Awwwwww. : puts away +3 pope hat :
Seriously, I don’t understand what stpauler is on about either. I would think that the important part is whether or not you are married (or civil unioned or whatever eventually winds up happening) in the eyes of the state, not whether or not some church didn’t want for the ceremony to occur in their building or under their doctrine. And I agree that a lawsuit in the vein that stpauler is talking about would be DOA for lack of harm, if not sheer sillyness.
Nope, I just want religion out of the public sphere. If you want your little fantasies. Fine. I don’t have time for that kind of ignorance. As for a gay christian. Talk about an oxymoron. Your own religion persecutes you no matter which way you translate.
I’m not an ambassador to gay rights anymore than you are. I don’t present myself as “gay first” as you’re seeming to do. I have friends, family, and acquaintances that are right wing. I’d give them a bit more credit than you do to know that one person doesn’t represent an entire microcosm.
Yup, I want liberty and equality and to live in a world free of discrimination for everyone.
Unless they go to church.
I think what StPauler is talking about is nuisence suits. i.e. I don’t agree with you, so I’m going to make your life darn difficult and maybe you’ll just give, or I’ll manage to put you out of business, or whatever.
Sounds good to me :rolleyes:
But the thing is, the standards of those particular, private organizations don’t rise to the level of a harmful discrimination because they do not remove anyone’s ability or capacity to the free and full exercise of all of their legal rights.
I have freedom of speech. That doesn’t mean that I can say whatever I want, wherever I want. I have freedom of association. That doesn’t mean I can hold a meeting on my neighbor’s lawn or in the middle of the public library. If my neighbor or the library permit my meeting, great. But they’re under no obligation to do so.
I can be married by my pastor, by a judge, a ship captain, a mayor, a justice of the peace or a city clerk. Only the city clerk (and perhaps the justice of the peace) has an obligation to perform my wedding, but there is always that one option available to me, and that wedding is as valid and meaningful insofar as my rights are concerned as any other.
Therefore, I am not harmed because I can’t be married by a Catholic priest, in a Mormon temple or standing under a chuppah with a rabbi. I may be inconvenienced, I may have my feelings hurt, but I can still be married. And that’s as far as my rights go.
There is no right to be married in any particular place, by any particular person or with the ceremonies of any particular faith, ethnicity or tradition. That the option exists for those who conform to the requirements of those places, persons or traditions, expands freedom, it does not restrict it in any way. Removing that option out of spite because it’s not available to all lessens freedom.
You’re not asking for a world free of discrimination, because your “ideal” discriminates against people of faith. You’re asking for a world where your personal brand of discrimination is law, and where people who don’t conform to your beliefs don’t have any stake in society. You stand the notions of both freedom and bigotry right on their ears.
My ideal discriminates against all forms of religion in government and that’s that. I don’t like religion and think it’s a waste of time and for ignorant minds. You’re all welcome to your little fantasies of Gods and arks and burning bushes and IPUs. GO NUTS. I don’t care. But keep them out of government. PLEASE REREAD THAT STATEMENT OVER AND OVER UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND IT.
We understand it. We all understand it. No one here is under any misapprehension what so ever about the position you are trying to advocate.
We just think it’s stupid, is all.
Fine, Miller. Your opinion is yours and mine is mine.
Well, my ideal is of a world where people are free to do what they choose so long as they cause no harm to another (with modus vivendi set up to balance out instances where either choice causes harm to someone), and where nobody has the right to force their beliefs, or lack thereof, on others against their will.
In short, if you don’t like what I think or believe, it’s. none. of. your. fucking. business. I won’t force my beliefs on you; you won’t force your views of how much bullshit you think my beliefs are on me. If my wife and I choose to be married by a priest because the vows we take are meaningful to us, that is quite bluntly not your concern. And if I think that it’s a lot easier for that priest to handle the civil side of things as well than to make a special trip to the county seat to repeat the process before a magistrae – what skin is that off your behind?
And if you think that your certitude that all matters religious are BS gives you the right to force others to do things your way, you are in no way different from the Christian Right bullies who back Bush. And while I have very little good to say about Dick Cheney lately, it occurs to me that if that is truly your attitude, he recently provided an excellent quote for me to use.! :mad:
Because I don’t want any religion or cult to have any legal capabilities that should be solely governmental when these religions/cults espouse hate/vitriol.bigotry. What skin is it off your ass that I don’t want your fiction in my government?
Okay, let’s just cut to the chase:
You’re a fucking moron who tracks shit all over the carpet with his tongue.
Whee, Larry, that was productive. You don’t like the message, kill the messenger.
You don’t actually know what that phrase means, do you?
Miller, oh king/queen of the drive-bys. Please stop by when you have something to say.
Why is this still even an argument? It’s distracting from the idiocy of the article linked to in the OP.
The article is just yet another attempt to do a back-flip on the issue and make it sound as if homosexuals are the aggressors trying to infringe on other people’s rights. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to want to give credence to that completely vacuous agenda, by saying that religions need to get torn down. That helps no one.
Keeping religion out of government also means keeping government out of religion. It has to go both ways. It’s one of the basic tenets of our Constitution. It’s the same concept that lets you say that you think religion is nonsense for ignorant people without getting jailed for heresy. You have to understand that it’s ALSO the same concept that lets a church say you’re going to hell for thinking that, and refuse to let you take part in their rituals. You can’t just have the separation of Church from State, you have to have the separation of the State from the Church.
Hear! Hear! I totally agree with you (but given my apparent track record in this thread, I don’t think that it behooves you. 
)
“Liberty’s chief foe is theology.” - Charles Bradlaugh.
stpauler, I’m as pro-gay rights as it gets. If you can show me another hetero male on this board who’s more pro-gay than me, I’ll suck his dick. Having said that, you’re wrong on this one. If a given church was the only place you could receive the rights of marriage you might have a point, but just because something is legal doesn’t mean every religious institution is obligated to provide it. As long as the state guarantees that the same legal benefits and protections are provide to everyone pretty much for the asking, then the religious ceremony is well, purely ceremonial. It’s a religious ritual which recognizes a union, but from a purely legal standpoint, the religious ceremony is superfluous. Standing in front of a clergyperson is not what makes you legally married. The certificate does. If you don’t need a specific religious ceremony to receive equal rights then you don’t have a case.
If the law mandated breaking a glass in a Jewish synagogue then you would have a point. But you’re confusing the legal contract of marriage with ceremonial traditions that law doesn’t care about and is forbidden to interfere with anyway.
By your logic, Catholic churches would have to provide ceremonies for pagans. Even better, Jewish synagogues would have to provide wedding ceremonies for anti-semites or black churches for white supremacists.
It may indeed be bigoted for churches to refuse to recognize same-sex relationships, but under the First Amendment, they have the right to be bigoted. Their policies do not, in themselves, prevent gay people from getting married.
Think of it this way. It’s legal to eat ham sandwiches. That does not mean that a kosher deli must put ham on its menu.
That makes sense to me **Diogenes, ** thanks. I apologize to all if I’ve been dense and stuck in my ways in this thread. I still think it all sucks but concede my contention to wiser minds.
Oddly enough, I agree with this. I would do away with marriage altogether and go strictly with civil unions, if it were up to me. Sadly, it ain’t.
Not yet, anyway.