Is this some sort of trick question? I’m more pro-gay than you are. I’m calling you out, boy!
You’re not a messenger, you’re an idiot.
You make a pitiful show of adopting a humanist posture when it’s clear that you just have a bug up your ass about religious people. Maybe I shouldn’t throw stones – I was a smug, obnoxious atheist myself once. A couple of decades of necessary contact and dialogue with religious people has had a transformative effect, though. No, I haven’t accepted Jesus into my heart and had my sins washed away in the river or anything like that – I’m just a respectful, tolerant atheist now.
My oldest friend got married yesterday. He had a nice, Christian wedding ceremony, because he’s found himself a nice, Christian wife. I’m sure lots of other people got married yesterday, too. Most of them likely had ceremonies that reflected their connection to some faith or another. You would deny this to people out of some pig-ignorant fucking moronic self-righteous hubris of your own? What an ass.
A few millennia of various cultures’ traditions should turn on a dime to suit contemporary mores or be scrapped overnight? Slow down, buddy, there just might be a baby in that bathwater.
Let 'em alone. Lead by example. Laugh at whatever strikes you absurd. Even world religions change to suit the times, even if the change appears to take place at a glacial pace. Left-handed people aren’t treated unfairly by Christians anymore, because people came to understand that handedness is, when you look at it sensibly, pretty much morally neutral. Nobody even blinks at Godboy Ned Flanders being a lefty, when even a couple of generations back, depictions of a devout Christian opening a “Leftorium” would strike many people with the same sort of dissonance this generation might experience on seeing a Fundamentalist distributing flyers for the Grand Opening of Homowares.
Erm. My spleen is vented. And I read your last post. It’s only out of laziness that I’m leaving the invective in the first half of this post.
Deep breath. Aaaah.
Where did I say I am going to deny them anywhere there ceremonies? PLEASE show me where. Asshole. See, I called you a name too. It’s fun because then it shows your opinion and adds nothing. Just like the rest of your opinion.
I know that France is not necessarily an American’s favourite country, but they do have, more or less, marriage laws that may be more consonant with stpauler’s views, AND they didn’t thow away centuries of traditions. Check this and see how it can be done.
KF
Your spiteful argument that the government should refuse to acknowledge the ceremony would deny people the experience of being married in church/temple/whatever.
You make so much of religious practitioners being involved in the process, as though it gives them powers that should only be held by the state. Malarky. The couple has to come prepared with a license, secured from the government.
So a religious muck-de-muck is among those who are authorized to “solemnize” it. Big whoop. He’s a glorified witness to the document. It’s arranged that way to accomodate the way most folks want to get married. A priest/rabbi/Scientology Tech/whatever holds no power over who can and can’t get married. If the muck-de-muck objects to the union, the couple can take their license somewhere else. If the muck-de-muck wants to marry a man to his three daughters, he can’t do squat without gov’t paper.
It makes a lot of people feel more “married” if some sort of a shaman says a hocus-pocus over them and pronounces them married. What’s it to you? Hurts no one.
The church, IMPSO, can still marry whomever they please. The government’s recognization of the marriage is different. Denying them marriage and denying them the government’s recognition of their marriage are two different things.
Your statement:
Goes against what I’ve said over and over in this thread. Please read threads and not just type your twisted quotes and erroneous extrapolations.
Isn’t that pretty much the same argument as saying “Hey, if two gays want to have some private ceremony and call themselves ‘married’, no one’s stopping them, but the government doesn’t have to recognize it”?
That’s ludicrous on the face of it.
Sh’ya, right. I’m pro-er gay than either of you poseurs.
Bring it, boys.
Pretty much, yup.
Two gay guys:
[ol]
[li]They can call themselves married and have gone through their own marriage ceremony. They can even call themselves Joanie and Chachi for all intents and purposes but it still doesn’t change anything legally.[/li][li]The government doesn’t have to recognize it[/li][li]No paperwork to file (of course that statement is assuming that gay marriage is illegal, if it’s legal, they have to fill out paperwork and yadda yadda yadda)[/li][/ol]
Vs. The Church[ol]
[li]The two people get married in the church(leaving it gender neutral on purpose here). They become legally married in some states.[/li][li]The government doesn’t have to recognize it but there ARE laws that do take the power of church as able to marry per my link back on the first page.[/li][li]Paperwork to file usually with a county clerk.[/li][/ol]
What’s stopping me from marrying my bf in words? Nothing. What’s stopping me from marrying my bf in the state of Minnesota? Laws. But all of that’s beside the point really.
Kiwi Fruit has a great site linked on his post that I (obviously) agree with.
Makes complete fucking sense to me.
oh, and Larry? Fuck you.
There’s an old Russian saying that might apply here . . .
If ten people tell you you’re being an idiot, you should go lie down.
Or something like that. I don’t actually know any old Russians.
Ok, I may just end with a lot of people screaming at me, but hey, it is the pit. I think I can see where stpauler is coming from. He may not be making the most coherent argument, and is showing an, unfortunately not so rare, talent of using emotionally charged, but semantically pointless arguments. His point, as I see it is as follows:
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People use their religious beliefs as a basis for denying gay marriages. The word marriage being, by observation of the number of people saying separate but equal civil unions are ok, the prime sticking point.
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The issue is further confused by the fact that a marriage in a religious setting is actually two separate events, the religious marriage as well as a state recognized civil marriage. The religious ceremony gives no actual societal benefit (other than the happy/fluffy feeling that you might get from such proceedings). The civil ceremony is where the state is acknowledging the happy couples wish to have certain rights and responsibilities with regards to one another.
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The concept of the Separation of Church and State would seem to lead to the conclusion that while the government cannot force a religion to act in a way counter to its beliefs, so too a religion that cannot follow the dictates of the state due to those beliefs should not be placed in a position where they are acting as an agent of that state.
Thus the church can and should be able to perform all the religious marriages that they want, but by virtue of their not willing to perform a gay marriage that is as a civil ceremony an enforcable contract between the two parties under the perview of the state then they should be denied the ability to function as an agent in the witnessing of any civil marriage.
After all, would a county clerk who refused to marry anyone whom had previously been divorced be allowed to carry on marrying anyone else or would the state strip them of the power to act as its agent under any circumstance?
FTR, I am a non-religious Canadian whose only real understanding of SOCAS was gained through 2 years of Civics in Colorado Springs grade 9 and 10 (military brat). As well, I enjoy a civil (most of the time 
) marriage conducted by a lawyer who, if I remember correctly, only really asked us if there was a legal impediment to us being joined in marriage.
Here’s a question I’d like to pose for all of those who disagree with me.
Let’s say we’ve got a rogue minister in Colorado. This minister believes contrary to the fact that Colorado has adopted DOMA as state law, that he is going to marry gays. His doctrine and religion allows this marriage. Who’s rights trump whom’s? Is it the freedom of religion and their ability to marry by law these two gay men or is it the governments law that states this marriage void? (Or is it the third option that the church can marry whom it wants and the government can in turn later void said marriage?)
I meant, of course, a county clerk refusing the marriage based on his religious background.
:smack: Preview, idiot, preview…
walks offstage muttering to himself
He is entirely free to perform the religious marriage ceremony. Nobody (aside from whatever body within his religion sets doctrine, if any such exists) can say that it is not a valid religious ceremony, including the government. As such, it grants whatever status that religious congregation gives to married couples; it may also have the effect of generating social status among those people who give respect to marriages not of their religion whether or not they are documented with the government.
It is not effective as a civil marriage, because it does not come with the governmental form-filing. It is not “voided”; it was not enacted as a civil marriage in the first place.
They can be married in the eyes of their particular religion, but the legal contract (which is the only real issue, AFAICT) does not exist.
You have 2 seperate issues here. 1) The state allowing the legal contract 2) The church performing the appropriate ceremony.
Your insistence that churches be sued for refusing to perform the ceremony, once the state says it will recognize the contract, is baffling. Once the state will recognize the contract, they state will perform the required ceremony if asked. And as I said before, there will be churches willing to perform the silly frilly ceremony as well. In that case, market forces will be brought in to play. Those churches who do not meet the needs of their parishoners will find empty pews on Sunday and will die out.
Wait a minute-- is this thread going to turn into one of those pile-ons I’ve heard so much gossip about?
Possibly. But I know this: depending on Diogenes’s definition of “hetero”, he just may owe me a blowjob as well.
Thanks Cyros, I think you’ve pretty effectively summed up my (apparently convuluted) opinions from this thread. Especially the third point. Maybe if I endorse it, we can spread out that loving vitriol your way too. 
THAT’S NOT AN ANSWER!
Let’s look at an area of law where discrimination is forbidden. Bob runs a construction company that gets a government contract. Frannie applies for a job with the company; Bob refuses to hire her because she’s a woman.
Frannie is hurt by Bob’s discrimination because the supply of good jobs is limited, and it can be difficult to find a job that you’re qualified for. She was hurt by discrimination.
Now, Bob decides he wants to marry his boyfriend Dave. He knows he can get a marriage certificate from city hall (he lives in Boston), but he also knows that the Catholic Diocese offers marriage certificates identical to the one he can get at City Hall. He goes and asks the priest to give him a marriage license, and the priest refuses.
How is Bob hurt by this?
Daniel