Anti-gay bill in Uganda challenges Catholics to take a stand

[St_Francis]

When asked if there’d ever been a single case of this before the courts, Mr Lively merely said that was no proof that it didn’t occur anyway, but had been covered up by a conspiracy of police, religious leaders, judges and politicians.

In the same speech, he also blamed the Rwandan genocide on gay men.

Lively has also claimed, in his book The Poisoned Stream, that “a dark and powerful homosexual presence” can be traced through “the Spanish Inquisition, the French ‘Reign of Terror,’ the era of South African apartheid, and the two centuries of American slavery.” He claims that Homosexuality was the driving force behind Nazism in his book The Pink Swastika.

One reason for the Catholic Church’s silence is easily explained: They’re afraid of the accusations of Homosexuality too. Evidence is not required.

I’d talk about “witch hunts”, but they actually have those in Uganda, with “Prophets” and “Witch Smellers” active and causing the lynching of a number of people every year.

This does look bad. Sigh.

Hopefully the Catholic leaders in Uganda will be able to influence the government towards a more moderate stance, and also turn their attention to some of their other problems.

 

[Lutheranteach]

If this were the law of ALL the land for the past 25-50 years, how many priests would have been executed?

 

[gamewell45]

I wonder if the Uganda Government has any idea of what its going to cost to incarerate all these people who end up in jail for life?

 

[St_Francis]

If this were the law of ALL the land for the past 25-50 years, how many priests would have been executed?

I think that probably every Catholic feels as angry about that situation as you do, possibly more. It would seem that pedophilia is one of those tendencies that do not diminish with age, so I do think that people who are convicted should receive an extremely long sentence so as to protect other children. Some nations may not be able to imprison people for that long, and then they might consider that they need to use the death penalty.

However, the problem with using the DP against someone who commits those crimes is that as the highest possible sentence, the child molester then has no reason not to kill the child, who would otherwise be able to testify against him or her. For this reason, I am against the DP for people who have not killed anyone (altho I would not say that someone who committed such a heinous act did not deserve if).

And aside from all that, those priests who engaged in these terrible acts were acting against Church teaching and constituted only a very small percentage of priests; thus, there is no bar to the Church’s commenting on this law.

 

[St_Francis]

The Catholic Church in Uganda has so far made no comment - because to protest could be seen as somehow legitimising homosexuality.

Do you have any evidence that this is their reason?

I ask because as I was driving, I realised that I had responded badly in this thread, because I had responded too quickly. I knew too little and did not take time to reflect before responding.

Now, my having done that did no harm; however, were the Church to do that, a great deal of harm could be done. So, I would prefer that the Church wait to respond, to give themselves adequate time to consider the situation and all the various issues.

The same excuse they use for opposing anti-bullying laws in the USA that would specifically protect Gay students.

First of all, the homosexual activists who are trying to push through these endeavors *are *trying to legitimise homosexual activity.

Secondly, I do agree that it is wrong to have laws protecting only one set of people, or specific sets of people. Yes, bullying is wrong, but is it *more *wrong because the person bullied is a member of a certain group? Does a homosexual person somehow deserve more protection than others? And if a child is bullied, is it somehow *better *for that child if the reason is that they are fat, or mentally challenged, of funny-looking…?

So by all means, have anti-bullying laws, but protect *everyone, *not just a certain segment of the population.

I think they may get in trouble with the Vatican though - the sanctity of the confession is supposed to be absolutely inviolate. To acquiesce to such laws without demur or protest, even if they are not obeyed in practice, would seem to me to be a very grave matter.

But maybe not. Maybe Homosexuality is seen as so much greater a sin than genocide, rape, murder, etc that “allowances have to be made”.

I remember when the Abu Ghraib scandal occurred, and at the same time, there were terrorists kidnapping people and beheading them. Remember that? There was so much outrage expressed over the Abu Ghraib stuff, and very little about the beheadings, and I asked about that. People replied that the reason was that everyone already agreed that the beheadings were awful.

In the same way, everyone already agrees that genocide, rape, and murder are really bad things. However, just as with Abu Ghraib where some argued that this was pressure to confess or reveal information, there are those who do not agree that a homosexuality is wrong, and that the agenda of the homosexual activists is inimical on both a spiritual and material level. Thus, members of the Church hierarchy tend to speak out against homosexual activism but not comment on the other issues.

Certainly it seems that way sometimes, when Catholic Bishops and Archbishops in the US spend so much energy trying to stop the passage of bills that would allow basic human rights regarding employment etc to gay people, as to allow them would be a “restriction of religious freedom”.

You seem to think that the Church has something against active homosexuals but this is simply no more the case that the Church is against sin in general and against the promotion of sin, which homosexual activists do.

The reason that the Church is against laws which “allow basic human rights regarding employment” is that they interfere with another basic human right, which is freedom of association.

 

[Zoe_Brain]

So by all means, have anti-bullying laws, but protect *everyone, *not just a certain segment of the population.

But without calling out those specific examples, there have been cases where such laws have been deemed not to apply - I’ll see if I can find the quotes from a headmaster of a school in Florida who stated that the general anti-bullying statutes couldn’t apply when the victim was morally perverted, gay or lesbian.

In the same way, everyone already agrees that genocide, rape, and murder are really bad things.

You’re obviously not familiar with the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, who use Old Testament scriptures to say that God positively commands them to genocide, rape and torture the UnGodly.
*” And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”

Num. 31: 15-18*

That’s what they do. They take these and other words in the Bible literally, and put them into practice.

You seem to think that the Church has something against active homosexuals but this is simply no more the case that the Church is against sin in general and against the promotion of sin, which homosexual activists do.

The reason that the Church is against laws which “allow basic human rights regarding employment” is that they interfere with another basic human right, which is freedom of association.

Which is why they’re so much against employing Idolators like Hindus, and support the KKK when they don’t want to employ Blacks. And why they’re so much against the existing laws that say you can’t fire someone merely because they’re Catholic… except that’s different, right?

The fact is, there is a double-standard here. Religion is used as an excuse to justify irrational and emotionally-based Homophobia, just as in the past it has been used to justify racism. I’m homophobic myself - but as a rational being, I don’t mistake an instinctive revulsion for a moral justification.

If this were not the case, the same degree of energy would be spent in say, making divorce illegal, or preventing Buddhists from gaining employment “where they’re not wanted”.

Note that the proposed Employment Non Discrimination Act only applies to large firms employing dozens or hundreds of people, government departments, and does not apply to any religious organisation or one with a religious basis. Even ones with no religious connection whatsoever aren’t affected unless they employ at least 15 people.

Freedom of association is an individual right. You have the right not to personally employ someone you don’t like, for whatever reason. But as Governor of a state, you can’t direct that all government departments be Jew-Free, or Hispanic-Free. You can, at the moment, direct that they be Gay-Free.

 

[St_Francis]

But without calling out those specific examples, there have been cases where such laws have been deemed not to apply - I’ll see if I can find the quotes from a headmaster of a school in Florida who stated that the general anti-bullying statutes couldn’t apply when the victim was morally perverted, gay or lesbian.

The fact that someone misrepresents an existing law does not mean that we need to make a new law, it just means that the existing law needs to be explained to the principal.

Here is what some people who are interesting in stopping bullying have said: There should not be any major emphasis on defining victims. This addition into an anti bullying law will cause several problems for lawmakers:

Any child can be victimized by a bully. Remember that bullies bully because they can, and because they can get away with it.

The way a bully’s target or victim acts or physically looks is not the victim’s problem but the bully’s own psychological problem. The bully is the root of the problem.

Defining victims will slow the process of lawmaking, dividing political parties who will argue over which victims get special rights over other victims.

All children deserve the “special right” not to be bullied. ALL children who are bullied need to be protected.

You’re obviously not familiar with the Lord’s Resistance Army in Uganda, who use Old Testament scriptures to say that God positively commands them to genocide, rape and torture the UnGodly.
*” And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.”

Num. 31: 15-18*

That’s what they do. They take these and other words in the Bible literally, and put them into practice.

And obviously the perpetrators of the beheadings also disagreed that these were heinous acts, and probably had some verses from the Koran to back them up.

Which is why they’re so much against employing Idolators like Hindus, and support the KKK when they don’t want to employ Blacks. And why they’re so much against the existing laws that say you can’t fire someone merely because they’re Catholic… except that’s different, right?

Would I say that Jack Chick Publications had the right to fire an employee who converted to Catholicism? Well, in a civil sense, yes, but of course not in a spiritual sense.

Religion is used as an excuse to justify irrational and emotionally-based Homophobia, just as in the past it has been used to justify racism.

Religion, yes, but *which religion? *It was not the Catholic Church which used made-up interpretations of the Bible to justify racism, it was Protestants. In fact, way before the Protestants did that, or saw the sinfulness of chattel slavery, way back in the 1400’s the Pope condemned it. (Here and here are a couple of articles)

WRT homosexuals, the Catechism of the Catholic Church says: This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. **They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. **These persons are called to fulfill God’s will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition.

I’m homophobic myself - but as a rational being, I don’t mistake an instinctive revulsion for a moral justification.

Proximity does not *always *equal causation, but sometimes it does.

If this were not the case, the same degree of energy would be spent in say, making divorce illegal, or preventing Buddhists from gaining employment “where they’re not wanted”.

Note that the proposed Employment Non Discrimination Act only applies to large firms employing dozens or hundreds of people, government departments, and does not apply to any religious organisation or one with a religious basis. Even ones with no religious connection whatsoever aren’t affected unless they employ at least 15 people.

So, which is it, 15 or more, or dozens or hundreds? I mean, if I run a firm with 16 people, and some of those people are my children or my children come over, I would avoid hiring *anyone *who seems overly interested in sexual activity, but with these laws in place, I could get sued for not hiring the person who comes into the interview wearing a Gay Pride Day t-shirt. Is *that *fair?

 

[Zoe_Brain]

I mean, if I run a firm with 16 people, and some of those people are my children or my children come over, I would avoid hiring *anyone *who seems overly interested in sexual activity, but with these laws in place, I could get sued for not hiring the person who comes into the interview wearing a Gay Pride Day t-shirt. Is *that *fair?

You could get sued for not hiring them - if they were Black. Or White. Or they were Jewish. Or they were Catholic. Or Irish. Or Hispanic. Or male. Or female. Regardless of what T-shirt they were wearing. All of those are grounds for a lawsuit already, if there was provable discrimination on that basis alone.

But what you really mean, is could you reasonably be sued? That depends. If they were obviously, and provably, the “best person” for the job, and the only reason you didn’t hire them was because you thought they might be straight - or gay - , and you were unwise enough to provide them with documentary evidence of that acceptable in court, then yes. Otherwise no.

For example, if you had a track record of not hiring people who were overly interested in any sexual activity, gay or straight, and this person appeared to be overly interested, then the case would never get to trial.

What you could not do is fire someone who converted to Catholicism, just because they converted. Neither could you fire someone who “came out” as gay, if they were otherwise an exemplary employee, just because they were gay. Nor could you fire someone who you thought was gay just because you find out they are straight. Nor fire someone for only “passing for white” if you find that out.

Unless you have 15 employees or less. Then you can.

What you have to do is fire them based on a “personality clash” or because they “are not a team player”. Write some bad performance reviews. Assign them a task in the morning, cancel it at lunchtime, and in the afternoon give them a review which shows a 100% failure to meet targets in the assessment period (6 hours). As happened to me, by the way, before I transitioned.

It’s important that you don’t leave incriminating e-mails around, saying “I’m actually firing this guy because he’s gay, not because he was 17 seconds late 3 years ago as we wrote on his dismissal notice”. But if your reason isn’t obviously pretextual, you can fire anyone.

Now for all other categories - male, female, black, white, catholic, jew - if you have 10,000 employees, and claim that it’s a coincidence that none are black when the firm is in an area which is 30% black, you can’t be sued for that. It could be mere coincidence that not a single one of your 10,000 employees is gay. But you better make sure that about 3,000 are black, or you would be sued.

If you want any more answers to hypotheticals, please just ask. ENDA has been specifically formulated so it doesn’t provide the same protections as for other “suspect classes”.

Zoe

 

[St_Francis]

You could get sued for not hiring them - if they were Black. Or White. Or they were Jewish. Or they were Catholic. Or Irish. Or Hispanic. Or male. Or female. Regardless of what T-shirt they were wearing. All of those are grounds for a lawsuit already, if there was provable discrimination on that basis alone.

But what you really mean, is could you reasonably be sued? That depends. If they were obviously, and provably, the “best person” for the job, and the only reason you didn’t hire them was because you thought they might be straight - or gay - , and you were unwise enough to provide them with documentary evidence of that acceptable in court, then yes. Otherwise no.

For example, if you had a track record of not hiring people who were overly interested in any sexual activity, gay or straight, and this person appeared to be overly interested, then the case would never get to trial.

What you could not do is fire someone who converted to Catholicism, just because they converted. Neither could you fire someone who “came out” as gay, if they were otherwise an exemplary employee, just because they were gay. Nor could you fire someone who you thought was gay just because you find out they are straight. Nor fire someone for only “passing for white” if you find that out.

Unless you have 15 employees or less. Then you can.

What you have to do is fire them based on a “personality clash” or because they “are not a team player”. Write some bad performance reviews. Assign them a task in the morning, cancel it at lunchtime, and in the afternoon give them a review which shows a 100% failure to meet targets in the assessment period (6 hours). As happened to me, by the way, before I transitioned.

It’s important that you don’t leave incriminating e-mails around, saying “I’m actually firing this guy because he’s gay, not because he was 17 seconds late 3 years ago as we wrote on his dismissal notice”. But if your reason isn’t obviously pretextual, you can fire anyone.

So, what’s the point of these laws, then? I mean, if they are so easy to get around, then it seems pretty pointless, no?

 

[Brendan]

Sorry, the Church cannot get involved in the internal politics of a nation. Christ Matthews from MSNBC said so.

 

[Zoe_Brain]

So, what’s the point of these laws, then? I mean, if they are so easy to get around, then it seems pretty pointless, no?

Well, it seems that those who do most of the discriminating aren’t that bright, quite frankly.

And they’ve been told by their Priests and Pastors just how big a threat this bill is, how it will force them to hire gays etc. So if it’s passed, they won’t question what they’ve been told, as surely an Archbishop wouldn’t lie.

It’s the same thing for Title VII claims under the 1964 Civil Rights Act. It’s perfectly legal from a federal viewpoint for any employer with less than 15 employees to put in job advertisements “No niggers need apply”, though that will often contravene state, city or county ordnances. But “everyone knows” its illegal, even though it isn’t.

How many people have actually read it, the Civil Rights Act, I mean? How many have actually read the text of ENDA? Or for that matter, the new Hate Crimes Laws?

The laws will protect - due to the ignorance of the bigots and the lies by the bill’s opponents - far more people than you’d think. Not 100%, possibly not even 50%. But a great improvement.

In 38 states, it’s legal to fire someone for being transsexual: in 30 states, it’s legal to fire someone for being gay. 38% of the US population is covered at the state, city or county level against this kind of thing, but 62% are not. Moreover, the lack of any such federal law has been and continues to be used as an excuse for not passing more useful laws at local levels.

Many people - myself included - think that as ENDA doesn’t cover the provision of services, public accommodations (such as being allowed to walk on a sidewalk, or use a drinking fountain), rental, loans etc that instead an amendment to Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act would have been better. But this is the best we can get at the moment.

I say “we”, even though I’m straight, I could be fired because I’m perceived to be gay, since I’m Intersexed. As I said, bigots tend to be fairly thick.

 

[revertfromLDS]

Personally I’ve always had an issue with GLBT community supporters and members comparing themselves to Jews in the holocaust and blacks struggling with post-slavery civil rights. No doubt there is widespread, even institutionalized prejudice against them. However, most of the “rights” they say they are being cheated are things like what happened recently at my University where there was a vote to change the student government bylaws to allow gay or gender neutral couples to run as homecoming couples. The situation in Uganda is obviously much worse than anything we deal with here in the U.S. If you think “sodomites” (as some dehumanizingly refer to them as), should be imprisoned for life and you lump them together with “fornicators, adulturers, rapists, pedophiles, and masturbators” then you by default say these groups should also receive “just” retribution as well. Though I bare shame for being able to have included myself in more than one of the aforementioned groups, I do not believe I deserve multiple life sentences!

 

[seekerz]

If African nations want to protect the family, they would do better to enact mandatory life sentences for the use of rape as a form of warfare, a problem which strikes at the heart of the family and which appears to be shockingly common. How about the death penalty for those who try to “cure” their HIV by raping virginal girls? Why do those so-called evangelical politicians only thirst for blood of homosexuals? Strange the selective situations they seem brave enough to cast the first stone in…unless I’m reading it wrong, my Bible shows no similar selective punishment for sodomy versus other types of sexual transgressions.

I see no reason the Church should even hesitate to condemn the harsh penalties proposed in this legislation, after all it urges caution even in applying the death penalty to convicted murderers!

 

[St_Francis]

Well, it seems that those who do most of the discriminating aren’t that bright, quite frankly.

And they’ve been told by their Priests and Pastors just how big a threat this bill is, how it will force them to hire gays etc. So if it’s passed, they won’t question what they’ve been told, as surely an Archbishop wouldn’t lie.

First of all, I am only going to address what Catholics do, because I perceive a lot of what Protestants and non-Catholic Christians do as erroneous.

And the thing is, yes, if you can be sued for not hiring someone, you are being forced ot hire that person. There are plenty of organizations with more than 15 employees who would be subject to this.

And the law, aside from how it “works” in reality, is a statement of what the society thinks. The fact that abortion is legal in this nation means that we think that the unborn are not “worthy” of the rights that humans are all supposed to enjoy.

The law is making a statement that the “right” of a homosexual person to work anywhere supercedes the right of groups which are against homosexual behavior to limit their employment *at their own place of business. *

And I guess this is the crux of the problem. Say that I would not want to hire a Communist for my home-based business–I probably wouldn’t care if I had a large business, but I would not want a Communist around my children. Legally, this would apparently be all right.

The problem when it comes to homosexuality is that there are two aspects. The one aspect, the tendency, would [in most businesses] be completely irrelevant, right? So in those cases, to be not-hired or fired *simply for *the tendencies is a moot point, as it doesn’t need to come up at all and thus have no effect on one’s job status.

So one has to wonder why all these homosexuals are being hired and fired? I have met many people who turned out to be homosexual who gave no outward sign of it–I would never have known had I not been told. And those who I could immediately tell were homosexual were active homosexuals, mostly activist as well, whom, yes, I would not want to hire for many types of business situations. And not wanting to hire them would be a function of their outward actions and what they say than it is about their tendencies.

Overall, I think the problem may lie in a lack of differentiation between homosexual, active homosexual, and activist homosexual. I would not hire an activist homosexual if for no other reason than it would probably be distracting to me; however, it would seem that his or her activism would also be protected, and that *is *a problem. Why should homosexual activism be protected when other ideologies are not?

 

[Zoe_Brain]

Why should homosexual activism be protected when other ideologies are not?

You mean like Religious activism? That’s protected now.

And it looks as if you don’t have to worry anyway - ENDA is unlikely to be passed.

Glenn worked for two years in the General Assembly’s Office of Legislative Counsel as an editor and proofreader of bill language. She loved her job, but living as male was increasingly painful and distressing for Glenn, who has a longstanding female gender identity. Glenn’s health care providers diagnosed her with Gender Identity Disorder (GID) and agreed that gender transition was necessary for her health and well-being. In 2007, Glenn informed her immediate supervisor, Beth Yinger, that she planned to proceed with her transition from male to female… Yinger passed the information on to her boss, the General Assembly’s Legislative Counsel, Sewell Brumby. After confirming that Glenn intended to transition, Brumby fired her on the spot.

In the fall of 2007, after I had worked in the Office of Legislative Counsel for two years, my name change was nearly finalized and I was ready to come to work as Vandy Beth Glenn. I told my supervisor that the time had arrived. She, in turn, told her boss – Sewell Brumby, legislative counsel and the head of my office. On the morning of October 16, 2007, Mr. Brumby summoned me to his office. He asked me if what he had heard was true – did I really intend to come to work as a woman? I told him yes, it was true. Then Mr. Brumby told me that people would think I was immoral. He told me I’d make other people uncomfortable, just by being myself. He told me that my transition was unacceptable. And, over and over, he told me it was inappropriate. Then he fired me. I was escorted back to my desk, told to clean it out, and marched out of the building.

Her supervisor is in the habit of mentally undressing all women he supervises, and Ms Glenn’s situation upset him. That’s why he fired her.

“It makes me think about things I don’t like to think about, particularly at work … I think it’s unsettling to think of someone dressed in women’s clothing with male sexual organs inside that clothing.”

Brumby couldn’t explain to Cole Thaler, the Lambda Legal attorney representing Glenn, why it was upsetting.

“It’s not something that I enjoy thinking about, and I think it would have been unsettling to have a constant reminder to think about something I don’t like to think about,” he said.

Brumby called her transition unnatural, but said he didn’t make moral judgments while acknowledging others would. He said that some in the legislature would view Glenn’s transition as “liberal or ultra-liberal” and could lose faith in the office’s required neutrality.

How can Brumby officially make these confessions only to have the case still be open? The answer is sadly quite simple: Georgia is among the majority of states that do not explicitly make discrimination on the basis of gender identity illegal. Instead, Glenn and her lawyers are filing suit under the federal law which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex. While it seems obvious to me that such a law is applicable to this situation — Glenn was fired for openly identifying with her true sex — legal opinions on the subject are mixed. And Brumby admits to knowing as much when he made his decision:

Brumby said he did his own legal research and asked another employee to do her own legal research. He checked to see if Gender Identity Disorder fell under the Americans with Disability Act, and if there was case law that would prohibit him from terminating Glenn because of her transition. He said he found that GID is not covered in the ADA and there is conflicting case law about firing people who transition on the job.

He also noted that one or more of his friends told him, “I would get sued and I would lose.”

In other words, he knew perfectly well that what he was doing was discriminatory — otherwise, there would be nothing to research. But he also saw that many others have gotten away with the exact same behavior and figured that his desire to discriminate was worth the gamble.

The experience of Vandy Beth Glenn and the atrocious actions of her … ex-boss are a perfect example for why it’s so vital for Congress to pass an inclusive ENDA (Employment Non-Discrimination Act). Indeed, Glenn and her lawyers are hoping to bring attention to precisely that bill with this case. Even if Glenn wins in the Federal District Court in Atlanta, that’s only one jurisdiction. Every other person who faces similar discrimination in a different district would have to go through the same process with their own district court, and hope that the same decision is reached. This is particularly troublesome because of the fact that there are countless stories like Glenn’s out there.

40% of trans people are unemployed: 25% have some income: only 35% have full-time work, and most of them can be fired at any time if their supervisor changes to someone who thinks trans people are “inappropriate” or “immoral”.

 

[SophieG]

I see no reason the Church should even hesitate to condemn the harsh penalties proposed in this legislation, after all it urges caution even in applying the death penalty to convicted murderers!

Agreed. Yes, the wages of sin is death, but death that Jesus hands out. Not us.

 

[Zoe_Brain]

Agreed. Yes, the wages of sin is death, but death that Jesus hands out. Not us.

You forget “and related activities”. The ones that can’t escape these laws are the Intersexed, especially Intersexed children. As written, anyone who does advocacy of Intersex human rights, or even anyone who published medical data on the subject, is liable to be imprisoned.

 

[SophieG]

You forget “and related activities”. The ones that can’t escape these laws are the Intersexed, especially Intersexed children. As written, anyone who does advocacy of Intersex human rights, or even anyone who published medical data on the subject, is liable to be imprisoned.
Reply With Quote

I’m against this bill. I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to say here. Related activities to what?

 

[Darryl1958]

So two gay men having sex would face life in prison? Utterly ridiculous. How you think about the act of consensual homosexual activity from a moral standpoint is a different issue. From a legal standpoint, the fact that this is even punishable is an abhorrent misue of the justice system.

I agree. The law needs to give enough freedom in order that we may freely chose to do the right thing. In general, the law ought to be disinterested in our own private affairs and associations. There is no good enough reason to sanction such behavior through legal means, but it is anti-gay to punish consensual private behavior through the tyranny of a government.
As for the death penalty for willfully spreading AIDS, sex with children, etc., there may be no other way to keep a society safe and functioning, especially in Africa where whole populations have become challenged by this type of behavior.

 

[Lynxdk]

I’m against this bill. I’m honestly not sure what you’re trying to say here. Related activities to what?

When I read your post the first time:
“Agreed. Yes, the wages of sin is death, but death that Jesus hands out. Not us.”
I heard “I agree. This bill is wrong. The wages of sin is death, but these people shouldn’t be put to death by the government is this way. It’s God’s place to judge them.”

But when I read it the second time, after Zoe’s post, I read it as “Agreed. Yes, the wages of sin is death, so they’re just getting what they deserve. It’s not us doing it, so it has nothing to do with us.”

Perhaps that’s what Zoe second comment was directed towards, or something along those lines. Not that I mean to imply that you meant it the second way rather than the first, but I’ve often heard the words “The wages of sin is death” from protestant fundamentalists use those words in conjunction with the second sort meaning when the subject is in regards to LGBT issues.

but I don’t know Zoe’s mind, so I could be completely off ~lol~