Prop 8 found to be unconstitutional...struck down!

[RACJ]

Only when religion violates civil rights.

 The day is soon coming in Amerika, as it already is in Canada, when pastors will be jailed for preaching that homosexual acts are violations of God's law. It's hate, y'know. How about a pastor who refuses to marry those of the same sex? Jail, fines, closing the church, what would be YOUR fitting punishment for them? What about MY civil right NOT to rent to a "gay" couple if I have same sex children? Or, NOT hiring a cross dresser if I run a Christian organization? 
 Why must I hire *anyone* who does not agree with my stands on Biblical principle? Must the state become my new PC "god"? What if I'm living at a college, and the college tells me that I MUST live with a homosexual who adorns his walls with nude and semi-nude guys? Why should I have to put up with this garbage?  I could continue, but that's enough for starters, BlackTiger. :mad: Rob

 

[rlg94086]

Really?

So are you saying that a man and woman, both beyond reproductive years, should be forbidden to marry?

Or a couple, one of whom is infertile, should be denied marriage?

[sigh]

Nope. This straw man is so overused, I don’t know why I have to reply to it. Infertility is not part of the basic nature of a male-female relationship. We don’t base marriage on the fertility of the individuals.

 

[Good_News_1]

OMG! FOR THE LAST TIME I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT PEDOPHILIA, INCEST, OR POLYGAMY ETC ETC SO STOP TALKING ABOUT THOSE AND LETS TALK ABOUT GAYS!

It’s because it is the next step in the supposedly logical argument you present.

The argument is presented that marriage is intimately tied to procreation. You respond with the fairly ridiculous point that legally infertile people can get married. Hence, procreation, in your logic, is not a consideration, and if procreation is out, then gays are in. I really can’t over-emphasize how stupid this argument is, but we’ll take it at its face.

And the next LOGICAL question is, WHO, if ANYONE, is OUT? And if you are looking for logical reasons to exclude, you should have logical reasons to exclude pedophiles and polygamists. It is simply applying your logic the next step. And, in fact, it is hard to find the social harm in polygamy - it was practiced throughout history, as was the practice of much younger marriages.

For the traditionalist, everything which does not conform to a two parent hetrosexual model is out. The reason is the value of the nuclear family. Pretty simple to argue. For you, who is out, and why?

 

[blacktiger057]

[sigh]

We don’t base marriage on the fertility of the individuals.

EXACTLY! So why is it the basis of your argument against gay marriage?

 

[exoflare]

Reasonably, it could be argued that non-reproductive individuals (as happens in some animal species) promotes the survival of children by providing an extra set of eyes and means of resources.

Those individuals will still exist whether or not they’re out having gay sex.

 

[Corki]

So I do get considerably angry when my Catholic school puts how being gay is evil into its curriculum every year, because I know this perpetuates the discriminatory attitudes that hurt a lot of people I care about. That’s not ok with me. Religious leaders should be teaching acceptance, not hate. People shouldn’t have to choose between living honestly and living in their faith. It’s hard for me to hear my friends and family being called evil in the name of God. But I know the hate that religion creates is the real evil. I just want to break down and cry sometimes because of all this. But I will always keep fighting, and I will never shut up, because I give a damn about equality.

First of all “prove it”. I don’t believe that your Catholic school teaches that being homosexual is evil.

Second, it’s not the job of religious leaders to teach acceptance. It’s the job of religious leaders to teach the faith, to teach about God’s love and to teach about spreading the word of God. In fact, if we are talking about Catholic leaders, part of their job is to teach us to reject, not accept. We need to learn to reject sin, reject immorality and reject hate disguised as tolerance. Teaching that is part of the job of religious leaders.

 

[crazzeto]

[sigh]

Nope. This straw man is so overused, I don’t know why I have to reply to it. Infertility is not part of the basic nature of a male-female relationship. We don’t base marriage on the fertility of the individuals.

It should be noted, the Catholic Church would not marry a couple which could not perform the maritial act. I’m not sure if this, by extension, includes infertal or not, it’d be worth discussing with a Priest.

Childeren are central to marriage, the Church teaches that in a marriage where the “married couple” either activly deny the reproductive aspects of marriage, or are, quite simply, unable to fulfill those aspects, then that marriage is invalid.

So no, it’s not just gay people being denied marriage by the Church… It can happen to straight people too.

 

[rlg94086]

EXACTLY! So why is it the basis of your argument against gay marriage?

Yeah…so much for logic.

I said the infertility of “individuals.” A male-female relationship can produce children. A male-male or female-female relationship can not. Look it up in a Biology textbook…it’s true!

 

[livnlern]

The day is soon coming in Amerika, as it already is in Canada, when pastors will be jailed for preaching that homosexual acts are violations of God’s law. It’s hate, y’know. How about a pastor who refuses to marry those of the same sex? Jail, fines, closing the church, what would be YOUR fitting punishment for them? What about MY civil right NOT to rent to a “gay” couple if I have same sex children? Or, NOT hiring a cross dresser if I run a Christian organization?
Why must I hire anyone who does not agree with my stands on Biblical principle? Must the state become my new PC “god”? What if I’m living at a college, and the college tells me that I MUST live with a homosexual who adorns his walls with nude and semi-nude guys? Why should I have to put up with this garbage? I could continue, but that’s enough for starters, BlackTiger. Rob

 

[Suudy]

I was looking for a logical argument, not philosophical.

A philosophical argument cannot be logical? That’s a new one to me, and to philosophers everywhere.

You say that marriage is for procreation. It logically follows that infertile people should not be allowed to get married, since they apparently have no value to society in your eyes, as they cannot provide children.

You apparently didn’t read or understand what I wrote. Infertility is a defect in nature, not a difference in nature. An infertile woman is still a woman. An impotent man is still a man. They are both naturally ordered towards procreation, despite any defects in their nature.

And I never said anything about “value to society”, so please don’t put words in my mouth. I think the strong tie that binds two people together is always valuable. But a strong bond between two people does not rise to the level of marriage.

So that is illogical as well. Marriage is about love, sometimes about children.

No. It is about love and children. People who marry only for love are missing an essential aspect. And people who marry only for children are missing an essential aspect (and I do know one lady who did just this–she wanted children so bad she married an abusive drunk and continues to suffer for the sake of having children).

Plus, the world does not need more children.

Red herring.

Gays would adopt the millions of children that are in orphanages.

And I think gays should be able to adopt. I personally think that a loving, nurturing parent figure is far better than living in an orphanage or foster care. However, I do not think gay couples should be able to adopt, as their behavior is disordered, and we should not put children into homes with people engaged in disordered acts.

Unless you actually would agree that infertile heterosexual couples cannot get married, in which case I’d end this discussion with you now.

I didn’t say that. In fact, I said the opposite. I think the infertile heterosexual couples can marry because the essential nature of their union is ordered toward procreation.

But to be clear, I think that infertile heterosexual couples should not get married when a primary motivation is that they don’t want children.

 

[rlg94086]

It should be noted, the Catholic Church would not marry a couple which could not perform the maritial act. I’m not sure if this, by extension, includes infertal or not, it’d be worth discussing with a Priest.

Childeren are central to marriage, the Church teaches that in a marriage where the “married couple” either activly deny the reproductive aspects of marriage, or are, quite simply, unable to fulfill those aspects, then that marriage is invalid.

So no, it’s not just gay people being denied marriage by the Church… It can happen to straight people too.

That is correct. However, that is impotence, not infertility. The marital act must be ordered per se to the procreation of children, and the ability to engage in the marital act is a requirement of marriage.

 

[edwest2]

Only when religion violates civil rights.

This is not a civil rights issue:

jewishworldreview.com/jeff/jacoby_gay_marriage.php3

God bless,
Ed

 

[Good_News_1]

EXACTLY! So why is it the basis of your argument against gay marriage?

You’re not getting it. I presume you are not being deliberately obtuse.

The general argument of the traditionalist is that marriage reinforced values of chastity and the nuclear family, understood as a hetrosexual pair raising natural children. It sufficies to show that this was the societal norm.

The objection is that there are exceptions. For example, a traditionalist would laud couples adopting. But, that really isn’t the point. The point is that the fundamental nature of marriage is for couples to have natural children within the marriage. You can look through history: this is what was done. I don’t think you can argue that infertile or adoptive marriages were ever the norm - instead, historically, it would be pretty easy to prove that probably eighty or ninety percent of marriages followed this model.

Now, if the norm thoughout history were different - if most people adopted, or if a society were largely infertile, or if a society wanted to raise children communally, it is likely that some other institutions would have been devised to serve these ends. But the institution that arose in our culture, and most other cultures, was marriage.

Saying that infertile couples aren’t legally excluded “proves” something is frankly boneheaded. Infertility has been considered a ground for divorce, back in earlier times. But the difficulty of determining who is infertile is still with us today. To pretend that, two hundred years ago, we had medical knowledge we didn’t and needed to enshire it into law to establish a connection between procreation and marriage is just silly.

 

[crazzeto]

That is correct. However, that is impotence, not infertility. The marital act must be ordered per se to the procreation of children, and the ability to engage in the marital act is a requirement of marriage.

Thank you for the clarification, I now remember covering this in marriage prep… I couldn’t quite remember with the original posting. If I remember, the reasoning is that even with perseived infertility, as long as one honestly lives a sacramental marriage there remains a chance, however small, of conception.

So the point here is, homosexuals aren’t being unfairly picked on. Rather, the Church fairly teaches they can’t be married because they can not fulfill the purpose of marriage. Period.

 

[Whitacre_Girl]

Yeah…so much for logic.

I said the infertility of “individuals.” A male-female relationship can produce children. A male-male or female-female relationship can not. Look it up in a Biology textbook…it’s true!

Another poster brought this up, and I thought I’d chime in on it.

A marriage can not exist if the marital act can not be done. This means that those who are totally incapable of sex can not be married.

Since gay couples can not have sex, they can not be validly married. Gay sex =/= sex. They are two wholly different things.

 

[Suudy]

It should be noted, the Catholic Church would not marry a couple which could not perform the maritial act. I’m not sure if this, by extension, includes infertal or not, it’d be worth discussing with a Priest.

Is this true? I don’t think it is. Inability to perform the marital act is very different than unwillingness. Say for example a man lost his genitals during a war. Would the Church prohibit him from marrying? Or a woman had a hysterectomy after a battle with uterine cancer. Would the Church prohibit her from marrying?

I think the only issue is willingness, not ability.

 

[bingbang]

Your grandfather’s Democrat party bears no resemblance whatsoever to the Democrat party of today. The Democrat party stands in direct opposition to core moral teachings of the Catholic Church on abortion, homosexuality euthanasia and fetal stem cell research. It’s not a matter of anybody forcing their views on you-nobody forced you to be a Catholic. But the modern Democratic Party has made it impossible for a Catholic in good conscience to have voted for any of their presidential candidates since 1976. It is unfortunately nearly impossible for a Catholic to vote for a Democrat candidate in any national election as their national leadership has support of unrestricted restricted abortion on demand as a litmus test for power in their party

My grandfather died in 2005 and I am quite sure that he voted democrat in 2004. There is a lot more to politics and one’s political party than gay marriage and abortion. If you asked a European politician about abortion or the death penalty it would throw them off because no one cares about these issues in politics…other than in America that is.

 

[mlund]

Really?

So are you saying that a man and woman, both beyond reproductive years, should be forbidden to marry?

Perhaps so. There is a very sound argument put forward, however, that if marriage (real marriage between a man and a woman) is a social good then the modeling of that relationship helps promote that social good.

Furthermore, the law does not forbid private citizens from arranging their private lives as they see fit. Civil sanction of marriage conveys benefits. Lack of a civil marriage license does not bar private conduct that the state has no interest in providing incentives for.

Or a couple, one of whom is infertile, should be denied marriage? Or, maybe, after they marry and it turns out that one is infertile, that the government should dissolve their marriage?

The government might be justified in doing so, but will not be able to do so because obtaining sufficient evidence to do so has been ruled an illegal violation of medical privacy, while one’s sex is a matter of public record. Also, those who are document to be closely related enough to be inbreeding are forbidden to marry, specifically because of the fertility problems of inbreeding.

So yes, some hetero-sexual unions are already excluded from being given incentives to marry based on the fertility of their union.

The one question the judge (who is himself a proud homosexual man) refuses to answer is this: What benefit do two people committing homosexual acts provide society that two people in a union that do not commit sexual acts can not provide?

Of course, the judge also asserts that “sexual orientation deserves the constitutional protection given to race and gender” (Sourced) in his ruling, exhibiting a complete lack of respect for the proper role of the judiciary in our political system. No judge ever gets to decide such a matter. The protections he cites are placed in the Constitution by the Legislative process and the Ratification process of the States, not by any judge ever. In adding such an opinion from beyond the qualifications of his position to an official judicial ruling he has shown contempt for the limits the Constitution places on his role in the process. His personal opinion does not count.

The Legislative Branch has the exclusive authority to transform the opinions and desires of its members into law. The Judicial Branch is limited exclusively to faithfully interpreting the Law As Written in the process of Judicial Review.

• Marty Lund

 

[Dale_M]

Then the challenge should be to the federal recognition of marriage, not the how the state recognizes it.

And I fail to see how immigration is an issue. Being married in California has no effect on immigration to another state that fails to recognize your marriage.

Well, yes. If the other state recognizes same-sex marriage. However, only three states which don’t perform same-sex marriages recognize those performed elsewhere.

As far as immigration goes, some same-sex couples are separated by national boundaries. Heterosexuals are allowed to bring their spouses to the US as permanent residents. I think gays and lesbians are seeking the same privilege.

 

[edwest2]

Humans have evolved, and at one point, our ancestors may have had similiar behavior. But if humans have been gay ever since they have existed, that points to that it is natural. You are right though, murder is “natural” as well. Just because something is natural doesn’t make it moral.

But sex isn’t murder. Who cares where people stick things, as long as it doesn’t hurt anyone? That’s personal business. Love is personal business. The happiness and sexual activity of two males or females does not affect anyone else. I honestly don’t see why the Church cares so much besides the fact that it is obsessed with people’s sex lives and virginity.

Personal? Where is it personal? In Massachusetts where gay husbands and wives bring their husband and wife to class to tell the kids how great it is to be gay? In San Diego where firefighters were told to put on their gear, get on their fire truck and join the gay parade? When kids are being told about gay sex acts?

The Church was never obseesed with people’s sex lives and it understands the importance of virginity. It is against the institutionalization of gay sex. But in Massachusetts, the State forces kids to read gay storybooks like King and King.

Where are the rights for Christian parents to opt their kids out?

God bless,
Ed