Homebrew, UrbanChic makes a valid point. Starting from a faulty premise does not necessarily render a line of argument irrational.
Okay, let’s move the goal posts slightly:
What is a rational reason for denying SSM that does not violate the seperation of church and state?
You shouldn’t because Alan Keyes is a joke and nobody takes him seriously. There are tons of scumbags out the who say bad stuff about black people. I don’t really allow it to bother me, I don’t take it personally, and I don’t automatically hate anyone who hates something that I am. It’s a childish way of acting and thinking.
That’s not hate. It’s his opinion based on his interpretation of the Bible. He could have used a million other words to express his hate if that was his intent.
Really shithead??? So everyone that disagrees with SSM is hateful? If you can’t seperate the issue ans someone’s feelings, then you are the only imbecile here. If you disagree with affirmative action, are you a racist? You might be, but just being on the wrong side of an issue doesn’t make you hateful.
First, you assume that what is daughter says is 100% true. Even giving her the benefit of the doubt, I don’t know if that really makes his actions unlike those many parents take when their child is doing something they consider immoral. Does disowning your kid cause they became a porn star make you trash? What about if your kid is a drug addict or a womanizer? What if the kid is just a terrible person? It’s easy to look at this situation and just say that Keyes hates gays and disowned his daughter solely because she is gay. I’m sure that’s a big part of it, but I think there are other issues at play as well.
I have to Godwinize here, forgive me. In the beginning, nobody took Mussolini or Hitler seriously either (except other whacko nub jobs).
I’m sure nobody would take someone who takes orders from his dog seriously (Son of Sam, David Berkowitz).
People probably thought at first that Charlie Manson was just a weird hippy dude.
How about those loveably loonies in the white sheets?
As long as someone listens to them, they are a threat.
As far as “the kid” being a terrible person, she seems to have done pretty much everything a “good kid” is supposed to do. She apparently was doing at least well enough in school to stay in school, she was not “famous” as any sort of hell raising party animal; most of us had never even heard of her before.
On the other hand, Keyes is a notorious jerk-off who never shuts up. His only function seems to be the spreading hate and discontent, making broad generalizations which denigrate and demean a large group of people who never did him any harm. If he has any other “issues”, maybe he should have a nice long talk with a psychiatrist. Frankly some of us don’t care what his “problem” is.
I want to add that the SSM issue is just the latest “lightning rod”. Long before anybody even talked about that, we already had to listen to and “accept” all sorts of bile from people exactly like him. Every time, we were told to understand them and explain/justify ourselves and not upset them. Consideration and respect go both directions.
The world according to me:
Yea verily, ye shall know him by his words and his actions. Disrespect begets disrespect.
The biblical version: Do unto others as you would have then do unto you.
The country version: What goes around, comes around.
I’m a simple sort. If someone acts a certain way, I ASSUME it’s because that is what he intended.
It certainly evinces the parent’s hatred for what the child is. Whether that hatred is justifiable is another question. And I find that hatred on the basis of sexual orientation is not justifiable under any circumstances.
Gay people can already get married in Massachusetts and several European countries.
And in eight of Canada’s 13 provinces and territories.
from her blog, she mentions an influx of hate mail since coming out.
snicker
She sounds like a prime candidate for SDMB recruitment!
Somebody shoot her the standard recruitment email. I volunteer to pay for her membership.
What was alot more bothersome was Keye’s response to the issue
“My daughter is an adult, and she is responsible for her own actions. What she chooses to do has nothing to do with my work or political activities.”
Shit, strikes me like he is saying “don’t hate me because my daughter is gay, not my fault and don’t let me lose my job(s) over her”. Jesus. His daughter is probably going to end up mentally scarred for life and he just cares about his image in the eyes of other intolerant people who would abandon their own families in order to promote family values.
Sad.
I assume you mean Luke 12:51-53, and Matthew 10:37.
Or perhaps not.
Regards,
Shodan
Personally, I prefer Matthew 25:44-45. Verse 46 makes a rather pointed commentary as well.
CJ
Perhaps Shodan is reading from the Gospels of Supply-Side Jesus, particularly pages 4-6.
Actually, in most cases, I think most people would look on disowning as an absolute last resort. So in a lot of the hypotheticals you mentioned, unless the circumstances were extreme (like the kid doing drugs is committing major crimes - and maybe not even then), people would look on it with at least a little horror.
Now that little snippet sounds priceless. She was a “selfish hedonist” so she has to pay for it. Hence he disowned her. She had to answer for her actions (“she is responsible”).
He, on the other hand thinks he doesn’t have to answer for, or take any heat for what he did. Everyone is accountable except him.
His “job” is more important than his own children.
What a pathetic, spineless scumbag he is.
So by taking these quotes out of context, it becomes permissible to form judgments over another person’s orientation, and deem them rejectable? That’s useful to know – I’ve felt that Christ’s command to love thy neighbor as thyself superseded condemning Pharasaic assholes who arrogate to themselves the right to sit in God’s judgment seat and decide who’s worthy and who’s not. Thank you for freeing me of that scruple; I can now condemn people like Alan Keyes who love their political stature more than their fellow man, as did those righteous men Annas and Caiaphas, with a clear conscience! :rolleyes:
I don’t see how either of these is really applicable. The Luke quote, (imo) is a rhetorical statement of the effect he expects to have and is probably intended (either by Jesus or by the author, depending on your beliefs) to refer to the schism that will occur in Judaism between Jewish Christians and the Phariseean movement which expelled them from the synagogues (and evolved into Rabbinical Judaism after the diaspora). The “households” Jesus is speaking of is Judaism and it’s not a command to violence or conflict, just a prediction that conflict will occur.
In any case, I don’t really see how it rebuts Ceravaise’s claim about Jesus’ mandate to be compassionate.
Your Matthew quotation is an odd one but it first should be understood that “hate” in this context is an Aramaism used as an idiomatic contrast to “love.” It’s not literal. Jesus does seem to be saying, “love me more than your family,” but there are a variety of ways in which this verse is interpreted by Christians which do not call for rejection and harm of family members who do not conform to one’s conceptions of what Jesus wanted (and Jesus never said a thing about homosexuality, FYI). Some interpreters say that this statement only appled to his direct disciples from whom he wanted a more complete form of committment. Another way to interpret it is that Jesus was commanding people not become selfishly concerned only about one’s own family but to recognize that he was mandating them to treat all people as one’s own family.
In any case, I don’t think either of these verses can be used to defend Alan Keyes’ actions as partcularly “Chrstian.”
It’s very good information, and I see now one of the reasons Shodan is so annoying to me. He is (again) deliberately taking snippets out of context, this time to defend someone who should be villified and driven out of all decent company. He does that a lot it seems. He seems to feel it is just fine to judge and condemn the “selfish hedonist”, while protecting the money grubbing hypocritical father.
John 8:6-8: But when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
Matthew 7:1-3: Judge not, that ye be not judged. For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured unto you. And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?
There is another bible quote, but I can not find it. It has to do with the idea that even most evil men will care for and protect their own children. I could infer that anyone who fails to do this, either through bigotry or Political Expedience is worse than those we usually call evil.