Gay Marriage: What's the problem?

[JimG]

I agree that gay marriage is part of a larger historic social phenomenon. But I hadn’t considered that porpoise rights might be next in line. It is certainly possible.

I had a friend who claimed that porpoises have their own civilization equal to ours. I demanded to see the great porpoise literature, their works of art and philosophy. He accused me of being human centric. Really. Your post just brought this incident to mind.

 

[mek42]

Was there discussion similar to this in the media of the time when the State began marrying people independent from the Church?

 

[jmisk]

Does anyone know when civil marriage or marriages not requiring a religious institution began? Is it a hundred years old? 500? When did the government marriage equal (in terms of law not sanctity) religious marriage?

 

[marymary1975]

Does anyone know when civil marriage or marriages not requiring a religious institution began? Is it a hundred years old? 500? When did the government marriage equal (in terms of law not sanctity) religious marriage?

Read Frederick engel: the beginning of family, private property and the state. That gives the history of marriage indepent from religious view. I know he is a Marxist but eliminate the obvious Marxist thing and his description of the origins and family and marriage are quite accurate in terms of the origins of States.

 

[Kal2012]

Good point. I have a problem with the political activism by a nonprofit religious organization. A case could be made that both the Catholic Church and the LDS should lose their tax exempt status in California, for their thinly veiled funding and political involvement in the Prop 8 election.

Having and expressing an opinion is one thing. Interference in the political process is another for a religious group.

Yeah…try telling the black churches that they can’t invite Democrat candidates to speak. It’s always a huge deal when (insert candidate name) comes to one of the historically black churches in Dtwn Detroit. Republicans never get “equal time” in the same churches.

There’s really not a lot of room to complain about church/political involvement when both sides do it.

It’s hard to image the civil rights movement w/o the black church. (Hello, MLK, was the Reverend Martin Luther King.) Should he not have participated in (or mobilized) people to participate in the civil rights movement because of his religious status?

At what point is political interference by a church bad? Is it only acceptable when the church agrees with your viewpoint? That seems awfully narrow-minded.

Prohibition was the churches and women’s temperance societies lobbying politicians to end drinking.

Slavery, again, abolitionists mobilized church people to lobby politicians and society to stop slavery.

So, the church shouldn’t care what happens outside of its property line? Huh? Since when has the church ever acted that way???

Non-profits have just as much right to participate in the political process as anyone else.

If we believe that everyone has the right to be represented, then we can’t say to some organizations that they can’t participate just because they are religious. People are allowed to freely associate with religious groups, so if it’s a compelling issue to their members, then why should they be prohibited from speaking out? Not only does that exclude a lot of Catholic organizations, but people of other faiths.

Just some food for thought.

 

[Slavonic]

What is marriage?

No doubt gays are “coupling” but their “coupling” no more resembles marriage than cohabitation does or friends who live together.

It is sufficient to say that my definition of marriage includes couples of the same-sex.
If you can’t tell the difference roommates and a married couple, then you need to correct that problem yourself. I can’t do it for you over the Internet.

People can say they are oranges. The State can declare they are oranges. They are not oranges and never will be. Never.

People are not oranges, good to know.

 

[epan]

Yeah…try telling the black churches that they can’t invite Democrat candidates to speak. It’s always a huge deal when (insert candidate name) comes to one of the historically black churches in Dtwn Detroit. Republicans never get “equal time” in the same churches.

There’s really not a lot of room to complain about church/political involvement when both sides do it.

It’s hard to image the civil rights movement w/o the black church. (Hello, MLK, was the Reverend Martin Luther King.) Should he not have participated in (or mobilized) people to participate in the civil rights movement because of his religious status?

At what point is political interference by a church bad? Is it only acceptable when the church agrees with your viewpoint? That seems awfully narrow-minded.

Prohibition was the churches and women’s temperance societies lobbying politicians to end drinking.

Slavery, again, abolitionists mobilized church people to lobby politicians and society to stop slavery.

So, the church shouldn’t care what happens outside of its property line? Huh? Since when has the church ever acted that way???

Non-profits have just as much right to participate in the political process as anyone else.

If we believe that everyone has the right to be represented, then we can’t say to some organizations that they can’t participate just because they are religious. People are allowed to freely associate with religious groups, so if it’s a compelling issue to their members, then why should they be prohibited from speaking out? Not only does that exclude a lot of Catholic organizations, but people of other faiths.

Just some food for thought.

Yes, everyone should have the right to participate. I would prefer to see that as individuals, and not as organizations.

I disagree with the court rulings which give corporate entities an unlimited voice. There is no way that a private citizen can compete with Microsoft to influence a politician. I feel the same way about unions, churches, and all entities where the accumulation of wealth, and or large memberships, gives them a disproportionate ability to influence politicians.

To use the Church as an example, would it be appropriate for the Church to actively influence legislation regarding contraception, when upwards of 80% of US Catholics have no problem with contraception. That would be a case of the leadership of an organization pursuing their particular opinion, while using the resources and the political legitimacy provided by a membership who disagrees with their position. This sort of thing goes on with unions and other organizations, too. Teacher’s unions push for their membership’s agenda, and sometimes the students are the ones who suffer. Most parents don’t have the time to stay informed, or to oppose in any organized way, such union activity. Those are just two examples of possible scenarios, among many.

The right to individual democratic majority is the most revolutionary, and far reaching, social construct since the start of civilization. We have lost our appreciation of that, and we have allowed our system to become so corrupted by powerful special interests, that we have lost control of our legislatures, and our politicians. Since, the politicians appoint the judiciary, on the Federal level, we have lost accountability to the public in all branches of government.

Of course, speech is a protected right. However, the tax code (a whole other topic) requires that any religious organization which is granted tax exempt status, may not participate directly in politics. Having a democrat politician speak at a church is not the same as buying advertizement try to influence an election.

 

[fix]

It is sufficient to say that my definition of marriage includes couples of the same-sex.
If you can’t tell the difference roommates and a married couple, then you need to correct that problem yourself. I can’t do it for you over the Internet.

People are not oranges, good to know.

And two men can never be married.

 

[mek42]

Yeah…try telling the black churches that they can’t invite Democrat candidates to speak. It’s always a huge deal when (insert candidate name) comes to one of the historically black churches in Dtwn Detroit. Republicans never get “equal time” in the same churches.

There’s really not a lot of room to complain about church/political involvement when both sides do it.

It’s hard to image the civil rights movement w/o the black church. (Hello, MLK, was the Reverend Martin Luther King.) Should he not have participated in (or mobilized) people to participate in the civil rights movement because of his religious status?

At what point is political interference by a church bad? Is it only acceptable when the church agrees with your viewpoint? That seems awfully narrow-minded.

Prohibition was the churches and women’s temperance societies lobbying politicians to end drinking.

Slavery, again, abolitionists mobilized church people to lobby politicians and society to stop slavery.

So, the church shouldn’t care what happens outside of its property line? Huh? Since when has the church ever acted that way???

Non-profits have just as much right to participate in the political process as anyone else.

If we believe that everyone has the right to be represented, then we can’t say to some organizations that they can’t participate just because they are religious. People are allowed to freely associate with religious groups, so if it’s a compelling issue to their members, then why should they be prohibited from speaking out? Not only does that exclude a lot of Catholic organizations, but people of other faiths.

Just some food for thought.

We can’t tell any group they can’t be involved, but that involvement can have an impact on tax status. Regarding churches whose membership is mostly black, our country still has a seriously messed up racial relations and to enforce tax exempt code laws against these black churches could well be imprudent to the maintenance of an orderly society.

Any tax exempt organization desiring to act outside of their tax exempt charter should be willing to accept the consequence of loss of tax status, especially organizations that preach personal responsibility for actions.

 

[kozlosap]

There are already “gay” activists who go into Catholic Churches protesting and disrupting holy Mass because we won’t agree with them. This harassment tactic is similar to Westboro Baptists but worse since at least the WBC keeps their distance and doesn’t actually go inside to cause havoc. So, we already know that SSM advocates won’t be satisfied to leave us Catholics alone if they get their way with the government.

A law banning interracial marriage and so-called “same-sex marriage” are both attempts to redefine marriage to something other than the way it was from the beginning. Each of these misses the mark when it comes to what is true about the nature of marriage. The Catholic Church teaches and encourages truth. Many in today’s hedonistic pop culture don’t want to hear the truth but instead want to be told lies. The Catholic Church has always consistently taught the same truth about marriage as marriage was from the beginning.

http://oi45.tinypic.com/29uvcs1.jpg

Flame me from here to Mars, but trying to give any kind of legitimacy to the WBC even in a comparison to a group you disagree with, is ridiculous.

 

[epan]

I agree that gay marriage is part of a larger historic social phenomenon. But I hadn’t considered that porpoise rights might be next in line. It is certainly possible.

I had a friend who claimed that porpoises have their own civilization equal to ours. I demanded to see the great porpoise literature, their works of art and philosophy. He accused me of being human centric. Really. Your post just brought this incident to mind.

Porpoises do have sophisticated social networks. I would not call it an advanced civilization. There is a high degree of tolerance for each other, and for other species, which is one of the first steps toward civilization. This is why there are theories that dogs actually provided the model for humans to civilize. There are fossil records which show human brain size decreasing, and jaws getting smaller (all signs of domestication), right around the time that humans started interacted with dogs.

But back to the point, there is a trend toward an ever expanding definition of what constitutes a civil right. There was some controversial police activity in San Diego, when I was there. The City Attorney decided to prosecute individuals who were at a private sex party. The result was a lot of publicity, and the City Attorney was scolded by the jury for raiding the party, and bringing the charges. This then led to public meetings, attended by the Chief of Police, and representatives of the City Attorney’s Office, with members of the public, in a town hall forum.

I attended once of these meetings, out of curiosity, and I was surprised by some of the statements made. There were two who were particularly memorable. One was a man who stood up to demand that the City create, or designate, a sex park, where public sex could take place. Another man, whom I later learned had been imprisoned for some of his behaviors, stood up and made a very eloquent statement about government interference in private lives. I was impressed by the diversity of what individuals took to be their “civil rights”.

We see from old movies and television, that the standards for denigration of one group of people over another, for the purpose of comedy has changed. Also, with modern transportation, and communications, our society is as diverse as ever, and will continue to diversify further. The divergent interests of various individuals and groups are seen more and more as civil rights, not the be imposed upon, or limited, by the state.

This is a challenge, for someone who holds that there is a static moral code. I suspect that, more and more, what was once accepted as “mainstream” thinking, which was uniform in our country, will be regarded as unrealistic or quaint, due to the ever increasing diversity of our democratic population.

 

[Monkey1976]

It is sufficient to say that my definition of marriage includes couples of the same-sex.
If you can’t tell the difference roommates and a married couple, then you need to correct that problem yourself. I can’t do it for you over the Internet.

We know what duties a heterosexual couple are accepting when they receive a marriage license, and the benefits offered are commensurate with those duties. That some couples choose not to pursue those duties doesn’t negate their capability to perform them. Same-sex couples are inherently incapable of performing these duties, so what reason do we have to extend these benefits to them? Exactly what can same-sex couples do for society that they either cannot do without, or are enhanced only through, a marriage license?

People are not oranges, good to know.

And two men or two women do not a marriage make.

 

[livingwordunity]

Flame me from here to Mars, but trying to give any kind of legitimacy to the WBC even in a comparison to a group you disagree with, is ridiculous.

What did I say that is not the truth?

 

[epan]

What did I say that is not the truth?

I would agree with you that the protests were inappropriate. But they did not rise to the level of the WBC. Not even close. That is probably what is being referred to. I have participated in standing up to the WBC when they have tried to disrupt funerals of fallen Marines. They are a hate filled group, and vicious in their behavior.

 

[JimG]

I attended once of these meetings, out of curiosity, and I was surprised by some of the statements made. There were two who were particularly memorable. One was a man who stood up to demand that the City create, or designate, a sex park, where public sex could take place. Another man, whom I later learned had been imprisoned for some of his behaviors, stood up and made a very eloquent statement about government interference in private lives. I was impressed by the diversity of what individuals took to be their “civil rights”.

So, some were protesting the police raid on a private sex party, since it was intended to be a private affair. Another was lobbying for a public park where public sex could take place, That’s quite a divergence. And yet, in a society in which the basic family structure is crumbling, that’s just the sort of thing we can expect on a continuing basis.

Carle Zimmerman would have called the phenomenon the atomization of society.

The U.S. was founded, of course, as a representative republic. Citizens elected representatives whose judgment they trusted. It was not expected that the representatives would poll the citizens back home before every vote they made. And senators were originally appointed by the state governors, not elected. A balance was sought between state and federal power; neither was it thought wise to simply delegate power to individual citizens without the apparatus of representation.

Things have changed. Senators and representatives might as well be automatons, since they rely on polls to tell them what to think. And citizens rely on media to tell them what to think. The whole political process is not as thoughtful as it once was.

Now the atomization of society may be thought of as progress for individual rights. In practice it tends more toward political and moral anarchy. And anarchy is not a stable condition. It will either stabilize itself into a coherent political and moral order, or devolve into tyranny, which is at this point more likely.

 

[Slavonic]

We know what duties a heterosexual couple are accepting when they receive a marriage license, and the benefits offered are commensurate with those duties. That some couples choose not to pursue those duties doesn’t negate their capability to perform them. Same-sex couples are inherently incapable of performing these duties, so what reason do we have to extend these benefits to them? Exactly what can same-sex couples do for society that they either cannot do without, or are enhanced only through, a marriage license?

I’m not sure what duties you’re referring to. There are no duties as far I see, except for paying the fee for the marriage license.

 

[epan]

So, some were protesting the police raid on a private sex party, since it was intended to be a private affair. Another was lobbying for a public park where public sex could take place, That’s quite a divergence. And yet, in a society in which the basic family structure is crumbling, that’s just the sort of thing we can expect on a continuing basis.

Carle Zimmerman would have called the phenomenon the atomization of society.

The U.S. was founded, of course, as a representative republic. Citizens elected representatives whose judgment they trusted. It was not expected that the representatives would poll the citizens back home before every vote they made. And senators were originally appointed by the state governors, not elected. A balance was sought between state and federal power; neither was it thought wise to simply delegate power to individual citizens without the apparatus of representation.

Things have changed. Senators and representatives might as well be automatons, since they rely on polls to tell them what to think. And citizens rely on media to tell them what to think. The whole political process is not as thoughtful as it once was.

Now the atomization of society may be thought of as progress for individual rights. In practice it tends more toward political and moral anarchy. And anarchy is not a stable condition. It will either stabilize itself into a coherent political and moral order, or devolve into tyranny, which is at this point more likely.

Would you say that we are trending toward anarchy, or are we trending toward totalitarianism? While there may be atomization in the moral sphere, there appears to be a consolidation of power economically (hence politically). I also sense an ever widening rift between the interests of the electorate, and the acts of the elected officials.

The atomization you refer to, in fact, serves to consolidate the power structure which is non-responsive to the voters. This may be reminiscent of Nazi Germany, moral anarchy providing the justification for political totalitarianism.

 

[edwest2]

There is no comparison with Nazi Germany. Hitler was a nobody with a good speaking voice. Some people think he paid for the war out of his own pocket. The US and Europe were in the grip of the First Great Depression. Hitler promised and delivered jobs and revived national pride and a collective duty to work together. He too was backed by powerful interests.

Gay so-called marriage is a fiction. As gay divorce increases, it will be interesting to see what happens then.

Drastic remarks about the family without context don’t mean anything. The family and the Church are seeing the fruit of seeds planted and those that continue to be planted.

Peace,
Ed

 

[JimG]

Would you say that we are trending toward anarchy, or are we trending toward totalitarianism? While there may be atomization in the moral sphere, there appears to be a consolidation of power economically (hence politically). I also sense an ever widening rift between the interests of the electorate, and the acts of the elected officials.

The atomization you refer to, in fact, serves to consolidate the power structure which is non-responsive to the voters. This may be reminiscent of Nazi Germany, moral anarchy providing the justification for political totalitarianism.

Yes, I think that atomization, or excessive individualism, or collapse of family structure, all tend to moral and social anarchy, which soon does lead to totalitarianism. Nobody knows how it will play out. But without a common moral base, a society flounders.

 

[jonathan_hili]

There is a difference between preaching a moral stance to citizens as individuals and trying to influence the law of the land. For that matter, if the Church feels the need to attempt to influence the law of the land, there is nothing to prevent this, just turn in the tax exempt status and act as a private club.

Of course, turning in the tax status might subject the Church to the full weight of anti-discrimination laws, which might end up with the Church sued to perform SSM.

But that’s precisely how the Church influences, by preaching to individual citizens. Of course, it does so at a public level but it is a public institution too. The Church doesn’t support any political party, morally or financially, precisely because she is trying to influence everybody. Consequently, she will try to influence the law of the land through these individuals.

It might actually be worthwhile to chuck-in the whole tax-exempt status, even though it will have some very unfortunate side-effects (particularly with regard to the amount of charity work that would be adversely affected). Nevertheless, it might be a good thing to speak more boldly: to name names, and so on. Of course, that’s just my (very fallible!) opinion.