Bush to make homophobia a centerpiece of his campaign

The BBQ Pit
101

Uh… lorum ipsum dolor? E pluribus unum? Just trying to play along.

As for the OP, Bush knows no gay people will vote for him anyway, so he’ll play on the small mindedness of MOTR straights. It can’t hurt to be dumb and mean if you’re a politican, because the dumb and the mean are the majority.

I don’t think there should be any government definition of marriage at all. It’s a private/religious/social institution, and it shouldn’t be a political one at all. Any “household” can do their taxes as a household, even if it’s two or more single straights of any gender. The conservatives can practice what the fucking preach and get the government out of our noses. It’s not the government’s job to say what is or isn’t a marriage, what is or isn’t a family.

Don’t like gay marriage? Don’t have one.

102

Rodrigo, you mentioned elsewhere that you also do not believe women should become priests. If those belief were enforced throughout American society, I would have missed knowing two of the best priests I’ve known, including one who’s intervention at a critical moment not only saved my life, and sanity, but also deepened my faith beyond measure.

Do me a favor. Look at your wife for a moment. Think of how much you love and honor her. Think of how much joy coming home to her and seeing her smile gives you. Think of how it felt on your wedding day, and how it felt the first few times you introduced her as “my wife.” Think of all the good things about your marriage. Now, picture someone telling you you cannot enjoy those things, that you cannot marry her because their beliefs don’t allow it. Tell me how that jibes with Christ’s Second Commandment?

Strict Catholicism, to which I gather you adhere based on what you’ve posted, does not allow Catholics to marry non-Catholics. (I have some practical knowledge of this – my brother married a Catholic girl, and I nearly married a Catholic boy.) Do you think it should be illegal for people to marry outside of their faith?

Marriage, for me, means choosing to spend one’s life with someone who is capable of showing basic respect for others and chooses to do so. I noted the nasty, insulting tone you used with Diogenes. Your annulment papers are in the mail.

By the way, one thing I haven’t seen mentioned here is that, upon marriage, one’s spouse legally and automatically becomes one’s next of kin. This means that they have the irrevocable right to see you in the hospital and, as I think I did see mentioned here, make decisions for you if incapacitated. There was an incident which I’m told showed voters in Vermont a few years ago just what consequences keeping marriage illegal for homosexuals can have. Half of a couple who’d been together for, I think, 20 or 25 years, died. He was estranged with his family who disapproved of his homosexuality. After he was buried, his partner went to visit his grave only to learn that his family had had his body exhumed and moved to a different grave. Because his partner, the man he loved, and the man he’d spent years with, was no relation to him in the eyes of the law, his partner had no legal grounds to learn where his body was buried. Somehow, I suspect given the choice between a tax break and the ability to visit the grave of someone he loved, the latter far outweighed the former. You would deny him both.

CJ

103

C’mon, Ceej! Piscies marrying Catholics is like “Mixed Marriage: Amateur Night” (depending on high church/low church disparity…). Catholics and Baptists, now that’s mixed marriage.

104

I don’t know about that. Where I come from, we call Baptists marrying Catholics “Episcopalians”! :smiley:

Hope you’re not too snowed in,
CJ

105

IWLN and Diogenes

Yeah, I recall my Mum telling me about a couple of guys who licked the shit off her ass, drank her urine, smelled her farts and gave blowjobs to her dogs while she rammed her torch (flashlight for Americans) up their asses. She always said “I keep them bloody busy”; I never imagined it was IWLN and Diogenes the Peanut. It’s really a small world.

BTW, it was my Mum who suggested the Diog’s nickname, she said “it’d take the Hubble to see it, I’ve seen bigger pills”

As my Dad says “cuando comienzan a insultarte es que ya se les acabaron las ideas”.
I was tempted to say that “my Dad fucks your wives in the ass and then has the other wife give him a blowjob” but I’d be stooping too far.

Eli

Don’t like your neighbour having the crap beaten out of her every night night by her no-good husband every night, move and don’t use government impose your morality.

This is as good time as any to confirm that I’ve got shit for brains, so no need to continue mentioning it. I am also a dipshit and a moron

Siege

Catholic priesthood is for Catholics, so why would I want to extend Catholic priesthood (and its rules) to non-catholics who don’t even have valid priests or even priests at all. If, say, the Baptists want to have female pastors, it’s their own thing. The two priest you mentioned are not valid priests in the eyes of the Catholic church, but i’m glad they helped you

Marriage, OTOH, is a cross-cultural cross-religious thing that DOES include most people.

Christ’s “second commandement” (which I gather is the second part of the Great Commandment) does mention loving my neighbour, but the first part says I should love God more, so if he says “don’t do this thing, it is wrong”, i don’t do it, if I did, I wouldn’t really be loving my neighbour.

As to catholicism not allowing mixed marriages I quote the Catechism

1634 Difference of confession between the spouses does not constitute an insurmountable obstacle for marriage, when they succeed in placing in common what they have received from their respective communities, and learn from each other the way in which each lives in fidelity to Christ. But the difficulties of mixed marriages must not be underestimated. They arise from the fact that the separation of Christians has not yet been overcome. The spouses risk experiencing the tragedy of Christian disunity even in the heart of their own home. Disparity of cult can further aggravate these difficulties. Differences about faith and the very notion of marriage, but also different religious mentalities, can become sources of tension in marriage, especially as regards the education of children. The temptation to religious indifference can then arise.

106

As far as I can tell, one problem with this “marriage support” initiative that nobody seems to have mentioned so far is the apparent “correlation = cause” fallacy.

In other words, although studies do show that healthy stable marriages are better for children, better for avoiding poverty, etc., that doesn’t prove that it was marriage per se that caused those positive results. It’s equally if not more possible that it works the other way round: namely, people who succeed in life in general are more likely to have healthy stable marriages.

If that’s so, then offering people financial incentives to get married is useless. The healthy stable ones will have healthy stable marriages, and the others will have bad marriages, with high rates of desertion, divorce, spousal abuse, and traumatized children. How is this supposed to be better than single parenthood?

It might indeed be useful to spend some money on counseling people how to have better marriages, though I’m not sure it’s an appropriate role for the feds. But in that case, why not make counseling available to anybody, married or single? What marriages need most is not a particular toolkit of “how to make your marriage work” techniques, but the participation of unfucked-up, functional, strong, caring, committed individuals. Seems kind of silly to suggest that that’s something we only need to foster in the context of heterosexual marriage.

107

Well Rodrigo, apparently your mom doesn’t tell you everything. I’m a woman.:slight_smile: She wasn’t that good, anyway. It does bring her lifestyle into question.

My husband’s not into that, but I could ask if you’d like. More my preference.:wink:

108

Rodrigo, I also asked you about marriage which, by Catholic rule, prohibits Catholics from marrying non-Catholics. Indeed, some dioceses, including the one my brother married in, prohibit non-Catholics from taking Communion with Catholics.

I repeat my question. Since your faith prohibits marriage outside of the faith, would you make it illegal for people to marry outside of their faiths, including making it illegal for Catholics to marry non-Catholics? If your answer is, “No”, why is it different for this issue of faith than for allowing homosexual marriages?

For that matter, strict Catholicism also outlaws divorce. Would you make divorce illegal? It was in Ireland until fairly recently. If you would choose not to make divorce illegal, again, how is it that it’s all right for one tenet of your faith to be imposed upon others who do not neccesarily share your faith and not others?

By making homosexual marriage legal, no one is forcing anyone to marry or to do anything which violates their beliefs. Heck, I remember a recent conversation on a Greyhound bus with a woman whose family wouldn’t speak to her because the guy she married wasn’t religious, while they welcomed her sister who was on her third husband. If someone you know or, God forbid, one of your own children turns out to be homosexual and chooses to formally declare their intention to spend their life with someone, no one is requiring that you welcome it, embrace it, or even have them over to dinner once in a while. What I am asking is that you do not impose your religious beliefs on me (it’d be difficult on this one, since I’m straight) or on the people close to me, two of whom are gay.

Respectfully,
CJ

109

IWLN
All this talking about gays is getting my pronuouns and nouns a gender crisis that or you and

your hubby are cross-dressers).

Siege
Did you read my quote? The official position is that they are not illegal (read the quote,

please. For the full marriage part of the Catechism go to

http://www.christusrex.org/www1/CDHN/matri.html , especially paragrpah 1632), what a particular

diocese does is another thing.

I think you didn’t read my post.

What a religion does within itself is a matter of the particular religion. So *no women

priests* is a Catholic thing because only Catholics can be Catholic priests. What other

religious groups do with their “priests” (in quotations since they are not valid priests in the

Catholic sense) is their own business. If I were an Orthodox Jew, I’d think it necessary for all

Jewish men to be circumcised, but I couldn’t care less what Catholics did with their

foreskins and certainly I wouldn’t support any legislation forcing men from other faiths go

through an iniciation ritual proper to my own religion.

As to Communion to non-Catholics the reason is very simple (according to Catholic belief at

least). After Consecration, the bread and wine become thebody and blood, soul and divinity of

Christ. We Catholics should only take Communion if we have no mortal sin. Non-Catholics (with the

exception of Orthodox) don’t have the same belief, so if they took Communion they would be

disrespecting Christ by not knowing Who is present; that’s the reason in three lines, for a, say,

Methodist, the bread and wine reamin bread and wine and serve as a symbol not a reality. I fully

suport that each religious group decide who (and to what extend) can participate in their

religious ceremonies, even if that means excluding those of different beliefs.

Marriage, OTOH, is not only a Catholic issue. It exists in every culture so it does extend

cross-culturally and cross-religiously. Muslims don’t accept homosexuals marrying, neither do

Orthodox Jews, Lutherans, most Anglicans, Baptists, Hindus, Buddhists. so its’s no only

Cahtolics.

As to “impose your religious beliefs on me”. The question is not “impose or not impose”

the question is which beliefs are imposed on whom. Is abortion legal, thus forcing prolifers like

me to live in a country which kills inocent babies? or abortion is illegal and you take away the

women’s right to choose what to do with their own bodies?. No-fault divorce, difficult divorce or

no divorce? High taxes, low taxes? People have their beliefs, many think their own belifs are the

best and think the whole of society would be better if they followed those beleifs. I imagine you

would support gay marriage if it were on the ballot and I would oppose it. In a democratic

country I favour this. You have to admit that even if gay marriage is OK (it is in your view)

making it legal is a drastic change in marriage and that democracy means the will of the people;

and that it may open the door polyamorist marriages.

I understand what you say with *"no one is requiring that you welcome it, embrace it, or even

have them over to dinner once in a while*, still I think it spells the end in practical terms

of marriage, but it WOULD require me to recognise it if, say, I ran a business and one of my

employees was a married homosexual, so I’d have to give them spousal rights which I think are

immoral.

I fully re-affirm my right, in a democratic country, to press for the changes I think are right

and, of course for others to do the same.

Just before someone “discovers” it, I’m not American but I find it easy to write as if I were one just to avoid endless “if I were an American…”.

110

Well no. Would you like us to be? I’m sorry about the comments about your mother. I’m sure she is a wonderful person. My sick and demented sense of humor is sometimes beyond my control.

You know Rodrigo, my husband and I are Catholic, although for me, it’s only on paper. I don’t believe like you do anymore. My husband raised his daughter’s in the Catholic church, loved them, read to them, coached their sports teams, did all the right stuff. Had a two parent household. One of his daughter’s is a lesbian. He didn’t know, although I knew as soon as I met them 6 years ago. I finally convinced her to tell him about a year ago. His beliefs aren’t much different than yours, remember. He nodded and smiled and said all the right words that a daughter would want to hear and then came home and cried, and mourned. When he came to terms with it, he said that he wasn’t disappointed in her, but he was afraid for her and sad for what she would miss. Life is not that kind to people who are at all different. Because of her career choice, unless the Federal government adopts new laws, she is at risk of losing her financial security. Her private life must remain a secret and when required to participate in a public event, she is always alone. My husband will walk her down the isle one day and give her away, either in a committment ceremony or a marriage. She deserves that marriage. Her father was not responsible for what she is and neither was she. She was created this way by your G-d. This same loving, just G-d that you worship. She is a wonderful, kind, loving person. There is nothing wrong with her. She is our pride and joy. This is personal for my husband and I. Tell me again why this G-d that we have served faithfully our entire lives would condemn our child? Tell me why you don’t think she deserves the same happiness you do?

111

And many religions do? How do we determine which are right? Which one has the right to make the law conform to its belief?

How does my ability to get married change your marriage?

Granted, gay marriage may open the door to polyamorous marriage, in the same way that legalizing interracial marriage opened the door to gay marriage. In other words, the polyamorists probably have about four decades of hard, dangerous work to do before they have a shot at getting beyond America’s bigotry towards them. Sorry, guys.

How? How exactly? What, specifically, do you think will happen to marriage if you allow gay people to marry? Give me facts, not vague foreboding; I want to know what everyone’s afraid of. If my partner and I can share the same legal rights as homosexual couples, how does that affect heterosexual marriage?

Which means that others will question the bases of your ideals. And if they’re not based on any sort of rational thought and have no facts to back them up, if they are based on misperceptions and prejudices, then they’re going to be exposed as such.

The challenge stands. A non-moronic reason to oppose my marrying my partner. Put up, or start thinking about this issue instead of blindly following the misguidance that’s led you to your current stance.

112

OK, I have read your post and this leads to me asking you a new question. You appear to be arguing that because homosexual marriage is currently illegal and that is the status quo, the justification for imposing this belief and not other ones you hold on others is, “It’s always been that way.” In the 1950’s, laws which supported discrimination against Blacks and which forbade interracial marriage were quite common in America’s South. They were, I understand, supported by society as a whole, and I understand people found Biblical justification for them. Do you think it was right for those laws were wrong and have been appropriately changed and, if so, how does this differ from homosexuality?

As it happens, I am inclined to consider divorce immoral and a threat to marriage for the simple reason that divorce, by definition, ends an existing marriage, albeit possibly one which should never have taken place in the first place. By this logic, I should actually support Mr. Bush’s program, but, cynic that I am, I don’t trust the government not to foul this up, in addition to disliking the hypocrisy. I would nevertheless fight to keep it legal, if rare, because there are times when it’s the best of a bunch of lousy options. I also won’t count it against someone I know, although, as far as I’m concerned, someone who’s been divorced more than twice is not dating material.

You, Rodrigo, enjoy what I consider one of the greatest blessings and privileges God has graced us with, yet, in your arrogance and cruelty, you would deny that privilege to individuals like Mr. Visible and gobear, not to mention those friends of mine, whom you have never met and whose lives have no impact on you. You would condemn others to a life of celibacy which you are unwilling to undertake yourself.

As I’ve said, I’m straight, but I’m of average enough looks, and not given to conformity. Thanks to that and a few other factors, I grew up being told that it was offensive for me to show interest in a boy, and ludicrous for me to think that anyone might love me or want to marry me. I was told I was unmarriageable. I’ve known some wonderful Catholics in my day, including that fellow who managed to convince me I was marriageable, but I also knew quite a few Catholic kids who were no more than bullies, including some who beat me up more or less regularly. You, sir, in my downright arrogant opinion, have more in common with the latter than the former, in that you would support doing economic and spiritual harm to those who do not harm you except by the mere fact of their existence. I did not stop existing merely to spare those who objected to my existence 25 years ago. I would prefer that b]Mr. Visible**, gobear, and those friends of mine not do so now.

CJ

113

Imposition of morality means that your rights are being restricted so as to bring your behavior in line with some one ele’s morality. Being forced to live in a country where other people ae allowed to do stuff which you think i simmoral is not an imposition on you unless you’re being forced to do it too. Nobody’s making you get an abortion or suck a dick so you are not being imposed upon. You are not allowed to make choices for other people. You don’t have a right to not be offended.

You don’t have a right to discriminate in business based on personal religious beliefs. The sexual orientation of your employees is not something which is relevant to their contract with you and they are entitled to the same benefits as any other employee. Do you think that employers should be able to deny benefits to an employee who is in an interracial marriage if the employer thinks that “race-mixing” is immoral? What if the employer disapproves of Jews being married to Christians? What if an employer thinks thatatheists are “immoral?” Where does it end?

BTW, why don’t you enlighten us as to why same-sex marriage would be “immoral?” You haven’t made any headway on showing a non-moronic justification for your views. Here’s your chance.

114

A sports metaphor. God, I hate sports metaphors. Still, if that’s the language you understand, that’ll be the language I speak.

Here’s a historical timeline of all the changes that baseball has gone through in its more than 150 years. What we play today bears very little resemblence to the game as first immortalized in the Knickerbocker Rules in 1845. Somehow, despite changing the rules of baseball almost every year, the sport is still around.

It also strikes me how many other words we’ve been more than happy to re-define for the “benefit” of the gay community. Gay itself, obviously enough, but also queer, which used to mean odd, and faggot, which used to mean a bundle of sticks. What’s one more word?

Lastly, as a general point, “tradition” is almost always the stupidest possible argument against change. Especially when tradition mandates that some people in our society aren’t allowed as many rights as most other people.

115

Rodrigo, I’d like to address your comments about hiring homosexuals. The homosexual couple who are real-life friends of mine are a nuclear physicist and an electrical engineer. They also both possess the rather rare combination of being both brilliant and extremely competent. I’ve know the engineer since we were in 5th grade. He is one of the kindest, most honorable, and most decent people it’s been my privilege to know. I have also seen him behave kindly and morally when he was under considerable pressure to do otherwise. If you would refuse to hire him simply because the person he’s been going home to for the past 10 years to have dinner with and talk about his day with is another man, I would appreciate knowing that before doing business with you. You see, if you refused to hire him for that reason, that would tell me you value something above honor, moral character, and competence, and that is not someone I want to do business with.

CJ

116

Careful, Diogenes, if he’s a libertarian, then he might very well believe that this is the way things should be, and that the world in general would be better off if all of that was allowed. This isn’t as big a trap as you might suspect. :slight_smile:

117

Wow, is it let’s try to kick Rodrigo’s butt week?
This thread has to change its name to “Is homosexual marriage wrong?”

IWLN
Apologies taken and offered. My mum had a good laugh anyway trying to imagine herself doing all the things I (and you) was making her do.

It is always easier to discuss about concepts than about specific people, because now there is a name behind the concept. I’m going to say a couple of very hard things, please understand they are NOT meant to offend, but just the consequence of my (wrong in your eyes and those of many) beliefs

She DOESN’T deserve a marriage, if by that you mean homosexual marriage, in the religious sense. One doesn’t deserve a sacrament if one can’t or won’t abide by the rules that govern it (Catholics don’t’ deserve Confession, we are granted pardon). Hell, we don’t deserve sacraments in general, they are God’s gifts and not our merit.

There IS something wrong with her is she attracted to people of her same sex, we are meant to be attracted by people of the opposite sex. By it is not “more wrong” than people who cheat, lie, steal or others sins. We all have our particular sins to which we fall prey (When I confess I usually start by telling the priest that I always confess the same sins). It is wrong for us to try to make our “favourite” sins something good just because they are habitual or permanent for us. All of us have to carry that burden, which God tells us will never be heavier than we can carry. So it is not God picking on your daughter no a particular sense that same way He didn’t pick on me by giving me my own particular inclinations which may (or may not) be more difficult to bear than your daughter’s. All of us Christians have our crosses. Many of us bear them in silence.
That on the religious side.

I hope, that if, God forbid, I find myself in the situation you and your husband find yourselves regarding a daughter’s (or son’s) homosexuality, I’ll stick to my beliefs and love God more than everything else.

On the political side, I know my case is weaker than on the religious side, so I’ll stick to what I said before on my interpretation of what marriage is. You, of course, have full right to think all the previous is a ton of crap.

MrVisible
My point wasn’t, in this particular case, which one was right, I was only trying to point out it wasn’t only a Catholic thing.

Thanks for accepting that gay marriage can open the door for polyamorist marriages (which I gather you don’t think are wrong). Interracial marriages are not the same case because race is external to the marriage, unlike sex which in central especially since one of the purposes of marriage is having kids.

I fully welcome the fact that my ideas can be challenged and exposed as crap if they are crap, but only if you are also willing to do it.

Your getting married, of course doesn’t take anything away from my marriage, in the sense you intend (by the way, for me, my real marriage is my religious wedding not my civil one). If gays can marry and then polyamorists can marry then the reason for the state’s favouring of marriage stops existing, which was helping a particular type of relationship. The underlying question is “why should the state recognise marriages at all?”. If it is an intimate relationship, why should the government sanction it? Isn’t recognising ANY marriage the gov intruding in our lives and discriminating against people who don’t want the state to tell them how to live? If marriage is just people who want to live together (because they love each other) and enjoy benefits? Why should married people be favoured over single (or cohabiting) people? I would be prepared to take the step to say that if gay marriage is approved, the state should stop recognising marriages and laws should be enacted so that couples can enter into (private)“mutual-love relations” in order to enjoy most (or all) the benefits of the now-dead marriage.

Siege
No, homosexual marriage is not “currently” illegal. It’s been illegal for thousands of years and the definition of marriage was always “a guy and a gal”. Externals like age, race, feudal lord’s permission, colour of the forms needed or whatnot are not the essence of marriage, i.e. a man and a woman together for love and having and raising kids.

Divorce isn’t rare and won’t be rare again. The same reasons used to make it impossibly easy are the same used the open marriage to gays. It was compassion, help, love. No-fault divorce fucked-up marriage in the name of helping it and so would gay marriage, in that sense it does affect me since it affects society. Abortion was also wanted to be “safe, rare, and legal” and it is the most common medical procedure done on women and the least regulated. That is my fear.

You say “doing spiritual harm”, I think more spiritual harm is inflicted by letting people equate immorality with morality (in my view).

I have made it perfectly clear that I would welcome legal changes to provide gay couple with the economic and “administrative” aspects of marriage, short of marriage itself

I will not apologise for bullies who work outside my control and do things I detest.

Diogenes
So, you wouldn’t oppose a law letting fathers have sex with their underage daughters? (no one is making you have sex with your daughters). By you reasoning, you would be imposing YOUR morality and RESTRICTING their choices. You wouldn’t oppose a law letting me beat the crap out my wife? How about buying a slave, who wants, freely, to be bought so that he can give that money to his starving family?

Why is less restricting better than more restricting? You wanted to restrict marriage to two people? Why only two? Why impose you view on threesomes who want to live get married, thus restricting their choices. Don’t want a three-way marriage, don’t get one.

I was under the impression that you don’t recognise the category of “immoral” as a real one or as an absolute one. As to why I consider it immoral, I think I have made it clear here and everywhere, for more details, feel free to consult the Catechism of the Catholic Church. As to my objections in the secular area, read this whole post. I give up in trying to make you think they are moronic or not.

You make an interesting point on the whole hiring thing (Siege this is also for you). When I wrote about it I was thinking about Catholic hospitals being forced into doing abortions or issuing contraceptives when it is against Catholicism. In the case of hiring I can see it is a greyer area. I was trying (totally unsuccessfully) to point the above case of specifically religious institution or such (Should the NAACP be forced to hire a non-violent racist who just thought blacks were inferior but did nothing about it?). But, and I’m not sure of my own answer if the, say, Catholic owner of an Arby’s be allowed to discriminate in hiring?

OTOH, you always struck me as a Libertarian-kind, aside from being atheist/agnostic. So, in the live-an-let-live Libertarian mode, why should the government tell who to hire or not in MY OWN business? It’s not like I’m directly harming anyone. Why should the government care if I don’t want to hire people born on Fridays? It’s my “house”? If you’re not a Libertarian, still, you’re pretty dogmatic for an atheist. How do you now something is good or bad (as opposed to convenient or inconvenient)?

Miller
It wasn’t a metaphor, it was an example. I didn’t say marriage is like baseball, I mentioned an example everybody could relate to.

I wouldn’t say “very little resemblance”. Four bases, nine players, bats, balls, all runs are worth one point, pitcher throws at catcher, batter try to bat and run, strikes, balls, base-on-balls. So all the basics of baseball were there in game #1. Nine balls or four to walk are secondary. If they had added an extra base or the game was played by three teams or they had two batters at the same time, I’d shut up, but the example stands. Gay marriage is playing baseball with 10 players (now, that’s an analogy).

I wasn’t trying to make a lexical point, it is not the word marriage this is about, is the concept behind the word.

118

And once again, we have proved that all opposition to homosexual marriage is inherently rooted in homophobia. Now, can you or can you not come up with a good reason why your religious bigotries should be given the force of law? Remember, “That’s the way it’s always been,” is both an insufficient answer and factually wrong.

119

I was leaning more toward "Could Rodrigo ever be MORE WRONG.

It’s never about concepts. It’s ALWAYS about specific people. But yes, it’s easier if it’s impersonal.

She had a straight marriage. She tried. It didn’t work because she’s not straight. G-d didn’t bless that marriage. He didn’t swoop in and reward her for her efforts to be “normal”. He didn’t help her in any way to be what you think she should be. I wonder why?

If she were meant to be attracted to the opposite sex, G-d would have made her that way. He created her with sexual feelings toward other women and now she can either be celibate and lonely or choose to sin??? She is supposed to bear this cross because, why? Your G-d is outrageously cruel, if what you say about him is true. This is part of the reason I knew Christianity was false. Your G-d bears no resemblance to the G-d that I know exists.

I do love G-d more than anything else. He gave us this huge protective love for our children. Look at your sentence. “G-d forbid”, that is my point. G-d could forbid it and he didn’t. What are you going to do if your children turn out that way? Will they know everyday of their lives that they are wrong, a disappointment to you? Not what they should be? You don’t want it to happen to your children? Who wants anything hard to happen to them? Our daughter, who is a delightful gift from G-d, is not somehow wrong or defective. You and all who think like you are.

On the contrary, I don’t think it’s crap. It’s more like poison. I realize there are a lot of other people who feel the way you do. I think it’s excruciately sad and it makes me lose hope in the goodness and compassion of man. It makes me cry.

So you’re agreeing to legalize sin, but only up to a certain point? You want to keep it from tainting what you have? You want our secular government to continue to protect your religious preferences. Not because you are concerned about other people’s sin? This isn’t a moral concern to you at all. This is really about what makes you uncomfortable, what you find distasteful. As long as it does not resemble your life in any way, you would welcome legal changes? I know you won’t recognize how ironic this is. Too bad.

120

Rodrigo brings to mind the adage about teaching a pig to sing. He seems congenitally incapable of differentiating between the civil benefits of marriage and the religious rite of marriage when it comes to SSM. He seems impervious to the notion that legal civil SSM would impinge upon his “real” marriage in absolutely no way whatsoever and seems not to understand that his religion pretty much forbids him from making comments like “my mom licked the shit off your ass” and “stick a flashlight up your twat” and the other charming things he’s treated us with. Unless of course I missed the part in the Gospels where Jesus gave the go-ahead to that sort of vileness. Is that how you show love for your neighbor, Rodrigo? Do you think Jesus is proud of how you’ve conducted yourself here?

A question for you, Roddy, although I doubt you’ll answer it: If your church marriage is the “real” marriage and your civil marriage isn’t, why did you file your marriage license with the State? And a follow-up if I may; if your civil marriage isn’t “real,” do you avail yourself of the benefits and rights which obtain to legally married couples? If so, how do you reconcile taking advantage of this not-“real” marriage to benefit yourself and your family?