So you can’t treat people differently - except for asexual Chinese Pastafarians?
Please try to make sense.
That’s the opposite of what I said. Please try reading.
But the opposite of what you said makes even less sense. You can’t discriminate, unless you discriminate equally? WTF?
That’s because your entire argument makes no sense.
It’s about the most absurd thing I’ve ever seen on this board. Yes. That’s saying alot.
cosmosdan You’re aware of this, right?
My own church, the Anglicans, doesn’t make openness to children a precondition for marriage. Maybe they should. But they have always regarded procreation as the first and most important purpose of marriage (it’s in the Book of Common Prayer), and a few years ago an important bishop in the Church of England made some waves for pointing out (to straight couples) that procreation is supposed to be the purpose of Christian marriage, not an optional extra.
Re: and what the hell is gender complementarity? A new made up term?
You’ve never heard of ‘gender complementarity’ before? Seriously?
Re: Couples are made up of two people and whether they compliment each other or not as human beings has nothing to do wiith their genitals or how they have sex.
Actually, no. Your personality and behavior has a lot to do with whether you are male or female (and within men and women as well, depending on the balances of various hormones you were exposed to in the womb). Sex differences in behavior and personality have been well known for a very long time- take a look at any introductory behavioural-ecology textbook.
With respect to marriage, Christian marriage (as outlined in the Bible) is not an egalitarian institution, it’s one with a ‘head’ and a ‘follower’. (St. Paul outlines the distinct roles of husbands and wives in Ephesians chapter 5).
Again, this isn’t the law, in America at least, and none of it relates to whether we should have legal marriage for gay couples or not. Christian marriage is a different thing than civil marriage.
I’ve been reading through Leviticus chapter 20 this morning. I would ask Steophan if we changed “gay marriage” to “sibling marriage”, would you still feel the same way? Do you think churches should be required to marry brothers and sisters, mothers and sons, dogs and cats?
Churches which take a generally culturally-liberal position are in the middle of a major demographic decline right now. Look at the membership figures in the Episcopal Church, for example. Evangelical churches are at least holding steady.
Now, that may not be mostly because people are leaving the church- I think differential birth rates probably explain a lot of it. But I don’t think that fully embracing modernity, when it comes to sex and gender issues, is exactly going to help with increasing the birth rate either.
A fair amount of people did leave the Episcopal Church when they decided to ordain women in the late '70s, and again when they started ordaining noncelibate gay clergy.
yes, this.
And no, I don’t think gay relationships are the moral equivalent of incestuous ones. The only thing they have in common is that, in a traditional Christian understanding, neither one of them is a marriage.
Polygamy might be a better analogy.
Right, under the first covenant, they are both capital offenses. The context is more about a wide variety of holes a man isn’t supposed to stick his ding-a-ling into. It’s kind of amazes me that God had to devote an entire chapter to the subject. I feel sorry for Moses if all this was going on back then.
I don’t think the churches should be the ones to decide. That is, if as a society we decide that such marriages are legal, the church should perform them, and if we decide that they are not, then they should not.
Religion should not, as I’ve repeatedly said, be an excuse to ignore the values of society, and to discriminate.
Personally, I feel it’s nobody else’s business if any two adults, no matter what the familial relation, want to do, and it’s purely a taboo that stops them - although there are good reasons for close relatives not breeding. There’s also the issue of a serious power imbalance in a parent/adult child relationship, less so with siblings. But to my mind, no inherent moral problem, but several practical ones.
“Discriminating equally” is, by definition, not discriminating. If you would treat someone the same if they are a gay black Jew, or an asexual hispanic Muslim, then you’re not being bigoted, you are treating them based on what they actually do. If they’re an arsehole, treat them as one.
And if, as a society, we decide that churches can limit participation in their customs to those who belong to those traditions? Your opinion is wildly inconsistent, and cherry picks what it wants when it wants.
I can easily think up “traditions” that some church might insist on that would cause society to rise up and suppress it. Indeed, what about churches that ban marriage between men and women of different races, if you want something mild?
Why are you defending people’s right to act in a bigoted fashion?
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Because your definition of bigoted is too far away from my definition of bigoted.
When you get fervently pro-SSM and frequently RCC-bashing people at the SDMB saying “it’s not bigoted” you must, at least, do a systems check.
As I said before, thanks for the honest answer but it’s clear there is nowhere to go with this discussion without it getting uncivil, so I will no longer answer your posts.
That example has already been addressed in this thread. There are a number of vile opinions that churches are more than able to hold (such as disallowing interracial marriage), and some dangerous beliefs that are prohibited (snake handling, peyote use, etc.). A line, obviously, needs to be drawn somewhere - I do not have a problem with the current laws.
Yes.
So what the hell does this mean?
So we must reject everyone?
Or accept everyone?
Again, back to the insane notion that a religion can’t even discriminate against members of other religions.
Yes, we all agree that this is a good principle.
However, some religious groups don’t. And in your attempt to treat religion as just another restaurant or other public accomodation, you’re led to the absurd idea that religions can’t discriminate based on religion.
Keep pushing him and he’ll admit that he doesn’t believe in religious freedom at all, and would be happy to see religions destroyed entirely through his policies. He said as much earlier in this thread. (I hope I’m not misrepresenting your view, Steophan, but that’s how I recall it).
That’s his bottom line. I wish he’d just come out and say it more often.
Because your definition of bigoted is too far away from my definition of bigoted.
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Exactly.
Steophan isn’t getting that Christian marriage and, uh, the current United States legal definition of marriage are two very different things.
So if we decide that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”, then you’d be okay with with any church refusing to marry people for whatever reason?
Are we talking the building, or are you suggesting all the members should be required to attend? Because if the building is open to the public for such ceremonies, then of course the full weight of civil law applies. If the Church still refuses SSM, they simply need only close their doors to the general public for such services. It’s up to them if principle is more important than money.
Steophan, do you think white people should be subject to lawsuits if they only marry a white person, or vice versa for blacks? Should a black girlfriend by able to sue a white man if he dumps her and the marries a white woman instead?