New Indiana law and is marriage a "civil right"?

[fred_conty]

Even if it’s not a civil right - it is still something offered to straight couples and denied to gay couples, without a good reason.

It seems to me that the state has to protect itself. It needs tax payers and workers. How is SSM making new tax payers and workers?

Did you know that there are some jobs that the state dosen’t allow deductions or declare positions on tax forms because it isn’t productive for the state’s welfare? Well there are. The state is always looking after itself to survive just like everyone else. How can SSM be justified for the State’s welfare?

It may be objected that the state was made for people and not the other way round. But if there is no state, then how well do you think that the people will prosper? We have to have the state for many reasons, one being able to exist in a society.

The chances of children adoped thru SSM having OSM is reduced, which is another bad reason for the state to allow SSM.

 

[Havard]

Your basis for asserting that SSM is fundamentally different than OSM is a religion that has no relevancy to the topic under discussion - which is whether the government can expand its definition of marriage to include gay couples. The government, in principle, assumes they are the same until a compelling case is brought forward to prove that they aren’t. So the burden is on you, not me.

Oh, you are absolutely right. We do have a burden to prove.

It’s just not a very steep burden - intermediate scrutiny - which is a lower bar than the test that allows for affirmative action.

The interest of keeping families intact, so that children may be raised by both their mothers and their fathers, easily fits the bill of an important government interest. Even the European Court of Human Rights, only a few months ago, found that the traditional institution of marriage is a valid state interest.

 

[Bubba_Switzler]

After litigating religious liberty issues for more than 20 years, I’m used to utter hysteria erupting on the Left when Christians try to assert conventional and traditional religious liberty rights. Perhaps my favorite example was the claim — by a Tufts University student panel — that a Christian group had to be thrown off campus without due process, in part because the Christian group’s insistence on selecting only Christians as leaders placed Tufts students at greater risk of suicide. Yes, suicide.

But for national freakouts, it’s tough to beat either the sky-is-falling rhetoric around the idea that a few Hobby Lobby employees would have to buy their own abortifacients or, more recently, the sheer nonsense of #boycottindiana, the movement to freeze an entire state out of the national economy for passing a religious freedom law similar to the national Religious Freedom Restoration ACT (RFRA) and RFRAs in 19 other states. While it’s hardly surprising to see legally ignorant sportswriters use the language of segregated lunch counters, it’s disturbing to see well-informed CEOs such as Apple’s Tim Cook conjuring up the specter of the Old South.

nationalreview.com/corner/416176/want-evidence-hysterical-anti-christian-bigotry-look-no-further-boycottindiana-david

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Sure - and the government is going about the business of changing its definition, while reaffirming the right of religions to maintain their own definition.

A re-definition of marriage to include same-sex marriage is beyond the competence of the state, because marriage both precedes the state and is a necessary condition for the continuation of the state.

When a state enacts a law saying that a same-sex relationship can constitute a marriage, it has the power to enforce that in a society’s external practices, but it is devoid of any intrinsic moral legitimacy and is a contrary to any natural reality.

If the government says that an apple is now the same as an orange, and the law requires everyone to call apples “oranges,” the state would have the power to punish anyone who calls an apple an “apple” instead of an “orange,”…

but it would be a totalitarian abuse of raw power and would not change the biological reality of the nature of the fruit in question.

So too with the definition of marriage.

 

[sallybutler]

they are not the same and I can prove it. The only reason the state regulates marriage is for the benefit of children. Having parents united to raise children is a benefit for the state. Only a man and a woman can become a father and a mother. Two men or two women can never be a mother or a father. If gender is not part of the definition of marriage then there is no reason to rule out incestuous relationships or limit the number of individuals to only two.

SSM creates discrimination against other naturally sterile unions.

If this is true, than perhaps people should not be allowed to get married until there is a pregnancy and a DNA test to insure that 1) the woman is fertile, 2) the man is fertile, 3) a child has resulted from this particular union. We probably should wait until the child is born in case the mother miscarries and no child results from the pregnancy.

 

[AyJSimon]

Oh, you are absolutely right. We do have a burden to prove.

It’s just not a very steep burden - intermediate scrutiny - which is a lower bar than the test that allows for affirmative action.

The interest of keeping families intact, so that children may be raised by both their mothers and their fathers, easily fits the bill of an important government interest.

Except this argument has already been tried in court, and failed multiple times. For some reason, nobody seems to buy this claim that a child’s best interests are always in their being raised by their mothers and fathers.

 

[LeafByNiggle]

Except this argument has already been tried in court, and failed multiple times. For some reason, nobody seems to buy this claim that a child’s best interests are always in their being raised by their mothers and fathers.

The fact that an idea becomes popular is no guarantee that idea is a good one.

 

[AyJSimon]

The fact that an idea becomes popular is no guarantee that idea is a good one.

True enough. Witness - the world’s major religions.

 

[katy]

This thread has gone way down a rabbit hole.

 

[edwest2]

From the National Catholic Register.

ncregister.com/daily-news/despite-homosexual-lobbys-complaints-indian-governor-signs-religious-state/

Ed

 

[Kal2012]

Here is the main part of the text:
IOW, the government may not force,say, a baker to cater a ceremony for same-sex people if his or her religious beliefs are to the contrary. Presumably it would protect that same baker from having to cater a KKK meeting. The wording is almost exactly the same as the federal statute. The same law has been enacted in numerous other states, and the supposed horrible things that would happen have not. I believe the uproar is because the opponents want to be able to ram mandatory participation down the throats of people who demur. That is what has happened in other states. People have lost their businesses and their livelihoods because they could not in conscience use their talents or property to further something inimical to their beliefs.

Yep - and the law has been passed in 19 other states - including Illinois and Rhode Island (not exactly conservative states). So, it’s not exactly new.

I had someone try to argue that it would open the door for pot smoking in church. Which is kind of ironic because the Federal law came out of a case where Native Americans wanted to smoke Peyote in their church.

The Left is really going nuts over this because they sincerely believe that this is discrimination and really just can’t believe that anyone in this day and age would have the courage to stand up and say “I don’t want to participate in your gay marriage.” It just doesn’t dawn on them that people are religious conservatives because they’ve rejected the theology.

Some people on the Left really believe that this is new and they can score political points with these arguments. They don’t realize that a lot of us have been following this issue for a while because we are religious conservatives and we are disgusted by what’s happening to the people who’ve been losing their businesses and livelihoods because they don’t want to participate in sin. We’ve been awake for awhile and know the real scoop on what’s going on.

If you want to bake the cake, do it.
If you don’t want to bake the cake, don’t.

It’s America. People are allowed to make different choices and have different ideas.

We shouldn’t force our neighbors to violate their belief system because it makes us feel good about bad choices.

 

[AyJSimon]

Yep - and the law has been passed in 19 other states - including Illinois and Rhode Island (not exactly conservative states). So, it’s not exactly new.

I had someone try to argue that it would open the door for pot smoking in church. Which is kind of ironic because the Federal law came out of a case where Native Americans wanted to smoke Peyote in their church.

The Left is really going nuts over this because they sincerely believe that this is discrimination and really just can’t believe that anyone in this day and age would have the courage to stand up and say “I don’t want to participate in your gay marriage.” It just doesn’t dawn on them that people are religious conservatives because they’ve rejected the theology.

They also really have no idea long the discussion about religious liberty has been going on and how it actually affects people’s lives.

If you want to bake the cake, do it.
If you don’t want to bake the cake, don’t.

It’s America. People are allowed to make different choices and have different ideas.

It’s worth pointing out that Illinois (and probably several other states) has a law on the books forbidding business to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Indiana has no such law. So it’s not a like-for-like situation.

 

[Kal2012]

But some cities in Indiana do have non-discrimination laws.

You’ve got to remember that it’s going to be harder to pass a state-wide non-discrimination law in Indiana than Illinois because Indiana is much more conservative.

State culture matters.

People want to act like all states have a uniform culture because they are all in the US of A, but some are inherently more Liberal than others. Some are inherently more conservative.

Which I’m betting is another reason why the Left is coming down on Indiana so hard.

 

[katy]

It’s worth pointing out that Illinois (and probably several other states) has a law on the books forbidding business to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender identity. Indiana has no such law. So it’s not a like-for-like situation.

And where are these people who refuse to serve whatever sex folks want to claim just because they claim it? How would they know anyway, even if they wanted to? The whole thing is forcing people to violate their sincerely held beliefs in order to further the Left’s agenda of coercing everyone. It’s not about cakes and it’s not about discrimination. It’s about power.

 

[Havard]

But some cities in Indiana do have non-discrimination laws.

You’ve got to remember that it’s going to be harder to pass a state-wide non-discrimination law in Indiana than Illinois because Indiana is much more conservative.

State culture matters.

People want to act like all states have a uniform culture because they are all in the US of A, but some are inherently more Liberal than others. Some are inherently more conservative.

Which I’m betting is another reason why the Left is coming down on Indiana so hard.

I’d wager that Alabama is probably even more conservative/traditional, than Indiana with regard to homosexuality. Alabama’s RFRA has no non-discrimination clause, and it hasn’t been used to allow discrimination since it’s adoption in 1998.

 

[bibcat]

The reason for the law is understandable, in that activist groups will happily sue into bankruptcy any dissent from the new prevailing orthodoxy, but to me the idea of refusing service on conscious grounds just opens the door to someone practicing racism or similar things and then claiming “conscientious objection” on religious grounds. To win the battle against homosexual marriage, we must show that it’s not about hate, and live like it too. I’ve been coming to terms in my own life with this matter and difference between rhetoric and action. The decline of marriage and the family didn’t start with the push toward so-called “gay marriage”, but the fact that it’s being seriously considered is both a symptom and a sign of how far society has strayed from the true sacramental understanding regarding marriage. We have to repair that damage first, not build walls and adopt an “us vs. them” mentality. Down that road lies self-righteousness and hypocrisy.

It saddens me that the politicians in Indiana are so afraid of monetary loss from a boycott led by filthy sodomites and their degenerate fellow travelers that they’re willing to water down pioneering legislation simply for the sake of filthy lucre. Jesus didn’t care about money. His scourging of the temple more changers is proof-positive of that. Besides, God rewards the faithful. If Indiana keeps this legislation in its original form, God in his mercy will find other avenues of economic sustainance for The Hoosier state. What people also don’t realize is that tolerance for the homosexual lifestyle makes the United States even more of a target for Muslim terrorism, as Islam considers homosexuality an abomination. Indeed, God may be using groups like ISIS as as punishment against Christendom just ad he used Babylon as punishment against the children of Israel.

 

[vsedriver]

If this is true, than perhaps people should not be allowed to get married until there is a pregnancy and a DNA test to insure that 1) the woman is fertile, 2) the man is fertile, 3) a child has resulted from this particular union. We probably should wait until the child is born in case the mother miscarries and no child results from the pregnancy.

you did not understand what I wrote. I did not say anything about they MUST have children or be fertile. I said that only a man and a woman can be a mother or a father. Do you deny that only a man and a woman can be a father and mother?

because a man and a woman can be a father and mother the state gives them special privileges. Since two men and two woman can never be a father and mother they are not the same and don’t deserve the same privileges.

 

[sallybutler]

you did not understand what I wrote. I did not say anything about they MUST have children or be fertile. I said that only a man and a woman can be a mother or a father. Do you deny that only a man and a woman can be a father and mother?

because a man and a woman can be a father and mother the state gives them special privileges. Since two men and two woman can never be a father and mother they are not the same and don’t deserve the same privileges.

You also said that

. So if one has no children, why should they be allowed to get married? To me, this is the logical question to that statement.

 

[kozlosap]

You also said that . So if one has no children, why should they be allowed to get married? To me, this is the logical question to that statement.

Indeed, I too would like an answer to that issue.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

I would like to know when this blatant hatred of Christians developed within the gay community.

Gay activists and sympathizers have been whining about “tolerance” and acceptance for years. Now, with a great opportunity to demonstrate tolerance of the religious beliefs of others, these hypocrites go on a nationwide rampage insisting that society cater to their every whim.

Our Church tells us gays “must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. And every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided.”

This latest example of “in-your-face” intolerance by the gay community makes it pretty hard for some of us to comply with the teachings of our Church.