Do you support imposing your belief system on non-believers?

  • Thread starter Thread starter K9Buck
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A husband and wife raising a family has always been, since the dawn of time, the building block of society.
If anyone feels that Catholics are exerting too much influence, perhaps spending a year in Saudi Arabia would put things into perspective.
 
We live in an age of irony.

There are officially atheist governments in the world that support marriage between a man and a woman for prudential reasons, whereas on the other side of the world, historically Christian countries in N. America and Europe oppose this idea through raw feelings and populism.

@Dan123

That is part of it, but it digs deeper as well.

Peace.
 
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Dan123 said:
the government has no reason not to allow gay marriages
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except they had to change the meaning of marriage since its inception. this wasn’t only church teaching, it was also the secular definition.
Dan123 said:
Are you prepared to enforce a Catholic definition of marriage on those churches, stripping them of their freedom of religion?
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why would the church? they aren’t catholic

on the other hand, why are religious people being forced to adopt LGBT ideology?
 
I oppose the religious views of others being imposed on me and other unbelievers. In general I try to avoid support for imposing my views on believers except when I think the believers are doing harm. For example I oppose, and am happy to impose my beliefs on, religious people who deny blood transfusions to their children. I am perfectly happy for Catholics to remain celibate unless married to a person of the opposite sex and to have a range of rules about ‘what can go where’. But I am not happy with anyone using the power of the state to restrict my freedom, or anyone else’s, in this way.
 
Our entire legal system imposes beliefs on other people but as you know, there are limits. You won’t be reported for swatting a toddler’s hand, but you cannot beat the child. I have no say how the condo owners above me decorated, but when they hoarded and caused damage to my home as a result, I sued for damages.

In matters such as premarital sex though, I do not believe in replacing personal accountability with unenforceable law.

Not abortion… Violent crime that always results in death of an indefensible human being. It should be illegal.
 
Another set of laws that were around in part due to religious thought are sodomy laws. The only imposition that put on other people were the thoughts that such sex was occurring unpunished. Things like this and Comstock laws, where the impact on those not participating is nil and the driving force is :“Trust us, we know better than you,” should not be imposed on non-believers or on believers who simply feel differently.

We can reference nations where Catholics were in charge and see that they did not give the same religious freedom to others and they expect from others when not in charge.
 
upant said:
why would the church? they aren’t catholic

on the other hand, why are religious people being forced to adopt LGBT ideology?
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By advocating that the law reflect a Catholic view of marriage you’re in turn preventing other faith’s from exercising their rights with the support of the law you would be enjoying.
upant said:
except they had to change the meaning of marriage since its inception. this wasn’t only church teaching, it was also the secular definition.
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The idea that marriage has been the same throughout history is frankly baffling. It has been a property agreement, a way to unite families, a way to create royals, a financial transaction, an act of love, a way to gain citizenship to a country, a way to avoid paying a financial penalty for sexual assault, an assigned agreement between a slave-owner and his slave(s) and so on. How many wives did Solomon have? Several hundred I believe, so one-man-one-woman certainly hasn’t always been the case.

At the government level, marriage is a contract. Preventing a same sex couple from entering into a contract has no legal basis. The court rulings didn’t change the definition, they acknowledged the exclusionary nature of the law had always been wrong under the constitution.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
The best one could do is have a dual system of civil marriage by the state and then, if desired, religious marriage in the church of one’s choice, which would allow churches to exclude couples who didn’t meet the religious criteria of the church and avoid any risk that a church would one day be forced to marry a particular couple. However, I doubt that would satisfy people who are very opposed to gay marriage.
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And is it likely to satisfy those who want to eventually see Churches forced to carry out ‘gay marriages’?

If two gay people want to have a civil union, with all legal protections etc, then why does it have to be referred to as a marriage? Why is the term “marriage” so central to those who want it referred to as this?

At its core is this not a battle to redefine (or recreate) the institute of marriage?
 
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You just proved my point by bringing up the exact two things that I said Catholics likely wouldn’t be satisfied about even if we had a dual system and recognized that government can define marriage how it wants from a social order perspective.
 
jan10000 said:
But that is not what is happening. Marriage isn’t changing, just who can participate.
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But the nature of the participants is one of the defining features of the institution of marriage. It is a life-long union of the two complementary forms of male and female, husband and wife, into one. To remove the male and female union is to alter the nature of the institution and create something else.

I believe, this whole argument has at its core a battle over the nature of marriage that goes beyond individual legal protections etc.
 
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Wrong thread title! Revise it: Should non-believers voluntarily submit to the same laws which we voluntarily submit to?

“Imposition” is an old lefty & libertarian code word. Talk about strange bedfellows!
 
Brendan_64 said:
It is a life-long union
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Divorce is legal. Divorce has been legal to varying degrees for a very long time. This is not part of the commonly understood definition.
jan10000 said:
The natural question then is what stops marriage at one male-female couple, then? Of course, it is the procreation foundation of marriage.
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I’d actually say if we want to cite natural law and procreation as the foundation, polygamy is much more natural in that sense. “It takes a village” and so on.
jan10000 said:
I have adopted 5 children. I am their FATHER. What if biological parents got mad and said we are redefining the word ‘father’. We are violating their beliefs and rights by calling the adoptive male parent a ‘father’. It is minimizing the true value of the biological father-son relationship.
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This is a really good example and one I may use in the future. You’re also a hero.
Brendan_64 said:
And is it likely to satisfy those who want to eventually see Churches forced to carry out ‘gay marriages’?
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Forcing churches to perform gay marriage ceremonies is not a common or popular opinion. Probably as popular as Catholics wanting premarital sex to be illegal.
 
Dan123 said:
Forcing churches to perform gay marriage ceremonies is not a common or popular opinion.
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If activists can try this with bakers and cakes, you don’t think there could be attempts to try to force a Christian Church or denomination to do so and then try to punish them through the courts for not complying, on the grounds of discrimination?
 
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Brendan_64 said:
If activists can try this with bakers and cakes, you don’t think an attempt to force a Christian Church or denomination to do so and then try to punish them through the courts for not complying?
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There’s no concept of separation of bakeries and state in our civil law. Are you forced to perform second marriages? Are you forced to marry non-Catholic couples?
 
You have a point there , so long as such legal protections for religions and continue to exist. Although laws and protections can be challenged.
 
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Tis_Bearself said:
Gay marriage was essentially imposed by the courts on large groups of people who didn’t support it.
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Same-sex marriage affects no one outside of the two folks who VOLUNTARILY agree to marry one another. Two dudes getting married or engaging in sex in the privacy of their own dwelling is not an “imposition” upon you or anyone else.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
…it’s entirely possible that there are non-believers out there who still don’t like the idea of gay people getting married…
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Two gay folks getting “married” doesn’t not adversely affect an innocent, disinterested third-party. Gay people should have the same rights as anyone else in American society.
 
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