Anti LGBTQ Cynicism

[PJH_74]

I know there are people here who are openly critical about LGBTQ is issues, but this exceptionally cynical bill introduced to the Kansas legislature does nothing for anyone who has these concerns.

http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2019_20/measures/documents/hb2320_00_0000.pdf

The short of it is that it tries to essentially make illegal things LGTBQ by arguing it is a religion and then hiding behind the establishment clause. It spends pages calling its principles fake or made up. …interestingly this is completely against Church teaching which acknowledges LGBTQ feels and desires real, it just prohibits its practice. It’s pretty weird to claim something that doesn’t worship a diety as being a religion.

The funny thing is that it the tries to establish Christian beliefs as the norm, so much for the separation argument. Nor does it take into account some Christian entanglements with our government; which we donor need to start listing here. This all just puts more fuel on the fire…it’s exactly why there is push back from LGBTQ people.

 

[Hoosier-Daddy]

The bill stands no chance in any state in the union. Though I wouldn’t mind if it did.

 

[on_the_hill]

The bill stands no chance in any state in the union.

I sure hope not. It’s amateur. Reads like it’s been drafted by a college intern.

I’m not going to bother to read it closely, but after glancing through it a few times I can’t tell which side of the argument it’s on. It seems to defend gay marriage in one section and then rails against it in the next. Whoever wrote it really hasn’t a good idea of how to organize his thoughts. Or proofread.

 

[therese1998]

My understanding is that it isn’t the “cross dressers” that are the problem as much as heterosexual predators claiming transgender ideology in order to gain access to opposite sex adults and children.

 

[PJH_74]

My understanding is that it isn’t the “cross dressers” that are the problem as much as heterosexual predators claiming transgender ideology in order to gain access to opposite sex adults and children.

That’s actually fairly dangerous assumption, it falls into the category of stranger danger. The problem is that the vast majority of child molesters are people that the child knows well and very likely respects highly. These people tend choose a child that has issues, like a broken family, unpopular, etc. because they know they have an in. They’ll make the child feel special in some sort of way and slowly desensitize their exposure to sex acts. This might be massages, porn, or whatever. They also tend to ingratiate themselves to their parents so as to obtain more time alone with the child. It’s just like any other abuse or rape, it is markedly a crime likely to be committed by people you know well.

I just took a mandatory 3 hour course on this topic before I could be a leader in a well known youth organization. This is also how virtually all the child sex scandals have taken place in the Catholic church. It was not priests laying in wait somewhere, it was the trust these perpetrators built up as in the scenario above. In many ways it was the perfect cover, a man who is Holy, beyond reproach, and supposedly celibate.

 

[PJH_74]

Though I wouldn’t mind if it did.

Please, I’d hope you are never the target of such mean spirited legal nonsense that is literally trying to write out your legal existence. This is just as obnoxious as claiming sports fans are a religion. As this bill postulates, a religion is defined by rituals, meetings, and sometimes delusional thought. We therefore should not be creating legal entanglements such as when they demand 100s of millions of dollars for a new stadium or they will leave.

 

[Hoosier-Daddy]

Like I said. It has no chance. Even the sponsor says it’s a mistake. However. Bills supporting traditional marriage are not a bad thing. I dont know why someone could be upset over something that has no real chance of being an issue.

 

[PJH_74]

Like I said. It has no chance. Even the sponsor says it’s a mistake. However. Bills supporting traditional marriage are not a bad thing. I dont know why someone could be upset over something that has no real chance of being an issue

Only one of the sponsors removed his sponsorship, but only after being taken to task very publicly by his daughter. Whatever its chances, tell me you would really take such a bill sitting down if was aimed directly at you. Respectfully same sex marriage is not the threat to traditional marriage; it’s divorce.

 

[Hoosier-Daddy]

Yes. I would take it sitting down. It’s silly. There are far worse Bills passed all the time that affect people worse than this. It’s nothing. It’s silly. And SS"M" is an incredible threat and offensive not only to God. But to me as a Catholic. I’ll also point out that while this bill wont pass, New York is killing babies. So are you equally as upset. I mean as a former baby?

 

[Thorolfr]

And SS"M" is an incredible threat and offensive not only to God. But to me as a Catholic.

I think that same-sex marriage is gaining acceptance by more and more Americans precisely because it hasn’t been very threatening. It’s been legal from coast-to-coast for more than three years now and much longer than that in some states and the world hasn’t come to an end and straight people are getting married just like they always have.

 

[Hoosier-Daddy]

Do you support it as a holy and good thing?

 

[Thorolfr]

Do you support it as a holy and good thing?

I’m not Catholic and only moderately religious. I last attended a Lutheran church and Lutherans don’t even consider marriage to be a sacrament. And historically, a lot of Americans didn’t get married in a church, either. My parents didn’t get married in a church and my great-great grandfather was married in 1865 by a Justice of the Peace. So, I’ve never really thought of marriage in religious terms and not as something holy.

 

[otjm]

It might be worth reviewing a few minor matters - they are called law suits.

Although I don’t track lawsuits, there is a bit of background needed: originally what was requested was that LGBQT wanted to be acknowledged as equal citizens; then what they wanted was marriage; and once that was achieved, a vicious and seemingly not uncoordinated series of attacks were begun; one in Colorado of a male cake decorator, who was sued and censured in Colorado. That went up all the way to the US Supreme Court, which took the usual route of trying to minimize the case law, and so found that the refusal of the cake decorator was based on artistic content rather than his religious belief. He won anyway; and then Colorado started a second round by changing the plaintiff slightly; last I heard it was headed for Federal Court again (and hopefully, the Supreme Court, which created this conundrum will find the intestinal fortitude to go back and look at the case which founded this mess and sort out what was then clearly called out as the future battleground - religion - with crystal clear foresight).

Another case involved a woman who had a flower shop and had a regular customer, a homosexual male, for whom she made flower arrangements. He then came in requesting she do the flowers for his wedding and she refused; I am not sure if she is still in business or if the case is moving forward. Again, her grounds were religious.

And I believe there is a third one out there, another bakery (in Oregon), same issue - religion.

So while the bill sounds a bit like the feverish writing of a third year law student, it is not for no reason that this is coming up. Will it solve the problem? Not likely, but that does not mean that a State might not decide that a minority may not make a whipping boy of individuals who believe that a wedding is only between a man and a woman, and have no desire to participate in a homosexual wedding.

The short of it is that a) marriage has for multi millennia been considered something between a man and a woman, across a number of religions and a very large number of societies. And while homosexual activity might have been very accepted in a number of societies (ancient Rome and Greece come to mind), that did not include marriage.

B) The Supreme Court decided to make a new category, under the legal construct of “penumbra of rights”, which is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution but which has been used when the Supreme Court has felt a need to raise a matter to “Constitutional Protection”.

C) it was clearly seen that 1) there was an alternative solution which did not require the concept of marriage, and that was a contractual relationship which could entail what are considered privileges of marriage - medical and inheritance being among the major ones. 2) it was clearly seen, and hsitory since then has proven true repeatedly, that homosexual marriage was likely to run afoul of religious beliefs.
(continued)

 

[otjm]

(continued)
In short, a specifically set out Amendment to the Constitution was going to end up in second place to an unnamed right found in an unelucidated penumbra.

And as in each case the State has been dragged in to enforce an unelucidated right over a named right, it is no wonder that a few more states have not done likewise. When a State can make unelucidated civil rights superior to religious beliefs, it flies directly in the face of the First Amendment. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…”

When the State can sue you and bankrupt you, and destroy your business because of your exercise of your religious belief - which is exactly what has occurred in at least three different states, then Houston, we have a problem.

And that does not matter how many people believe, or profess to believe that homosexuals have a right to marry. Unless and until there is a Constitutional Convention and the Constitution is either rewritten or amended, the 1st Amendment still places religious belief above a civil right.

 

[Prodigal_Son]

This is also how virtually all the child sex scandals have taken place in the Catholic church.

You do realize that this claim you make is demonstrably false, don’t you?

 

[Prodigal_Son]

In general, LGBT causes are not religious in the slightest. The claim that parents should lose their children because of refusing to accept the child’s chosen gender is, however, a claim based entirely on faith – and a claim that goes against science. It would be a bit like Mormons claiming that men must be allowed to marry multiple girls under the age of 18 because it isn’t harmful in their Scriptures.

(Please note that I’m not out to criticize Mormons here; I’m just using an example from their history. Most religions have historical realities that are very hard to explain morally.)

 

[therese1998]

That’s actually fairly dangerous assumption, it falls into the category of stranger danger.

Stranger danger is real. Even of it is in the minority of abuse cases, are we really willing to see those victimized in this way as “acceptable casualties” in order to promote the LGTBQ ideology? Also, where does sex trafficking figure into the dismissal of Stranger Danger?

Yes, I understand how SOME predators groom their victims. I realize you had a three hour training and I think that’s great. But it doesn’t erase the fact that it is ridiculously dangerous for any man to be able to follow any female child, teenager or woman into a closed and isolated place by claiming transgender ideology. We can rely on maybe there will be a witness, maybe there will be room to escape, maybe a potential victim will get a sense that something is wrong. You’ll have to decide for yourself if you’re ok with that. I’m not.

 

[Thorolfr]

B) The Supreme Court decided to make a new category, under the legal construct of “penumbra of rights”, which is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution but which has been used when the Supreme Court has felt a need to raise a matter to “Constitutional Protection”.

C) it was clearly seen that 1) there was an alternative solution which did not require the concept of marriage, and that was a contractual relationship which could entail what are considered privileges of marriage - medical and inheritance being among the major ones. 2) it was clearly seen, and hsitory since then has proven true repeatedly, that homosexual marriage was likely to run afoul of religious beliefs.
(continued)

As far as I know, Obergefell v. Hodges does not use the concept of a penumbra. The decision is based on the due process clause and the equal protection clause.

You mention an alternative solution using the concept of a contractual relationship, but isn’t civil marriage just a contract? If people want something religious, then they can go to a church and get a religious marriage. In some countries such as France, people have at least one marriage ceremony, a civil one, and must go to a church for a religious marriage. The two are completely separate from each other. In the US, the priest or pastor performs the religious ceremony but also acts on behalf of the state in performing the civil one at the same time. But people can have just a civil marriage if they want. Moreover, the Catholic church has been opposed to any legal recognition of same-sex unions that have any of the rights of marriage including so-called “domestic partnerships”, so it’s not as if gay people were really being encouraged to have unions under a different name.

 

[otjm]

We might have a better conversation if you can name me societies/governments in the past which recognized homosexual marriage.

I am not going to get into theological arguments about what some particular church does today; the Methodists are split, as well as most of the other mainline churches, and once you get beyond the mainline Protestant churches there is little history or binding in theology; however, it appears that somewhere between the majority and the vast majority of evangelical and fundamentalist churches reject homosexual marriage.

Talking about contract is to miss the point; go back to my paragraph above; name me societies/governments which recognized homosexual unions as marriage. Both within the ancient Roman and Greek world, homosexual activity was open and accepted, but that does not make homosexual activity to be marriage.

So we have a postmodern society in both North America and Europe, and a move to elevate homosexual activity to marriage activity and privilege. Some, but not all of the drive behind the marriage movement has been specifically for the laws granting marital privilege; taxation, inheritance, property ownership and medical issues of their partner.

The progressives took up the banner of “equal rights” and pushed for legal partnerships, and then the move morphed into marriage. And in the decision granting marriage as a civil right (which was not the net effect) it was noted that this was going to come in direct conflict with religious positions, and it has specifically done so.

It does not matter that the State previously recognized civil marriages; So did the Church (and you would learn this if you were to become active in tribunal work). Both the State and the Church were recognizing marriage between a man and a woman, and that did not run counter to religions which also recognized marriage as between a man and a woman.

Churches, including the Catholic Church but by no means excluding any others did not recognize homosexual partnerships as rising to the level of a marriage and the State, in deciding the case, made a decision which specifically and directly impacted those religions. I quoted the 1st Amendment in part above; go read it again; the State has decided what is or is not to be recognized by religions and that is the issue at the base of the the civil rights actions which some homosexuals have pushed against believers.
(continued).

 

[otjm]

Let me put it another way: The SC has said to all religions: You will now alter your beliefs and recognize marriage as including homosexual unions.

It really doesn’t matter if it is the King or Queen of England dictating to the Catholic Church what the Church will or will not do, or if it is the French Parliament, or the United States Federal court system. If you, because of your faith, refuse to acknowledge and participate in a homosexual marriage, we have the power, the right, and the law to take all of your possessions from you, punish you with multi hundreds of thousands or dollars, and destroy you and your family economically, if you will not arrange flowers for their wedding, or make a cake, or take pictures at the wedding.

And that is not much more than a scintilla from saying that if a Catholic priest does not perform a homosexual marriage, they will strip him of his right to perform any; and fine the diocese for not participating (as the diocese is the legal entity, in addition to the priest - see lawsuits for sexual abuse brought against both priests and their diocese).

It is past time to wake up and smell the coffee.

Using the terms “due process” and “civil rights” is simply making an end run around the specific language of the 1st Amendment. No one in writing the Constitution and no one in making the Amendments ever envisioned that homosexuals had an equal right to marriage as it has been recognized since the time the mind of man remembereth not that marriage was for the strengthening and the support of families; and families came from the sexual activity of a man and a woman, not two homosexuals. In short, there was something innate (procreation) which had the recognition of socialites and government. The “right” was never, to the best of my knowledge, understood throughout both known and unknown history, to exist for homosexuals; and that is where the term "penumbra applies.

The Supreme Court, in their ultimate wisdom, found something no one had ever found before. It was in the “penumbra” floating around since God made Adam and Eve, and we all were just too stupid to see it.

And that is hogwash; it did not exist. And religions, including non-Christian religions, have all missed it for millennia upon millennia?

As Bill Crosby said in the skit on Noah: Riiiight.

This “right” is a matter of a general philosophical bent of deconstruction of religion. It recognizes that humans have rights, but stops short of the fact that humans are made up of males and females and that there is something intrinsic about that which does not occur among males only or females only: the ability to procreate.

(continued)