As a Republican I am sometimes ashamed by the stances that the GOP must take due to political needs. The gay marriage issue is one of them.
The romantic in me says “Hey, love is hard enough to find. Even if its between Adam and Steve so what. Live and let live.” Love hasn’t found me yet. Who am I to deny someone else.
But that’s not what we’re talking about here. Love finds lots of people everyday. What’s got the gay community’s studded leather panties in a bind is that the government won’t give them the same BENEFITS as others so inclined.
Wheter its hospital visitation, pension benfits, medical coverage, Social Security payments, or whatever there’s a lot more going on than just whether Adam and Steve can be a couple.
There’s some serious money at stake here and as far I can tell that’s what this whole thing is about.
From a gay couple’s point of view, it might be about money. That, and social recognition of the validity of their relationship as something on the same footing as a heterosexual union and deserving of the same respect our culture has always afforded the institution of marriage. But, yeah, the money.
But from the point of view of social and religious conservatives opposing gay marriage, it’s not about the money at all. If that were the problem, no corporation would be willing to offer equal benefits to employees in same-sex unions as they do to hetero married employees; and many, such as Disney, do just that. They don’t mind the money it costs them if it keeps their gay employees happy. No, the social conservatives oppose gay marriage precisely because they do have a problem with Adam and Steve being a couple at all and they don’t want to be part of a state that recognizes them as such.
That’s a good point. I certainly believe that Jesus is God, but on a survey, I’d probably identify myself as Other, Spiritualist, or something like that.
The fossil record shows how humans evolved. This is as much an established fact as anything can be.
If you compare the J/C creation story with those of other cultures in the surrounding area and Europe and southern Asia, you’ll note striking similarities. The people who study this sort of thing generally agree that they all of these stories come from a body of lore that goes back about 6000 years or further. If they call come from this vast collection of stories, why is one given factual status while the others are considered mythology? Why is it a fact that God created Adam and Eve but it’s mythology when the gods created Ash and Embla?
Well, if we’re going to argue the issue in those terms, I don’t think there’s any mythology where the first couple was a homosexual one. For obvious reasons. But that’s not the point, is it? The “Adam and Steve” one-liner is merely a soundbite expression of the important fact that many religions do regard homosexuality as unnatural and immoral on principle; and Christianity (most variants of it, anyway) is one of them); and the U.S. is in cultural terms a Christian nation (and will remain a Christian nation, in some cultural sense, even if we reach the point where only a small minority of the population are believing Christians). And that state of affairs means that the issue of gay marriage cannot be anything else but politically problematic.
Why on Earth should “first couple” mythology be the basis for legal recognition of relationships rather that scientific facts about human sexuality?
And I think that the “Christian culture therefore Christian law” argument to be greatly overblown. Looking at the sweep of US law–and the Constitution in particular–I see very little that could be regarded as uniquely Christian in origin. “Blue laws”, laws against adultery, and the current debate over marraige are the exceptions which prove the rule. Many American legal principles are derived from the 18th century Elightenment on the one hand and the Greeks and Romans on the other. And European society was officially Christian for about a millenia-and-a-half yet was anything but free (Divine Right of kings, anyone?)
Or, as I’ve said before, Jesus didn’t invent democracy.
Sure, I agree…the fossil record shows beyond (my own) doubt that humans and everything else evolved. I’m an advocate of evolution and a fervent supporter of the theory (you probably thought you had a fundamentalist type on your hands here, no? :)) Its an established fact afaiak too…doesn’t mean that religion and the Adam and Eve story ‘is pure mythology and has no basis in reality’, because no one can disprove the existence of ‘god’, nor that ‘god’ had no hand in creation/evolution.
As an atheist I THINK this is so, and I THINK that the facts let me draw some tentative conclusions about the existence of ‘god’ and the Adam and Eve story…but since I’ve never seen conclusive proof that there is no god, your statement that its PURE mythology with NO basis in reality is simply YOUR statement…YOUR belief if you will.
Sure, I know this. Its simply arrogance that ‘Adam and Eve’ are ‘fact’ while ‘Ash and Embla’ are ‘mythology’. Same kind of arrogance you are showing by claiming YOU know the what is fact and what’s ‘pure mythology and has no basis in reality’ Basically that’s the point I was trying to make. Science has answered a lot of questions, and filled in a lot of gaps in our knowledge…but it hasn’t answered ALL the questions yet pertaining to ‘god’, and until it does its YOUR arrogance in making assumptions that aren’t completely supported by the facts…you are merely extrapolating what we know into what we don’t.
Come to think of it, I’m not sure Chick is a Republican . . . for all I know he doesn’t even vote. Things of this world, you know, secondary importance compared with eternity.
The burden of proof is on A&E supporters. I don’t think it rises to the level of arrogance to dismiss a sunday school fairy tale as a probable falsehood. It’s false unless they can give us a halfway decent reason to believe there is even a slight chance of being true.
Really? I always thought the burden of proof was on the person making a categoric statement (say, like “It’s even more important to note that this “God created Adam and Eve” is pure mythology and has no basis in reality.”). I’ll have to remember that in my next debate.
No, x, the burden of proof is generally on somebody making an assertion that is not obviously supported by available empirical evidence – e.g., an assertion such as “God exists,” or “Adam and Eve existed,” or “God created Adam and Eve.” Or, put another way, “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.”
I was making no claim that ‘god’ existed BG…nor that Adam and Eve were ‘real’. I was disputing that YOU (or in this case Freyr) KNOWS FOR A FACT that Adam and Eve is pure mythology. Its unknowable. I totally disagree that in this particular case the burden of proof would be on the theist…it would be on the evolutionist who is making a categoric statement of fact.
There are many times where something is unknowable, but that we can make an honest guess based on the facts we know. Had Freyr said it that way, then I wouldn’t have had a problem (as it was, I’m nitpicking as I agree with him/her…it was a slow day, and a slow thread :)). But making a categoric statement that it IS mythology and has NO basis in reality…well, that puts the burden of proof on him/her, not on me. I’m merely admitting to the possibility…i.e. I THINK that its mythology, and I THINK that it has no basis in fact, but its basically unknowable so I conceed the possibility, however remote I actually think it is.
As – I think it was Carl Sagan – once said, “It is possible that apples will begin to rise instead of fall tomorrow, but the possibility does not merit equal time in high-school physics classes.”
If Christians (or other religious folks) find same sex marriage offensive and immoral, they can simply not practice it. Where I draw the line is when they try to enforce their religious values into secular law. If they can come up with a secular reason for banning same sex marriage, which demonstrates that same sex marriage would do irreparable harm to society, then I think they’d have a much strong case. They only reasons I’ve heard so far (beyond “because God says so!”) have been “because we’ve always done it this way” and “Ward and June Cleaver wouldn’t feel ‘special’ any more!”
First I wasn’t using the term “mythology” to mean “fanciful story” but rather as folklorists use it, to indicate a sacred narrative.
Also, I wasn’t try to prove or disprove the existence of god or gods or whatever. I’m a thesist, myself and I have my own proof for the existence of the gods. I was smiply trying to point out that basing secular law upon old mythology is a bad idea.
I’ll agree, there might be some facts to the creation story as told in the J/C bible, but those facts are lost in history and can never be recovered, barring some major break through in archaeology.
You are right, I cannot conclusively prove that the J/C creation story has no basis in reality. But I can point to the very physical evidence of humanity’s evolution that contradicts it at every turn and which has not been disproven. Therefore, I do feel comfortable in saying that the undocumented story of humanity’s creation by some miraculous act of a divine being some 6000 years ago is has no basis in reality.
In replying to someone else, you made the statement that you’re just picking nits. Yeesh If you’re that anxious about picking nits, I’d recommend getting a bottle of “Rid” and a nit comb instead of posting on this msg. board.
If you want to change the law, great! Lobby your state and federal representatives for a reformed civil law on marriage. Don’t go running to the courts, looking for a sympathetic judge who is willing to redefine words by fiat, ignore precedent, and short-circuit the democratic process.
The current law embodies a long-standing social consensus on family law, derived from the traditions and religious beliefs of many different groups.
Whatever your beliefs may be, marriage, as a civil construct, is a contract among at least three parties: the spouses and the state. The agreements the spouses make among themselves are independant of those they make with the state. You may notice that of all these benefits, the only one of these benefits that even remotely relates to gender, sexuality, morality or number (yes, I’m including polygandry in this) is child custody, and that’s hardly reason to refuse gays marriage. Marriage, legally, is a social tool, and little else conceptually. Religiously/spiritually, marriage may have a lofty pedestal of sanctity, but the assumption that this view is universal is frankly absurd. I’ve read the insane ramblings of Pat Robertson) and Donald Wildmon – frankly, finding yourself in agreement with either of these loons should be cause enough to rethink your position – and their position is based on the assumption that loving Jesus is tantamount to hating homosexuality, which of course comes from such stilted figures as “80% of Americans identify themselves as Christians.”
This figure is misleading, because a) all a person has to do to consider him or herself a Christian is assume Jesus Christ was the son of God, if that – philosophy and morality don’t enter into such a simple determination – and b) “Christian” is a broad term that includes everyone from Catholics to Presbyterians (and Presleytarians, too), and the surveys fail to mention that the reason for the existence of all the denominations is that at various points in history, somebody said, “the clergy in my church has everything all wrong. I’ll start my own church and show them how it’s done.” This occured most notably in the form of Martin Luther’s list of grievances, but every time a new denomination pops up, from Baptists to the United Church of Christ, even Mormonism, it all stems from some manner of fundamental disagreement with an existing denomination. Christianity is, it seems, the world’s only fractal religion, and yet pollsters have the gall to misrepresent their numbers by lumping all these warring factions under a solitary label.
So there is no Christian standard, as each denomination interprets the Bible differently, and not all of them have a militantly, or even passively, anti-gay stance.
As for “social concensus,” do you really think civil rights issues should be left up to the democratic process? Regardless of whether the majority favors or opposes equal rights, they’re promised by the laws of the land. The democratic process should never be used to support the “mine not yours” mindset, as it only serves to reinforce superiority-based philosophies, which is as contrary to Constitutional law as Congress declaring the Reverend Moon “King of America” (Which, by the way, what the hell?). The Bill of Rights applies to everybody, as do the rest of the Amendments. Between the First and Fourteenth Amendments, intra-gender marriage not only is not, but can not be outlawed.
Why not? The courts are as legitimate a route as any when you’re trying to change public policy. It wasn’t legislation that gave us the exclusionary rule, the Miranda warning, or desegregation of public schools – all that came from the Supreme Court.
Let’s remedy that: