Sickening...

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First some facts:

1. The laws of a country dont always suit its minorites or majorities, sometimes they suit the pocket of the lawmakers.
2. If we accept that church and state are separate (as they should be), and that marriage is both a church and a state function (eternal union on one side and tax benefits on the other), is it not possible for the church to still act as, er marryers, that is they can marry people, and can refuse to marry people (ie homosexuals). but they cant stop homosexuals from getting married in terms of law, because their jurisdiction, well they have none.

 

No, It's called making your voice heard. One group lobbies for a particular change, another group lobbies in favour of the status quo. Defeat, however is assured if we stay silent.

So where is it different when the homosexuals want a law allowing them to marry? Isn't that browbeating religion into accepting their will? Isn't that a violation of the Bill of Rights?

You are missing my point entirely. By recognizing Marriage as a religious matter, the Government acknowledges that they have NO authority over that. However a contract, as a legal matter, would solve this. Shortly after the marriage ceremony, the couple (along with whoever else needs to be there) signs a contract in a private room (the minister's office would provide a convenient place for this), formalizing a civil union. The marriage is the religious component, the civil union the legal component. Gays would have to be allowed the legal component, and will likely develop their own ceremony. Calling it marriage, however, will antagonize those of religious persuasions that believe that homosexuality is a grievous offence to God, and should be avoided.

Then what does that say about the population?

That paradox is the root of the problem. Church and state are seperate, but the state still wants to stick it's nose in a religious matter. Now that the state has done this, a certain minority, in opposition to the majority of religions by it's defining characteristic, wants the state to let them have the rights and priveledges normally reserved for the religious. The State must then choose between ostricizing a certain minority and violating one of the fundamental rights they claim to protect...

 

Wrong again. Religion doesn't own the concept of marriage. The government is only sticking its nose in a religious matter when it dictates to a religious organization what it can and cannot do. Now, if you really think that government is "sticking its nose in a religious matter" when it passes legislation regarding religion, than you should be lobbying for government to STOP PERFORMING ANY MARRIAGES AT ALL, not to deny them on the basis of sexual orientation. By trying to force the Government to force people of other faiths to abide by your religion's definition of marriage, you're the one asking the government to "stick its nose" into a religious matter**. If marriage is wholly a religious issue, than the government should have no place in it.

Quoted for sheer absurdity. Does your religion require you to force people not of your religion to live by its edicts? Since we both know it doesn't, there is no rights violation, here.

**Many Churches currently perform gay marriages. The Episcopal Church, The Anglican Church of Canada, The Unitarian Universalists, The Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, The United Church of Canada, The United Church of Christ, and The Presbyterian Church have all blessed same sex unions. Making it illegal for them to do so would be an infringement on all of their members' religious freedoms.

[ April 15, 2007, 07:41: Message edited by: Drew ]

 

Marriage is a contract, it can be a religious contract, a secular contract or both. If the problem is what this contract is to be called then the answer is simple. As many have said (including Gnarfflinger) call it a Union or Civil Union.

 

this has boiled down to the same problem as in former threads, for reason unknown gnarf consider both the word marriage and the act purformed in a church holy, the last part i can undestand, the former i can not. but arguing with him and trying to make him undestand it is just a word, not the holy act itself is pointless, his mind is made up on this point and nothing can change it.

im amazed time and time again that gnarff can not see the difference between a word and an act.

 

Dare say wars have been fought over the same misunderstading, Equester.

 

I was going to watch this, but I had to turn off at the moment when they were all ranting at the funeral of a fallen soldier. I was appalled.

 

That there, is the problem. some churches accept gay marriage, some do not. which church do you accept?

Those churches that do offer gay marriage, it may not be sacred to you, but it is to them. Who are you to tell them their marriage isnt really marriage, because yours is different. What gives you the right to dictate what marriage is?

 

I didn't realize just how many religious organizations directly contravene the Bible, taking the Name of God to bless something considered an abomination. That may be where the battle is lost--by so-called Christian churches that don't follow the Bible. Will the same happen to Islam?

Thank you. My point is made. Unfortunately, the Government may be forced into some issues to keep the peace...

As long as it's a man and a woman, it is still sacred and ordained of God. Failure to treat it as such is on the head of those that maltreat marriage...

That's about my take on the matter. From the respect I see for George W. here, I wonder if either a), 51% of the population actually agree with him or b), 51% of the population thought that John Kerry was a bigger knob than dubya. That's a question better suited to the AoLS...

Seperating word and deed then using the word to be less sacred will erode the Sacred nature of the ordinance...

 

I'm kinda shocked to hear you say that for one thing.

your church is no better than theirs, how dare you say your interpretation of the bible is better than theirs? How dare you condemn their unjudgmental nature as being against gods will?

That is the very reason why the church should never be allowed influence over the state - because none of the churches can agree on what official doctrine will be.

Isnt it sad how the "word of god" gets twisted by those claiming to be his messengers, to spread hate, intolerance and bigotry?

 

If you believe that the Bible is the unadulterated Word of God and therefore cannot be in error it flows naturally that religions such as the Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses and similar churches would feel that the more liberal churches are in error.

One importance of Church and State being separate is that all religious and non-religious view-points are protected. No one Religious Organization can declare the other Organization's or individual beliefs heresy and persecute them. We are all free to believe whatever suits us best.

We are influenced for good or bad from birth but in the end each person must find his or her own way and none of us whether religious, spiritual, materialistic, naturalistic or whatever have the right to condemn others. We only have the right to be protected from being forced to choose between our own beliefs and some one else's.

It is difficult to properly express one's feelings in a forum such as this one. Expressing or defending my beliefs in a face to face situation is a far different thing to doing so here and so I think we all tend to be more insistent, more emphatic than we might in a face to face debate.

On the other hand we can't hear the screaming, yelling and crying and no physical fights break out.

 

I do agree with you nakia, but I wish the individuals right to free thought was more respected. In many places, saying you arent a christian leads to many exclamations of shame and presents of religious books. Okay I havent got any, but my older brother got a religious book from his father in law, and quite rightly got very offended.

 

I've stayed away from this thread for a while, but this really got me going:

NO THEY CANNOT BE ACCUSED OF DISCRIMINATION. At least, not in this case. To use a counter-example: It's also illegal to discriminate against Jews. If the Catholic priest refused to marry two people who practice Judaism, that would not make him anti-semetic. The point is a Church is within its rights to set up its own rules. Any church that does not allow gay marriage would not be forced to do so.

And while the list Drew presented seems quite long, it actually represents a small percentage of Christians. There are approximately 2.1 billion Christians worldwide, of which approximately 1.1 billion are Catholic. Since Catholics alone make up a majority of all Christians, and the Catholic Church does not recognize gay marriage, even if all other Christian denominations accepted it (which they obviously do not) it would still be fair to say the majority of Christians do not accept gay marriage. But Drew's list does not even include many of the major Protestant groups. It doesn't include Baptists, Methodists, or the "born again" Evangelicals. I'd be hard pressed to believe that the groups presented are more than 5% of all Christians.

To be fair, both the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches have significant memberships (but I can't imagine that the Anglican Church of Canada does). Even so, none of those churches are marrying homosexuals in the U.S. unless those people happen to be living in Massachusettes (and New Jersey has recent legalized civil unions).

Holy crap Gnarff, if that's all you want you are more tolerant that 90% of the ardent religious people in the U.S. If all you want is for the unions to not be called marriages, then I have no beef with you. I'm fine with calling the religious part "marriage" and the legal part "civil union", so long as the legal rights conveyed to the couple are identical in each case. If it really is what equester describes - that you take offense to calling a non-religious ceremony a marriage - then call it something else and be done with it.

 

Actually individual Episcopal Churches in the USA have performed 'marriages' or blessings of same-sex unions. Of course they have no legal standing. Not knowing the wording of the Massachusetts or New Jersey laws I don't know if there has to be separate civil ceremony or affidavit.

 

Oops: since when do religious groups have a copyright on 'marriage'? If a couple of atheists wanted to get married (yes, even heterosexuals), would they not have the right to call what they went through 'marriage'?

Sure, for many religions 'marriage' is a sacrament, but I think just about every culture has had 'marriages' of some kind or another, so it's not really anyone's property, innit?

Gay people should be allowed to 'marry.' If some groups have a problem with that, they can decide amongst themselves that such 'marriages' don't count and are in fact 'abominations in the Eyes of God.' As long as one group doesn't forcibly impose its will on another, no worries.

 

@Aldeth: Actually, not every church on my list is Christian.....but you are most assuredly correct that they are in the minority. The churches I listed, however, don't have an insubstantial following when viewed as a whole.

@Gnarff: While I agree that gay marriage is very clearly forbidden (multiple times) in the bible and find the idea of a Christian church blessing homosexual unions more than a little bit odd, it isn't my place (or yours) to judge whether or not they are twisting God's word.

I don't hear you up in arms about women braiding their hair not covering their heads, for example. Nowhere in the bible was the requirement for women to cover their heads or the ban on hair braiding lifted. Nor was the requirement for men to cover their heads when in church or prayer.

 

Homosexuality is forbidden in the bible but slavery is accepted. IMO this means that if I want to be a strict biblical christian I can't be homosexual but I can either own or be a slave.

No thank you.

 

Good old Nak's, she may be old but she has more modern views than NOG and Gnarff and their homophobic outlook . Good on you, chicken.

 

I'm just as shocked to read that...

Because it doesn't blatantly contradict it.

As you can see, "religion" doesn't have the monopoly on that either. Some Aethiests can be just as bad as Reverend Phelps...

Nobody ever said that standing up for what's right is an easy task. Easy to figure out, probably. Easy to do, obviously not. Easy to execute, from the number of fundamentalist groups that draw fire from any religion, I think that is a no...

And we (at least the Mormons) don't want that. We just prefer that what we consider and teach our youth to be sacred is protected as such.

I think that face to face, you can question things more immediately, thus potentially getting a better understanding of the point discussed.

I don't think that shaming would work. You have to believe that you are wrong before you can feel that "shame". I only offer a book of Mormon in the face of a request for one, or if offered religious literature by another faith.

I see that getting challenged actually...

And technically 51% of americans that could be bothered to vote voted for George W. but the Democrats still while about the election. The frightenning thing is the dissension among Christians on such a key issue...

That's actually shocking. I'd have thought that there'd be a degree of tolerance among the faithful. But then again, I come from a religion that teaches that, other things being equal, we ought to be too busy working out our own eternal destiny to persecute others. In this case, there is a pressing concern (potential government action that would be a horrible desecration of something core to our religious practice) which requires me to speak up.

This puts them at odds with the majority of Christians. Just as we don't want Christians judged by Reverend phelps, who neglects much of the New Testament, where it teaches how to show love, we also ask you not to judge Christianity by these groups that blatantly ignore some ethical standards to garner political favour with the populous...

They would, because they are man and woman. To legally and lawfully wed simply means that they are not committing the sin of fornication.

For the Abrahamic religions, they all root back to Adam and Eve, who were married by God. This places Marriage within the realms of religion. The State has no business messing with religious doctrine...

So you oppose a compromise that would keep the peace because religion is not brought to heel and forces to watch what they consider sacred defiled?

That happens all the time. Religions have had portions of their membership split off over such situations...

But aren't the homosexuals trying to do that by demanding the right to such sacrements despite their blatant unwillingness to live the standards of those they want recognition from?

Simple logic actually, it directly contradicts a commandment from God, and that they are taking the name of God to justify and sanctify that which abominable for their own vain purposes. They are clearly in the wrong.

I believe that such things were in teh Old testament and part of the "law of Moses", which was rather strict (beyond that which God originally intended), and was fulfilled by the coming of, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Many of these things are no longer transgressions in the eyes of God.

I'm not so sure that Slavery would be thought well of in Christian circles. AS we learn more to live as taught in the New Testament, the very nature of slavery seems at odds with it. I think that's where slavery and racism would fall out of favour among the Christians...