quit trying to redesign man to Marx’s image.This redefining words is exactly what gulags and Big Brother does and we know what happened there.
HMMMmmm...
Thanks. I wish more would see the wisdom in your words...
Better to get the Government out of the marriage business than allow it to degrade the sacrament, and use it as a club against believers.
It’s never going to happen. There’s too many on both sides against it. What’s probably going to happen is some faiths will divest themselves of the state’s influence, in order to help minimize the punishment for not accepting the statist and homosexualist version of marriage.
Freegards
You are still at it, even after JR told you to drop it?
Are you looking for a zot?
I had not considered that.
Well, what’s worse is that polygamy is pretty pervasive. There’s plenty of guys who cohabitate and have sex with plural mistresses, but easily get away with it because they didn’t bother with marriage licenses. That’s the problem, and that’s sort of what makes polygamy, aside from same-sex marriage, pretty pervasive and troublesome in its own light. Enforcement easily only picks a few out of the bunch, when we know that there’s plenty of people who get cheered along for living like it over the difference of a piece of paper. IMO, it’s just as revolting that plenty of women are mistresses of the wealthy elite as it would be should the wealthy elite be actual married polygamists.
It was tolerated. If you mean not sanctioned for everyone, then I understand where you are coming from. Abraham was blessed despite having had a concubine called Hagar, and Jacob was renamed in his famous epic fight with an angel (he was polygamous at the time, having both Leah and Rachel, as well as their handmaidens for concubines). The practice was also tolerated among the Israelites to a limited capacity, under the condition that you could provide for your wives. You were also, under Mosaic Law, supposed to marry your dead brother’s childless wife, even if you were already a married man at the time. Plenty of polygamous marriages in the Old times weren’t condemned by God, as far as I am concerned. Culture changed, however, and so should general practices. However, I am not in any way sympathetic to it now, because of the fact that it operates in defiance to the law(s) and a whole lot more than just plural marriage, such as statuatory rape, kicking out the lost boys, etc. Again, there are many reasons not to legalize it now in modern culture, but there’s no need at the same time to try being some purist about it. I don’t know where you are coming from there.
The standard response by the LDS to polygamy is it was sanctioned (approved) by God in the OT and thus no different now. That is not true.
All examples of polygamy in the bible are man’s doing, not God’s.
Oh yeah, mortal men wrote the Bible, not man, just a little correction there.
Oh yeah, mortal men wrote the Bible, not man, just a little correction there.
I believe the Bible to be the word of God. I also believe the Bible when it says that God never commanded polygamy.
There is a difference between God’s expressive will and God’s permissive will. Sometimes God lets our own actions condemn us and we make ourselves miserable, as the case of Jacob and every other polygamist in the Bible.
You are out of line claiming that I think everyone who disagrees with me is LDS or that I am expressing ‘cultist’ beliefs.
I don’t need to deal with trolls like you who insult me. This is the religion forum and there are rules to follow, including not making it personal like you have.
Also this thread is about Warren Jeffs and Polygamy, hence my comments.
Well, part of that is the reason why legal marriage, or some means of assigning responsibility for people in the occasion of divorce is there. There are often kids involved when some people divorce, and you set the responsibilities in situations such as that, especially for making it responsibility for the divorced parents. In the same sense, you probably know who supports the wierd reinterpretations of marriage the most: the people who handle the divorce settlements.
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