If it is my premise that a given set of rules is mandatory on humanity, then I am honorbound to follow that set of rules myself. I cannot find a way in which rule 3 applies to you, Shodan, and rule 4 condemning giving legal advice for money applies to minty (;)), but the reason that I am not in violation of rule 7, which it looks like I am, is this carefully reconstructed loophole that I’ve come up with.
If, on the other hand, I suggest that the set of rules is actually a bunch of guidelines on how to follow the Golden Rule, not stand-alone mandates on what you must do in a given situation, I will not be hypocritical in my (apparent) violation of rule 7 – but I had better not start condemning you and Minty for what looks like violations, either.
Whether or not His4Ever is right about what God thinks about homosexuality based on the Bible has nothing to do with whether or not she’s right as regards her marriages. But if she feels that the Law applies verbatim to Esprix and Gobear, then it applies verbatim to her too. And if circumstances modify the way in which the law fits as regards her (divorce at whim does not equate to divorce from a violently abusive felon), then the same flexibility applies to them.
It’s not who’s wrong or right in an absolute metaphysical sense; it’s about consistency, integrity in behavior.
For all of me, Gobear can live his life as he wishes, though I wish he’d see his way clear to make his way back to a church that does not demonize gay men. And so can His4Ever. You see, I believe that God is at least as merciful as I am – and I would choose to see neither of them trapped by legalisms.
That’s not a tu quoque. A tu quoque accuses in the form of “you, too!” The example given at your cite is a good one. Bin Laden says that the US has no right to decry terrorism since it is a terrorist. That’s a tu quoque.
What you gave Minty would be a tu quoque if it were worded like this:
“I think homosexuality is wrong.”
“Oh yeah - well, that’s a strange thing to say since you’re a homosexual.”
If she thinks that the Bible is the Final Word, and that because it says that homosexuality is wrong, she uses that to tell people that their being homosexual is a sin. YET, since she believes the Bible is the Final Word, we ask her then, may we not say the same thing about her being divorced and remarried, since the Bible says THAT is wrong.
I think you’re doing this because you want us to admit to a double standard or a so-called “liberal” bias. Sorry, ain’t gonna happen.
I’ll have you know that I was guilty of sexual immorality in Florida this very weekend, gobear. Of course, since mrs. green and I are of opposite genders, it turns out that it’s not sexually immoral at all back here in Texas. Go figure.
And I’m still wondering why nobody on the Board appears to have mentioned that the U.S. Supreme Court today decided to review Texas’ sodomy statute. Hello, big freakin’ news, people! The Court doesn’t revisit issues it’s previously decided within the last couple decades unless a majority figures it screwed up the first time around.
I doubt it, but only because I think there isn’t anyone out there that wants to be known for the rest of his life as the sponser of the cock-sucking amendment.
If it is overturned, is there anything else that allows two consenting adult gay men having sex in the privacy of their own home to be arrested for such (in Texas)?
I doubt it. The petitioners have asked the court to review the entire concept of criminalizing private sodomy (presumably of sexual adults–I only glanced at the petition for certiorari). The Court will basically be deciding whether a government can legislate such behavior at all, not just deciding something unique to the Texas statute.
Lib, the Ninth Amendment is nothing more than a truism: The government may not deny an asserted right on the grounds that it is not enumerated in the Constitution. It does not prevent the government from denying the asserted right on any other basis not prohibited by law. The Supreme Court has only cited the 9th Am. as a basis for an asserted right one time (the Connecticut birth control case), and even then it was basically additional support for a case decided under the Due Process clause. Due Process will also apparently be the issue in this new case.
That said, Bowers v. Hardwick is right up there among the most spectacularly unjust cases to come out of the Court in the 20th Century.
BTW, since Bowers was decided on the basis of Due Process, it’s possible that the Court will choose not to revisit that analysis and instead decide that case on the basis of Equal Protection. I’m going to try to read up on the briefs this weekend to find out exactly what’s going on.
No No…It would be called something like
“The Protect the Family Amendment”
Or
“The Any body who is against this is a pereverted God hating puppie stomping un-patriotic child molesting terrorist amendment”
Or
“The Patriot Amendment”
Or
“Fatherland Security amendment”
Or something ike that.
Sorry, I just have no faith in our legislature or the supremes right now.
With regard to the Ninth Amendment, and despite past jurisprudence, the evidence of both original intent (as evidenced by the words of Madison and others) and textual content implies that the Federal government may not act in violation of any right that was not enumerated. This however requires that a majority of the Supremes identify such a right. As applied to the states, the Fourteenth Amendment requires that no state act to violate a right guaranteed to citizens of the U.S., which would presumably include rights not enumerated but held to be among those guaranteed by the Ninth. Such rights would include the right to travel (somebody v. Wisconsin), the right to marry (Loving v. Virginia), the right to reproduce, and the right to use contraception. Some of the jurisprudence involved in the abortion dispute places the woman’s right to decide what will happen with her body within the Ninth Amendment guarantees. Most of this, coming from state cases, is based on Fourteenth Amendment guarantees of these rights – but where they are to be found as “rights of citizens of the United States” would have to be the Ninth.
This is, of course, abstract constitutional interpretation – how they actually fall out depends on the reading given the texts by a majority of the Supremes – but the principles on which the present majority base their decisions would seem to indicate a solicitousness for either strict text or original intent that might bode far better for those rights than the typical Religious Right scholar might prefer.
In trying to explain the problems encountered earlier in this thread, I finally came up with a statement that makes sense to me:
My reading of the two Scriptural prohibitions referred to indicates that they are not applicable to the cases in view here. Jesus was not condemning the case of a woman abused by a monster to whom she had married, but rather the idea that a man might disavow the woman he had committed himself to in order to justify taking in marriage the woman he had since developed the hots for. Likewise, Scripture does not condemn the union of two people in a covenanted marriage bond but the gratification of lusts – and IMHO that says nothing about the genders of the parties involved in the relationship.
Quite simply, a merciful and compassionate God forgives any errors that His4Ever may have made in her past relationships and desires that she find happiness in the arms of the man she loves and who loves her, including lots of good hot wet sex, that he will provide for her and comfort her in sadness, rejoice with her in happiness, and that she is privileged to provide him with exactly the same, comforting him in sadness and rejoicing in his happiness.
And exactly the same privilege is available to gobear.
His4Ever, what do you mean by posting Scriptural passages and your interpretations of what the Bible says so we can “grow”? Do you mean by that that it will supposedy help us change our beliefs on certain things to be more in line with the beliefs of fundamentalists Christians? I’m afraid if your idea of growth is to abandon what we believe to be truth in order to fit in, I, for one, can’t do that. But I’m not sorry.
Can you hear me, His4Ever?
Why do you never respond to my questions? (I recognize that it is your privilege not to.)
I’ve asked myself LOTS of times if my interpretations of Scripture are wrong. And sometimes I even change my thinking on some teachings.
