Gay rights

[kozlosap]

When was the last time a major right was given to any group in our society only to be later taken away?

exactly! The last time that happened, the price for bootleg booze went through the ceiling! Historically, rights are given, not taken away.

 

[edwest2]

J.D. Unwin (Sexual Regulations and Cultural Behavior, Sex and Culture) , and Pitirim Sorokin (The American Sex Revolution) examined past and current civilizations and discovered that male-female unions (marriage) are necessary for stability of societies, according to their research. Deviations from this model apparently causes no end of trouble. This is not only a “Christian” issue, but one that is deep-seated in our psyche, and may be more than a biological imperative.

It is clearly biological and not just in our psyche. Some Westerners visited a “primitive” tribe in Africa and explained homosexuality to them. The first comment they got was a simple question: “How do you reproduce?”

And how does two women getting a marriage license (I saw this on TV) has one of them say, “Now we’re equal.” Equal in what way?

One man, one woman

Two men

Two women

Why do we have billions of people today? Not through same-sex marriage.

Ed

 

[edwest2]

^^^^^

I don’t mean to piggy back on your post and take it further than you meant to because that’s just about where I am on the subject. Having said that I know a gay man who is so very close to Christ. He is as devoted a person as I have ever met even considering the monks and nuns that I am acquainted with. I can feel the presence of Christ in him so strongly…

I am absolutely not saying that he is right to be a practicing gay man or that it is not sinful but I also cannot deny the good that is so clearly in him. In many ways I see him to be my spiritual superior- he is far ahead of my in many ways…

He really is persuaded that it is not wrong to be gay and that the prohibitions in the bible are misinterpreted, I am not agreeing with him, just stating his position.

I hope the slippery slope argument is wrong- I don’t want to see our society degrade into an anything goes culture. If it does though maybe we will have a revival of the Holy Spirit to match it-- kind of like the Romans in the days of Jesus and his disciples.

Too many people have totally embraced “an anything goes culture.”

Pope Benedict:

"We are moving toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for certain and which has as its highest goal one’s own ego and one’s own desires. The church must defend itself against threats such as “radical individualism” and “vague religious mysticism”. [emphasis added]

Thanks to the media, we are being coerced into accepting something that makes no sense. Radical individualism means anything goes. And let’s go back to the carved in stone Hippie saying: “Hey man. If it feels good, do it.”

So slavery to the flesh and “my will be done” is being presented as the norm. If you don’t accept it, you will be attacked with baseless accusations. Example: "I’m watching CNN at my doctor’s office and an “out” athlete is telling everyone watching: “Stop being homophobic!” He says it more than once.

That’s right America, the Dictatorship has decreed the following: "You will agree with gay marriage, you will accept it as normal and even celebrate it (cue the rainbow lights on the White House). So tyranny has come to America.

The other edict: “You will ignore immoral sexual behavior, profanity and anything lewd or pornographic. You will feel nothing. You will become Indifferent. All of you.”

“Hey, what’s the big deal? Incest? Multiple partners? It’s all good… uh sorry, I can’t use that word since there’s no good or bad. Just do your own thing — whatever that is.”

Yeah, right.

Ed

 

[franklinstower]

^^^^^^

I agree with most of what you said. I am a christian convert who was raised with no religion. I already tried the anything goes lifestyle-- it is not the better way from my experience. My early adult life is just a list of hurt people in painful situations. I even thought I had sexual issues for a while- turned out you cant be comfortable having sex with people you don’t even trust with your car keys!! If I could go back there is no way I would have sex outside of marriage or do many of the other things I did.

I am a hippie though - minus the drugs, drink and promiscuity-- basically I just like the music and tie dyes!!

 

[edwest2]

^^^^^^

I agree with most of what you said. I am a christian convert who was raised with no religion. I already tried the anything goes lifestyle-- it is not the better way from my experience. My early adult life is just a list of hurt people in painful situations. I even thought I had sexual issues for a while- turned out you cant be comfortable having sex with people you don’t even trust with your car keys!! If I could go back there is no way I would have sex outside of marriage or do many of the other things I did.

I am a hippie though - minus the drugs, drink and promiscuity-- basically I just like the music and tie dyes!!

Jimi Hendrix and tie dyes?

Peace, brother

Ed

 

[franklinstower]

Jimi Hendrix and tie dyes?

Peace, brother

Ed

Yea but especially-- The Grateful Dead and tie dies.

God bless.

 

[edwest2]

Yea but especially-- The Grateful Dead and tie dies.

God bless.

I didn’t like the Dead much for some reason.

Best,
Ed

 

[JimG]

When was the last time a major right was given to any group in our society only to be later taken away?

Well, the right to own slaves was taken away. The right to have multiple wives was taken away, (though given the current thinking regarding marriage it may be restored.) The right to have indentured servants, once quite common in Louisiana, was taken away. Except for one state, the right to practice prostitution was taken away.

Still, you may be right. U.S. citizens have acquired, through the supreme court, the right to kill unborn children, and now in some states, we also have the right to kill ourselves and have others help with the killing. Now we have the right to same sex ‘marriage’ an anatomical impossibility. No one said that the law is always reasonable. Will the law someday rescind the right to kill? I don’t know. It might, rather, extend the right to the born, first to the newborn and the elderly, and then perhaps to others. At some point though, civilization declines to a point where a reaction and resistance sets in.

 

[1990Domer]

This may come off as snarky, but a close friend of 44 has less than I week to live.

If all the billions spent on gay rights could be diverted to–No Child Left behind, poverty, inequality of wages, increased services for special need kids, help for our vets, cancer research, and anything else I missed, couldn’t the world be a better place. My apologies, and I have a SSA BIL on his third forever relationship at age 42, if he and the mojority of his cohorts could become more selfless, wouldn’t this be a better world?

Rant over.

 

[Even_So]

I’m looking for actual positions so I can understand the other sides perspectives. I am not building a case so I can argue against you or anyone else. I just want to understand.

Is it your position then that it is a slippery slope argument? I should mention an instance to bolster your case. A black woman and her daughter noticed that they were attracted to one another around puberty. They waited till the daughter was 18 and they are now lovers. The mother said “they are the new minorities.”

Is this the main reason Christianity is so against gay civil unions?

Where is the vomit emoticon?

 

[Even_So]

So you’re afraid that God will destroy America for allowing same-sex marriage by raining fire and brimstone down on it?

Um, yeah. That and a few other things.

Perhaps one of the problems of the current era is that we no longer recognize reality. There were men and women long before there was religion. That’s why marriage came about (and children, and families.) Marriage predates religion. So If one looks at the human race and says, well, I don’t recognize man and woman as the basic types of human beings, that’s just failure to observe reality. When did anatomy become religion?

GOD was before all. Men and women were created for what? To worship GOD maybe? That would be religion b4 marriage.

 

[Even_So]

When it comes to gay rights and marriage, I used to feel troubled about this myself as well but then I remembered that Christ Himself did not cast the first stone so I say to myself that is between them and God. To each his own, they are people first before they are gay.

So you say it is okay then.

 

[Thorolfr]

My apologies, and I have a SSA BIL on his third forever relationship at age 42, if he and the mojority of his cohorts could become more selfless, wouldn’t this be a better world?

So how many OSA people does this also apply to? You’re not going to claim are you that most heterosexuals in the US by the time they are 42 have had only one relationship? I’m not saying that having multiple relationships is a good thing, but gay people are hardly the only ones in our society who do this.

 

[vsedriver]

Of course, drawing up all this legal paperwork you’re talking about would not give same-sex couples all the rights of married couples, including many federal rights such as spousal benefits and survivor benefits from Social Security, the ability to transfer property between spouses without paying inheritance taxes, etc. All this paperwork might not be recognized in other countries, even in those that now allow same-sex marriage.

but these rights aren’t given to everyone. These rights were given to male/female marriages for one reason and one reason only. Their union produces offspring and it is for the benefit of children that the government gave ‘spousal’ benefits and other legal protections to married couples.

Two men or two women are not the same family unit as a man and a woman. Why should two unrelated males get benefits that are denied to my mother and I, a brother and sister or even two same sex siblings? Is their love more special than familial love?

 

[edwest2]

Where is the vomit emoticon?

On another board… really.

Ed

I agree.

 

[franklinstower]

Where is the vomit emoticon?

Even though I ultimately disagree with the attempt to deny gay couples the right for civil unions I must admit that the example reacted to here with the desire for a vomit emoticon, and many others I have heard of lately including a group of men who really do want to see sex with young children legalized, does have me wondering whether it would be better to change my position. Ultimately none of it has changed my position, and I rather like the idea that it is married heterosexuals that have ruined marriage, by getting divorced at every hint of difficulty that have really paved the way for all the craziness.

 

[Thorolfr]

Why should two unrelated males get benefits that are denied to my mother and I, a brother and sister or even two same sex siblings? Is their love more special than familial love?

Same-sex couples are a family unit. They share bank accounts, own houses and cars together, are responsible for each other’s debts, have medical and legal power of attorney for each other, spend most of their time with each other, etc. just like other married couples. So do you share bank accounts with your parents and your siblings, own your houses and cars in common with each other, assume full responsibility for each other’s debts, have medical and legal power-of-attorney for each other’s affairs, and spend most of your time together? If so, then maybe you should get benefits that are denied to others who don’t have those same kinds of commitments for each other.

 

[Smfm]

but cannot understand not wanting them to have the right to marry in the secular world.

They can do as they like in the secular world, they cannot do as the like in the Catholic Church.

Why are Christians are against gay men and women having the right to at least have a civil union that affords them the same protections and benefits that married couples enjoy. A common example is a lesbian couple who have been married for twenty five years and one of them falls very ill and eventually dies. It seems to me that the surviving person would have a right to be in the hospital with her partner while dying and also that after death she would be the owner of all properties gained during that union.

She can be in hospital, she may be able to share in the profits of her partner, but she cannot partake of Communion, just like any other sinner.

I am as strict and devout a follower of Christ in the areas of trying not to sin as the next guy,

Your not strict, nor devout.

I am a sinner

You are like us all.

I see the supreme court decision to allow gay marriage as a tremendous victory for human dignity in a country that seems to have been founded on the idea of separation of Church and state. What am I missing?

I see it as an abomination in direct opposition to the laws of God +++

 

[franklinstower]

They can do as they like in the secular world, they cannot do as the like in the Catholic Church. That has been my point all along in this thread.

She can be in hospital, she may be able to share in the profits of her partner, but she cannot partake of Communion, just like any other sinner. In many places gay partners have been denied access to hospital rooms and have not had access to properties after a death due to not being recognized in any way by the state as being in a union. I never advocated that such a person should be allowed Communion.

Your not strict, nor devout. I posted this thread not to argue with anyone or even to debate anyone-- I just really want to understand the position of those who oppose civil union of gay or lesbian partnerships. A number of people have offered some very good information and explanation of that position. There is no need to call into question my devotion-- it would more helpful if you were just to contribute information pertaining to this thread.

I see it as an abomination in direct opposition to the laws of God +++That is a fair position but I am more looking for the reasons why people think that a*** secular union ***should not be allowed-- for those people who don’t share Christian beliefs. Again I am not really interested in arguing against any position, instead I am simply looking to understand that position better.

 

[1990Domer]

So how many OSA people does this also apply to? You’re not going to claim are you that most heterosexuals in the US by the time they are 42 have had only one relationship? I’m not saying that having multiple relationships is a good thing, but gay people are hardly the only ones in our society who do this.

Thousands of Gen Y and their kids. And yes, I pass my message there too. It is a world wide problem that I hope God will relieve me of my earthly chains. I talk about more of this at live Church functions.