Miller Well, I think we’ve gotten to that point where we don’t really disagree on anything, so our debate is over.
Thanks for the link on the Catholic position. I’ll try and get to it but my attention is elsewhere at the moment.
This is just simply not true. There is nothing in the DC plan forcing Catholic groups to perform gay marriages. Just not to discriminate against gay married couples.
As your article itself says…
How could you have missed that?
Instead, what the Catholic church wants is special treatment for religion - that a law requiring employers to, for example offer equal medical benefits should apply to an atheist, but not to someone who claims religious reasons why they don’t like gay people. The Church wants special rights carved out for itself. And if it does not get them, it is threatening to pull out support from the vulnerable in DC, removing soup kitchens and homeless shelters.
Why only laws preventing discrimination against gays, ITR Champion? Should a religion be exempt from racial descrimination laws too? Just as long as the reason they claim is religious based?
Why should a religious desire not to give benefits to gays be protected, but a political one not? Both are first amendment protected, but this would allow a Church not to pay benefits to gay couples, but require the Klan to pay such benefits. What is the possible rationale behind that, other than special treatment for religion.
And they always say it is the gays looking for special rights.
Here’s another thing that the article says:
“public debate has centered on whether religious individuals and institutions should be forced to treat same-sex couples as married. Should the law compel a photographer to provide his services for a same-sex wedding? Should a marriage counselor be required to help same-sex couples strengthen their relationships? Should a Christian adoption agency be obliged to place children for adoption with same-sex couples? Would a church-based soup kitchen have to extend spousal benefits to same-sex partners of employees?”
It then explains that while the answers aren’t clear, the DC Council rejected an amendment that would make them clear. That’s what I meant by “trying to force same-sex marriage”.
That’s pretty much my answer. I think that the founders of our government were on to something when they centered their vision of government around limited government and minimal interference with people’s private lives. The First Amendment gives us freedom to speak, practice religion, and assemble as we wish. But neither that amendment nor any other says that the government must grant a certain document to anyone who wants it.
I don’t see how any of those answers weren’t “clear.” In the absence of specific legislature to the contrary, a private business is free to refuse service to anyone they want. This is a separate issue from the question of gay marriage, although of course there is some overlap. But a law in DC allowing gay marriage is not the same as a law mandating equal treatment, and vice versa. I’m personally in favor of such laws - I think sexuality should be as protected as race, gender, or religion in this country. But if the question on the table is only one of whether gay marriage should be legalized, then there’s no question about whether a wedding photographer can be compelled to shoot the event, or a counsellor to treat gay couples: they would not be.
The soup kitchen example is just as clear, but in the opposite direction. If gays can be married, then they are married, and all the laws regarding marriage apply equally to them. If the law requires that a business offer certain benefits to spouses, then they have to offer them to everyone who is married. They can’t arbitrarily withhold those benefits from couples they disapprove of.
I agree. It’s too bad the religious right in this country has discarded this principle, and has so wholeheartedly embraced the power of the government to meddle in individual’s private lives.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone argue for gay marriage on first amendment grounds before. I’m pretty sure you haven’t seen it, either, so I don’t quite get where you’re going with this.
Well then why can’t anyone tell us what those meanings are? Panache insists that the Catholic Church is a hate group because of their “death camps” (I guess “death panels” was already taken) but neither he nor anyone else makes any attempt to defend the claim, so I’m assuming that one is dead in the water. cwthree accuses the Catholic Church of “attempting to force non-Catholic people to adhere to Catholic teachings by making abortion and contraception unavailable to them”. But now you’ve acknowledged that anyone who advances a law is attempting to use force. Most groups out there are much more willing to use the force of law than the Catholic Church is. Catholics generally make many fewer attempts to back its teachings with the force of law than most other people.
So then what’s left? Only the claim that homosexuality is an innate part of a person and can’t be changed, and this somehow makes any criticism of it hateful. Well, I don’t agree with that claim since I know a number of people who have changed their sexual orientation, but let’s suppose for the sake of argument that I accept that claim. How does that make the Catholic Church a hate group? Humans have a lot of desires that may be immutable: ranging from food and drink to smoking to dancing to sports to whatever else you care to name. And regulations and rules and laws come up to restrict or ban various things related to these desires all the time. So why do the modest efforts of the Catholic Church make it a “hate group” while groups that want much more intrusive invasions of people’s privacy get no criticism at all?
Note the “or” - advocating violence is not necessary (though it helps). Advocating hostility is sufficient. And the Catholic church’s actions towards homosexuals that it advocates in its followers can certainly be classified as hostile.
Pesky definitions. All fixed and not changing to accomodate your argument at all.
And have they been caught serving as a haven and protector for child molesters on an international scale? I rather doubt it.
It’s easy to understand. I and others simply don’t believe it to be anything but a lie. They hate homosexuals, full stop. This “hate the sin, love the sinner” nonsense is nothing but the kind of “doing it for your own good” nonsense that bigots of all stripes often spout. No different than claiming women can’t be allowed the vote because they just can’t handle it, say. “But I don’t hate women! The poor things just aren’t up to it!”
Oh, garbage. Pedophilia involves actual victims, children who couldn’t defend themselves. Homosexual relationships involve consenting adults. Comparing the two IS a false equivalence. And nothing more than an attempt to smear homosexuals.
And whether or not homosexuality is harmful isn’t just a matter of opinion. Show me. Where is the harm? Harm greater than, say, serial murder since we let murderers marry.
A homophobic position, given that marriage IS legally a right. A right we’ll even give to serial killers - but not homosexuals. Rather shows how we look at them as a society.
We’ve been doing that for decades.
No, they aren’t. Are left handed people a political group?
It has nothing to do with “keeping babies alive”; the anti-abortionists care nothing for the “babies” in question. It’s about religion and oppressing women.
No, marriage is a legal right.
BTW, I’d just like to point out that I was NOT defending the church’s position on homosexuality. Just that they’re not quite what I’d define as a “hate group”. Your milage may vary. (And yes, I do think that there are a lot of other churches far worse, sadly. And I’m not talking about the Phelps’ either)
Okay, I’m going to bow out now.
This means you accept being wrong in your asertion because you’re now moving the goalposts to another stadium.
Well, the UN has and it’s really international, you know.
And those catholics that helped at AIDS clinics, especially in the early days when the disease was tightly tied to homosexuality, they were hating gays, too? As they ostensibly were risking their lives?
It all depends how you choose to look at. Both represent sexual attraction outside the norm. Both are, evidently, innate and immutable. Both are considered to be sinful by the church. The presence of a victim is beside the point and needn’t enter into the calculation. You can add, as you will do, but it is not a necessary component as far as catholicism goes.
You’ve just GOT to be kidding on this one. Here’s just one of MANY examples:
Wow. This is pretty out there, even for you. The church position os that life is sacred, whether it be a newborn male or an octogenarian woman. That only God should be the the taker of life. Do you really not know this?
No, that means you are distorting what I said. I repeatedly said that organizations less powerful or non-religious wouldn’t be given the respect that the CC has gotten if they behaved the same; you then brought up a less powerful religious example and pretended I hadn’t specifically mentioned “less powerful”.
Assuming that actually happened, so what? Individual Catholics can and on occasion do treat gays well; the mass of them and the Church itself do not. And assuming they actually existed, that doesn’t begin to make up the way they have as an organization helped the spread of AIDS across the world, or the way they have worked to harm gays ( among others ) worldwide.
Which simply demonstrates how worthless and evil it is. The “presence of a victim is beside the point and needn’t enter into the calculation” in a moral question?!
Now you are being ridiculous. That’s one organization, composed of some gays. That does not make “gays a political group” any more than left handers or blue eyed people are a political group. People are born gay; an organization is something you join.
I know it; they lie. They and their fellow anti-abortionists show great disdain for life. Including the life of those “babies”. They quite cheerfully condemn people, including children to death for their beliefs all the time, and then lie about how they hold life sacred.
(my bolding)
Maybe there’s too much turpentine in my blood, but are you accusing me of doing what you said I should do?
You said you wanted an organization that was less powerful, with the same beliefs and had respect. I mentioned that some small churches (less powerful) also condemened homosexual acts (behaved the same) and were seen in a good light in their communities (respect). Man, I can even win when I play by your rules because I get accused of following them.
Unless, of course, you wanted a smaller group woth exactly the same behaviour and an exactly proportional respect. That would’ve been really silly.
Nice dodge on my UN example.
And the results of all of those estimates and analyses are summed up in what I quoted.
Do you have a real cite? By “real” I mean a cite that concludes, based on some kind of scholarly data, that 1/3 of Catholic priests are gay. Not a cite that concludes that nobody knows for sure how many Catholic priests are gay - a cite that establishes what you asserted.
Regards,
Shodan
And yet it is 100% certain no law is forcing the Catholic church, or any church, to perform gay marriages. But you said it did.
Interesting that you say something is your answer, and then don’t give one. I asked you, and I will ask again, whether you think religious organizations should be exempt from anti-discrimination laws, but political ones should not. The churches here are requesting special treatment under the law - to have their views raised to a level that a non-religious opposition to homosexuality would not be raised. Why should that be the case? The First Amendment protects equally the right to believe that God thinks gays are inferior as well as the idea that gays are inferior because a well ordered society does not run effectively if homosexuality is permitted. But you, and the church, seem to be saying that only the first should be legally protected.
An amendment doing that would not “make things clear.” Instead all it would do is elevate religious belief to an unacceptable degree.
The group I was pointing to would be “Protestants”. My WAG is that it’s baptists mostly.
I hate overly multi-quoting, so I numbered you instead.
- It’s no different than their stance on unwed college students. They have desires but the church demands that they don’t act on them.
- I’m not asking you to agree with the Church. I’m asking you to see that it’s not a stance born out of hatred. The Church doesn’t hate gay people, and thus is not a hate group. Right or wrong, it’s not a hate group.
3)And though this is tangential, it’s not like the church expects anyone to live a sin-free life. We all sin. From the standpoint of a good catholic, the guy that pinches pennies or the guy that sleeps all day is the same as the gay guy. Sleeping all day is a joy. Amassing wealth is a joy. These are seen as morally wrong too. IME, there’s not been any singling out.
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it’s the same for unmarried people and priests. No double-standard there. And yeah, I know you can argue that an unmarried person can get married and thus escape the sexual sin, but which is worse - demanding that gays be celibate or demanding that, um, “free-roamers” get married? If the former, can you at least acknowledge that others might disagree with you? Can you see that it’s at least a close call?
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I’m not looking to excuse the doctrine, I’m looking to show that it’s not hate-based.
IME, that phrase is usually used to express parental frustration with kids that go astray. I’ve heard it at least 10 times more about drug using relatives than I have about homosexuality. But I can see why you’d think it’s an anti-gay mantra if your only run-in with Catholics is in gay rights arguments.
I disagree. Hostile in this sense would mean something advocating something just shy of violence. Perhaps encouraging the police to arrest/ticket gays, just for one example. The Church doesn’t do that.
This is anecdotal, but perhaps applicable here. My family is Catholic. I went to a Catholic grade school for 9 years. Somewhere around high school, I went to an Assembly of God church and then a Church of Christ. After that, I become an atheist. During all my years in the CC, I hardly ever heard anything about homosexuality. I heard plenty about sex and why I shouldn’t have it, but it was hardly ever against homosexuality other than pointing out that it’s included on the “bad” list. One sermon in particular made it clear that the problem was not the choice of partner, but instead that the two people weren’t married.
Fast forward to the protestant churches. Every other week, I heard something about why gays needed help and they should be turned straight and how it was a horrible affliction. It was repeated over and over again. Hell, I remember a Christmas story where the preacher met an old friend, then found out he was gay, then read him some of the bible, then the gay guy went back to his wife and lived happily ever after. :rolleyes:
So IME, if you want to look to religious influence on oppression of gays, the CC isn’t the place to start.
So then you’re basically saying that the Catholic Church is not a hate group by your own definition, because a group that performs actions that “can be classified as hostile” is obviously different from one that definitely “advocates hostility”. Nearly any action “can be classified as hostile”. But you’re begging a very obvious question, which I’ve already asked and you’ve failed to answer. If the actions of the Catholic Church “can be classified as hostile” for the reasons that you and others have listed in this thread, then the same is true for any group that advocates for any law. The Catholic Church would be among the least hostile organizations, while secular lobbies including that of gay rights would be much more hostile. Do you honestly wish to support such a definition?
I never said any such thing. I said and meant that the law in DC might force Catholic charities to treat same-sex couples the same as opposite-sex couples.
And again, I never said I wanted any special treatment for the law. I pointed out that DC was almost certain to pass this law, and that it may lead to government force to boss around many people, including churches but also photographers and the like. I only mentioned the Catholic Church because they’re the subject of this thread.
Congratulations, your desperate flailing has earned the coveted “Refusal to Admit Defeat Award”!
Your post is my cite…
Not force treating same sex couples the same. Force same sex marriage on Catholic groups. Which isn’t true.
Again, this isn’t the case.
You said:
The amendment allowed exemption on religious grounds. It specifically would treat religious groups differently, exempting them but not political groups from anti-discrimination legislation. Why should churches get let off, but not other groups? Unless you are in favor of establishing religion, which is a distinct possibility.
Further, doesn’t this apply only to the extent that these groups receive funding from the government? That is, they’d have to treat gay and straight married couples the same when they provide services that are funded by the DC government. If they take no money from the government and instead rely on money from the Church, private donors, bake sales, etc., they can make any rules they want WRT gay people.