with a name like anal scurvy you know its gotta be good.
smile a bit? He needs to quit “oozing” apparently.
lol
us fundies will change our minds if it bothers you anal. :rolleyes:
Papa bear wants it in the back door!
(sorry, too much crank yankers dialogue keeps going thru my head)
But-but-but, your website says otherwise!
(leaves the thread muttering about people who don’t update their websites )
Fucking fundies. Get your goddamned god out of my yard.
Raise your ignorant little brats however you like. Tell them whatever lies you feel like.
Just don’t try and get the government to do it for you.
Then act like it.
No, it’s simple to understand. You’re too bigoted to realize that other people deserve to be treated as equals under the law. And nobody, I mean nobody, has ever been able to explain what the dire consequences of that equality under the law might have.
And Jesus said “Lie to your children about stuff that makes you uncomfortable. This is fine by me. Dishonesty in the service of bigotry is what I’m all about.”
Let me check. Do I feel bigoted? Nope. Ignorant? Nope. Oppressive? Nope. Evil as all fucking hell? Nope. No, nothing like you, Jersey.
No matter how ugly their ideas, how badly reasoned, how hypocritical, how ignorant, how downright evil they are, people still stand up for their ideas. There’s no inherent merit in that, especially not if your ideas serve to cause others harm.
Nobody oozes smugness like Jersey Diamond, that’s for sure.
Sorry. I’m trying to update, but the webmaster who generously donated the space to run the site and the bandwidth has accidentally revoked my write privileges on the directory. I’ve reminded him to fix it a couple of times already, but it’s tough to be pushy about a gift.
Soon, it will be up to date. I hope.
This may be what you are trying to do, but it is not what the proposed amendment is trying to do. This amendment is trying to enforce, by secular authority a particular religious rule on a population that does not share the faith from which it comes. God has nothing to do with it. Claiming His authority makes the purpose contrary to the intent of the Constitution. Claiming your own authority makes it dangerous to your own spirit.
But you do wish to require them to adhere to the legalistic interpretation of a law that is not a part of faith for them. Obeying this law, even if it is the Law of God, is not and expression of faith in Him, it is compelled behavior. Compelling it not only does not protect gays from sin; it drives them away from the Love of God.
Wrong either way.
Tris
I was brought up in a church that would probably fit the description of fundamentalist. I was part of this church for the first 23 years of my life. I worked in its church camps and participated on a national level in youth activities. For two years I attended the only college sponsored by this denomination and my major at that time was religious education. So I know this church well.
And I’m telling you that they were and are a mixed lot! Some are politically liberal and some are very conservative. Some are ignorant and some are accomplished university professors with impressive credentials. It is foolish to think that all of fundamentalism is defined by ignorance. (It was even a young minister in this church that introduced me to the concept that maybe stories of the Old Testament are myths.)
It seems to me that our greatest problems come from a segment of fundamentalists who are self-righteous, controlling and politically active. Some of them are not very bright and others are mentally intelligent but emotionally unintelligent. Sometimes they seem to have thrown out the most important part of the faith and appear to be acting and reacting by rote.
You’ve been reading books that portray them as “granola-munching hippies”? Why waste your time?
I think I will just return to the topic of this particular thread. I think it’s important.
Yes, yes, yes, so true.
No matter what your opinions are on this matter, it’s always wrong to try to force people or deny them something that everyone else is enjoying. It never works. It only breeds anger and frustration and resentment.
I feel very strongly about this because I have had a taste of this sort of treatment (on a very trivial matter compared to this) and I still feel resentment over the arrogance and presumption of these particular people.
Just speaking from a pragmatic viewpoint, it’s the wrong way to go.
Zoe, I’ve just got to say that I found your post insightful. Good show!
I was moved, upon reading gobear’s post late last night, to write a rather long-winded response to it. I quoted Gandhi. I expostualted on the nature of love and conflict and the wisdom of non-violent non-cooperation. It was the kind of post that could solve the problems in the Middle East today, if the right people read it and took it to heart. It was a rare moment, for me, of nearly ideal lucidity.
Then, of course, the hamsters chewed it up and spit out nothing. It always happens to the best posts.
I don’t have it in me to do it all again tonight, but I would like to say to gobear that I understand and respect what you’re going through. I admire your determination in the face of all the opposition arrayed against you. My best hope for you is that you learn to discern where your friends are, even though they may be standing in the same circle as your enemies. Remember to look carefully before judging people, or you may end up excluding someone who could be a valuable ally in your fight. Try very hard, for example, not to lump the Zoes of this world in with the JerseyDiamonds, just for the sake of a clever phrase or an easy description. Your resistance should be directed at your enemies, so that your friends can take up your fight as well.
That said, I think you’re fighting the good fight, and I hope you continue until you win it.
Oh, OK… one Gandhi quote, because it sums up perfectly what I want to say, and I hope gobear may find some solace in it. Talking about the progression of stages that often go with non-violent resistance, Mohandas Gandhi summed it up this way:
Stay strong… this is the hardest part, but you’re nearly there. Though hatred may seem to be overwhelming at times, love will conquer.
Does anyone else sense the irony of Gobear’s being angry, at least in part, at some religious institutions for being denied a privilege that originated, at least in part, from religious institutions?
You are a jackass.
You are really not helping here, JerseyDiamond. We have a separation of church and state here in the U.S., which means you don’t get to force your beliefs on anyone else through the law, and certainly not the Constitution.
We’re not trying to legislate against your right to be deluded. We’re defending your right to be deluded, as long as it doesn’t impede anyone else’s rights, and is done with private funding.
One more time: When, where, how, what the hell? Where exactly did I give the impression that I was not aware of the fact that there are religious folk who want to take rights away from gay people? Where? Huh? Where exactly did I dispute this fact, and how exactly did I give the impression that I thought that contempt towards those who oppress was unacceptable? Where? Where? Copy and paste my quotes. I want to see where I gave you that impression.
One more time: Do some of you have to be so contemptuous and snotty towards everyone with a faith, including those who are not trying to take away anyone’s rights?
If you want to single out those who are out to oppress and direct your oozing contempt towards them, fine. Fine fine fine fine. No problem, no complaints from me.
It’s when you can’t seem to stop there, and you ooze your condescending contempt towards all of us, even the harmless ones, then I take notice.
I have learned, thanks to many agnostic and atheist friends, to try to be gracious and “non-preachy” about my faith. I don’t want to give them a hard time, I don’t want to tell them that I think their lack of faith is lamentable (I really don’t think that way anyway), I don’t want to offend them. I like them.
And, in turn, they don’t tell me that I am deluded and irrational. They say, “Well whatever makes you happy” and they smile and we get along. That’s because they like me too. They don’t look down on me as if I am some sort of deluded lab experiment, and I don’t look down on them as some sort of misguided heathen.
In other words, we don’t rain on each others’ parades. It’s a nice little system.
There are a lot of us religious folk who have no desire, in any way, to rain on your parade. And yet some of you won’t stop raining on ours, and you seem to feel that you are wholly entitled to do so. Do you see the irony in that? I sure do.
Marriage is not the exclusive domain of religion and has never been. In fact the church co-opted it from society, not the other way around.
posted by JerseyDiamond
What if your daughter is gay? Will you tell her: “go love your sister”?
I understand what you’ve been saying. Completely. I was simply saying I don’t care that religious people are deluded. I won’t just go up to someone who is religious and tell them that, but in a discussion about religion in general, it’s a fair comment. I will defend your right to your faith, and I’ll fight you tooth and nail if you try to bring that faith into American government. That’s all I’m saying.
I’ve trying to learn what it means to be a Christian by reading the gospels and thus far, I haven’t seen anything that Jesus said that would lead me to believe that he condemned homosexuality.
Even more importantly-I have no desire to live under a theocracy-be it Christian or Moslem or Buddhist.
Period.
“Marriage” is the province of religion and should be celebrated as such…
All adults-regardless of their sexual preferences should have the right to enter into a legally binding union recognized by the State and all legal contracts should be given equal validity whether the participants are hetro or homosexual.
The State has no business in either the heart the bedroom.
What’s so hard to comprehend about that?
And any religious group that attempts to impose its’ moral agenda on the government should be greeted with disdain and loathing for trying to suppress all of our basic freedoms.