It’s amazing to me that for almost 4000 years of civilization, homosexuality and sodomy have been condemned by most civilizations.
Certainly for the 200 plus years since the founding of this country, it was considered unlawful in all states at one time.
Now, since a few states have simply decided that it is okay for gays to marry or have civil unions, it should be required for all RELIGIOUS groups even to accept this or else lose their tax exempt status or be considered “bigots”.
I’m going to laugh at some of you people 30 or 40 years from now when people are having public sex with animals, and you protest at them doing it in front of your grandchildren. I will smile when the animal sex people call you bigots or compare you to slaveholders in the 1800s.
My point? We all have a line where we say, “Okay, this is too much”. Just because you draw your line further down the road than mine doesn’t mean we should obliterate several amendments to the Constitution to help what you consider acceptable to come into the mainstream.
I think this question is akin to asking whether Straight Dope should be obliged to allow Stormfronters to post here. What does the question of whether Straight Dope pays taxes have to do with it?
Condemmed by most civilizations? This is insanity!
NO! THIS IS SPARTA!
Or, you know, the sacred brotherhood of Thebes.
Eh, what did the Greeks ever give us?
Actually, Lib, I think the question is, is the location a public or private venue. If it’s public, they have to do it, if it’s private, they can avoid it.
No, Liberal has a point. Even though the Straight Dope is a private message board, it is a place of public accomodation. Since they invite anyone to join here with a 30 day trial membership and a paid fee after that, they can’t say “No Blacks or Jews allowed”.
However, they can ban you for almost any other non-protected reason (and being a member of Stormfront is not), and SEXUAL ORIENTATION IS NOT a protected class under federal law! Maybe NJ has a civil rights law that includes sexual orientation, and it would be VERY interesting to see how that played out in court vs. a religious organization opposed to the same…
Sorry to encourage your hijack, but your argument here is illogical (besides being just plain stupid: there is not going to be any significant public-bestiality movement in 30 or 40 years’ time, so the retaliatory glee you’re anticipating is never going to materialize).
In the first place, there is no inconsistency between supporting equal marriage rights for homosexuals and opposing the performance of sex acts in public, especially in front of children. It’s perfectly reasonable to maintain simultaneously (1) that everybody should keep their sexual activity private, and (2) that consenting adults should be allowed to choose other consenting adults as their marriage partners regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, age, or gender.
In the second place, there is no inconsistency between supporting equal rights for homosexuals and opposing bestiality. Non-human animals are incapable of giving informed consent to sex with humans, so humans should not exploit them for their own sexual enjoyment. Adult human homosexuals, on the other hand, are capable of giving informed consent to sex, so they are entitled to have consensual sex (in private) with whatever other consenting adult humans they choose, just as adult heterosexuals are.