Religion based intolerance...

[pajarito 0]

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Yes, the sacred institutioni of marriage. With half of them ending in divorce and lots of people not getting married in the first place. Marriage has NO effect on society. People pair up based on human nature, and they split up based on human nature.

I agree. If people “pair up based on human nature”, then they probably will “split up based on human nature.” My marriage had a very rough start and probably would have ended up in divorce if I hadn’t put God at the head of it. Instead of both partners working in favor of their own selfish desires, they should have the common goal of working together with the purpose of doing God’s will.

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Marriage is a crock, it's original purpose was to allow for ownership rights over women. It's only purpose now is for the legal sharing of assets and decision making privelages regarding each others health, etc. if incapacitated.

I have religious foundational beliefs concerning marriage and its origins. Many people have other ideas but they are private beliefs and the government has no business there. As for public opinion however, I agree with this quote by Mr. Peter Sprigg.

”I would argue, is that marriage is a public institution because it brings together men and women for the purpose of reproducing the human race and keeping a mother and father together to cooperate in raising to maturity the children they produce.”

I took this quote from http://www.frc.org/get.cfm?i=PD04B01.

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Who wants to marry a millionaire.
The bachelor.

Proof of the all important foundational role that marriage plays. in our society and culture.

So, just throw your principals out the window and let’s have a free-for-all. Eliminate any standards. Make marriage whatever you want it to be. Marry your duck and give it all your assets when you die. (Sarcasm)

Do you want to base your standards on the worse case scenario (divorce and the trivialization of marriage on TV and by Brittany Spears) as opposed to the ideal?

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If there's a constitutional amendment regarding marriage the only thing it should do is ban it from giving a married couple any advantages over any couple that isn't married. Every single law regarding marriage violates the constitution because it is a law that establishes an advantage of one religion over another.

Marriage as it is defined today establishes an advantage of one religion over another? Are you serious?

[PhillyKev 0]

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Do you want to base your standards on the worse case scenario (divorce and the trivialization of marriage on TV and by Brittany Spears) as opposed to the ideal?

Whose ideal? Yours? Maybe it's not the same as mine. My ideal is that anyone that wants to give the rights currently associated with marriage to another should be permitted to do so, no matter what.

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Marriage as it is defined today establishes an advantage of one religion over another? Are you serious?

Yes. If two people, for your religious sensitivity let's say a man and a woman, live together as a couple but do not get married because they don't believe in the judeo/christian aspects of marriage do not have the same rights as a married couple.

[jakee 1,260]

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I have religious foundational beliefs concerning marriage and its origins. Many people have other ideas but they are private beliefs and the government has no business there.

Hmm, the government has no business telling people what marriage is.
Well the who the hell is going to make that constitutional amendment you wanted?

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[pajarito 0]

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Whose ideal? Yours? Maybe it's not the same as mine. My ideal is that anyone that wants to give the rights currently associated with marriage to another should be permitted to do so, no matter what.

Yes. If two people, for your religious sensitivity let's say a man and a woman, live together as a couple but do not get married because they don't believe in the judeo/christian aspects of marriage do not have the same rights as a married couple.

Let's take religion out of it. I'd be very happy with a nationwide vote.

Gotta go. Be back later.

[pajarito 0]

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I have religious foundational beliefs concerning marriage and its origins. Many people have other ideas but they are private beliefs and the government has no business there.

Hmm, the government has no business telling people what marriage is.
Well the who the hell is going to make that constitutional amendment you wanted?

Keep it in context. The government has no business in our private beliefs concerning marriage (i.e. Religion). When it becomes public, that's a different story altogether. Did you read the whole article?

[jakee 1,260]

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Let's take religion out of it. I'd be very happy with a nationwide vote.

Religion cannot be removed from this subject when so many peoples views have been shaped by religious doctrine.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[jakee 1,260]

I saw nothing in that article that suggested that same sex marriages would impact on the ability of married (or unmarried) heterosexuals to have children 'for the public interest'. If I had I would have called it an utterly absurd statement.

Therefore homosexual marriage remains an issue of private belief. If a homosexual couple believes they would like to get married then it's their own business and the government has no right to interfere.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[billvon 2,435]

>However, the basis, foundation, or principle concerning marriage has
>remained constant. An institution as important as this one should be
>defined specifically. Marriage = 1 man + 1 woman.

It used to be that one white man could own one white woman. Nowadays it's an equal partnership between two people; neither person is superior to the other because of his or her sex. That's an extremely radical change. There will be other changes as we move on as a culture. That's just the way things are. I'm glad that women now have rights, are people rather than property, and that people can now marry people of other races. Change is often good.

[pajarito 0]

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Let's take religion out of it. I'd be very happy with a nationwide vote.

Religion cannot be removed from this subject when so many peoples views have been shaped by religious doctrine.

Like our Constitution?... Who would have though that there might be a Christian influence in the structure of our laws even if there are restrictions from the establishment of one religion over another?

[Nightingale 0]

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter." -- Thomas Jefferson (letter to J. Adams April 11,1823)

"Our Constitution... has not left the religion of its citizens under the power of its public functionaries, were it possible that any of these should consider a conquest over the consciences of men either attainable or applicable to any desirable purpose." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to New London Methodists, 1809. ME 16:332

"The clergy, by getting themselves established by law and ingrafted into the machine of government, have been a very formidable engine against the civil and religious rights of man." --Thomas Jefferson to Jeremiah Moor, 1800.

"I am for freedom of religion, and against all maneuvers to bring about a legal ascendency of one sect over another." --Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry, 1799. ME 10:78

"We have no right to prejudice another in his civil enjoyments because he is of another church." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Religion, 1776. Papers 1:546

www.virginia.edu

I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, nor by any church that I know of...Each of those churches accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all."
From:
The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine, pp. 8,9 (Republished 1984, Prometheus Books, Buffalo, NY)

John Adams, the country's second president, was drawn to the study of law but faced pressure from his father to become a clergyman. He wrote that he found among the lawyers 'noble and gallant achievments" but among the clergy, the "pretended sanctity of some absolute dunces". Late in life he wrote: "Twenty times in the course of my late reading, have I been upon the point of breaking out, "This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!"

It was during Adam's administration that the Senate ratified the Treaty of Peace and Friendship, which states in Article XI that "the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion."

James Madison, fourth president and father of the Constitution "Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise." letter to William Bradford April 1, 1774

Benjamin Franklin, delegate to the Continental Congress and the Constitutional Convention, said:
As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble." letter to Exra Stiles March 9, 1790.

The words "In God We Trust" were not consistently on all U.S. currency until 1956, during the McCarthy Hysteria.

The Treaty of Tripoli, passed by the U.S. Senate in 1797, read in part: "The government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion." The treaty was written during the Washington administration, and sent to the Senate during the Adams administration. It was read aloud to the Senate, and each Senator received a printed copy. This was the 339th time that a recorded vote was required by the Senate, but only the third time a vote was unanimous (the next time was to honor George Washington). There is no record of any debate or dissension on the treaty. It was reprinted in full in three newspapers - two in Philadelphia, one in New York City. There is no record of public outcry or complaint in subsequent editions of the papers.

[pajarito 0]

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I saw nothing in that article that suggested that same sex marriages would impact on the ability of married (or unmarried) heterosexuals to have children 'for the public interest'. If I had I would have called it an utterly absurd statement.

I didn’t see anything like that in the paper either such as what you described above. I would have also called that absurd.

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Therefore homosexual marriage remains an issue of private belief. If a homosexual couple believes they would like to get married then it's their own business and the government has no right to interfere.

If it was just a private issue, it wouldn’t be regulated like it is and there wouldn’t be quite as much fuss over the matter.

[Nightingale 0]

marriage should be a private issue. Or, there should be a civil marriage and a religious marriage, and one really doesn't have a whole lot to do with another. the former is about your status with the government. the latter is about your church.

the only reason it is a public issue is that there are certain legal rights that you have only as a married couple. A lot of this stems from property issues back in the middle ages.

homosexual couples are denied the following:

Accidental death benefit for the surviving spouse of a government employee;

Appointment as guardian of a minor;

Award of child custody in divorce proceedings;

Beneficial owner status of corporate securities;

Bill of Rights benefits for victims and witnesses;

Burial of service member's dependents;

Certificates of occupation;

Consent to post-mortem examination;

Continuation of rights under existing homestead leases;

Control, division, acquisition, and disposition of community property

Criminal injuries compensation;

Death benefit for surviving spouse for government employee

Disclosure of vital statistics records;

Division of property after dissolution of marriage;

Eligibility for housing opportunity allowance program of the Housing, Finance and Development Corporation;

Exemption from claims of Department of Human Services for social services payments, financial assistance, or burial payments;

Exemption from conveyance tax;

Exemption from regulation of condominium sales to owner-occupants;

Funeral leave for government employees;

Homes of totally disable veterans exempt from property taxes;

Income tax deductions, credits, rates exemption, and estimates;

Inheritance of land patents;

Insurance licenses, coverage, eligibility, and benefits organization of mutual benefits society;

Legal status with partner’s children;

Making, revoking, and objecting to anatomical gifts;

Making partner medical decisions;

Nonresident tuition deferential waiver;

Notice of guardian ad litem proceedings;

Notice of probate proceedings;

Payment of wages to a relative of deceased employee;

Payment of worker's compensation benefits after death;

Permission to make arrangements for burial or cremation;

Proof of business partnership;

Public assistance from the Department of Human Services;

Qualification at a facility for the elderly;

Real property exemption from attachment or execution;

Right of survivorship to custodial trust;

Right to be notified of parole or escape of inmate;

Right to change names;

Right to enter into pre-marital agreement;

Right to file action for nonsupport;

Right to inherit property;

Right to purchase leases and cash freehold agreements concerning the management and disposition of public land;

Right to sue for tort and death by wrongful act;

Right to support after divorce/separation;

Right to support from spouse;

Rights and proceedings for involuntary hospitalization and treatment;

Rights by way of dour or courtesy;

Rights to notice, protection, benefits, and inheritance under the uniform probate code;

Sole interest in property;

Spousal privilege and confidential marriage communications;

Spousal immigration benefits;

Status of children;

Support payments in divorce action;

Tax relief for natural disaster losses;

Vacation allowance on termination of public employment by death;

Veterans' preference to spouse in public employment;

In vitro fertilization coverage;

Waiver of fees for certified copies and searches of vital statistics.

[billvon 2,435]

>If it was just a private issue, it wouldn’t be regulated like it is and
>there wouldn’t be quite as much fuss over the matter.

There is so much fuss because many heterosexuals are worried about legitimizing a type of lifestyle they fear. You can see it on some right-winger blogs - "FAGS IN YOUR SON'S PANTS!" was one headline I saw a while back about gay scoutmasters. They fear that if homosexuality goes from a bizarre deviant lifestyle to one that's accepted, that they, their friends and family will somehow be tainted, perhaps even tempted, by a way of life they do not understand.

As I've mentioned before, this fear is nothing new. Feminism - interracial marriages - both were called "the end of morality" and whatnot. Yet somehow we live side-by-side with blacks and with women who are our equals. The same will happen with gays.

[pajarito 0]

http://www.greenspun.com/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg.tcl?msg_id=0080qu

~~~ James Madison, FATHER of the U.S. Constitution: "We have staked the whole future of American civilization, not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."

~~~ Thomas Jefferson, 1781: "God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are a gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever"

~~~ George Washington: "You do well to wish to learn our arts and our ways of life, and above all, the religion of Jesus Christ. Congress will do everything they can to assist you in this wise intention."

~~~ George Washington, October 3, 1789: "It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge THE Providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and to humbly implore His protection and favor."

~~~ Samuel Adams: " Let...statesmen and patriots unite their endeavors to renovate the age by...educating their little boys and girls...and leading them in the study and practice of the exalted virtues of the Christian system."

~~~ Benjamin Franklin: "History will also afford frequent opportunities of showing the necessity of a public religion...and the excellency of the Christian religion above all others, ancient or modern."

~~~ Benjamin Franklin, June 28, 1787, at the Constitutional Convention: "We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that 'except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it.' I firmly believe this; and I also believe that without His concurring aid we shall succeed in this political building no better than the builders of Babel."

~~~ Alexander Hamilton's dying words, July 12, 1804: "I have tender reliance on the mercy of the Almighty; through the merits of the Lord Jesus Christ. I am a sinner. I look to Him for mercy; pray for me."

~~~ John Adams, 1756 (our 2nd President) Suppose a nation in some distant region should take the Bible for their only Law Book, and every member should regulate his conduct by the precepts there exhibited... What a paradise would this region be!"

~~~ Patrick Henry's Last Will & Testament, November 20, 1798: "This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ will give them one which will make them rich indeed."

[pajarito 0]

I like the way you put a space in between each one so as to give effect.

I think that marriage has a much more fundamental and necessary "public" purpose in society other than just to obtain those benefits that our government has chosen to bestow upon it. I think that they do that in order to promote that institution because it is so important, however.

[wmw999 2,150]

Somehow I don't find it surprising that, just as with the Bible, you can quote to support almost any point.

Of course, any founding father who acknowledged his own personal belief was not saying it belonged in the framework of the country.

I wonder if saying what look like pretty opposite things (e.g. Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams) would be considered waffling on the part of the founding fathers?

Wendy W.

There is nothing more dangerous than breaking a basic safety rule and getting away with it. It removes fear of the consequences and builds false confidence. (tbrown)

[Nightingale 0]

there is a space in it because it was pasted from an email that was sent to me, and there were spaces in the email. I wasn't about to go and take them all out!

[pajarito 0]

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>If it was just a private issue, it wouldn’t be regulated like it is and
>there wouldn’t be quite as much fuss over the matter.

There is so much fuss because many heterosexuals are worried about legitimizing a type of lifestyle they fear. You can see it on some right-winger blogs - "FAGS IN YOUR SON'S PANTS!" was one headline I saw a while back about gay scoutmasters. They fear that if homosexuality goes from a bizarre deviant lifestyle to one that's accepted, that they, their friends and family will somehow be tainted, perhaps even tempted, by a way of life they do not understand.

As I've mentioned before, this fear is nothing new. Feminism - interracial marriages - both were called "the end of morality" and whatnot. Yet somehow we live side-by-side with blacks and with women who are our equals. The same will happen with gays.

That’s ludicrous Billvon. There are idiots on both sides of the fence. Are you really going to start quoting extremists in order to defend your position? Your examples are in no way representative of the majority who oppose same-sex marriage.

I personally “fear” for my society due to the moral decline that it’s going through and the implications that will have in the future. I don’t “fear” homosexuals or their lifestyle. Like I said, what they do is their own business. Just like what I do is my own business.

[PhillyKev 0]

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I think that marriage has a much more fundamental and necessary "public" purpose in society other than just to obtain those benefits that our government has chosen to bestow upon it.

And how would that purpose be changed by allowing homosexual marriage? They're not getting married now. It's not like a ban on homosexual marriage would cause homosexuals to turn straight and marry members of the opposite sex.

In other words, allowing homosexual marriage will have zero effect on heterosexual marriages or the perceived societal benefits of it.

[pajarito 0]

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there is a space in it because it was pasted from an email that was sent to me, and there were spaces in the email. I wasn't about to go and take them all out!

Then it was their "effect" and not yours.

[pajarito 0]

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And how would that purpose be changed by allowing homosexual marriage?

Because an institution with such importance and impact on the basis of society needs to be defined in order to have purpose, meaning, and effectiveness. It doesn’t need to be some arbitrary loosely described union encompassing all. What then would be the reason why you couldn’t marry your dog, have 10 wives, or marry your daughter?

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They're not getting married now. It's not like a ban on homosexual marriage would cause homosexuals to turn straight and marry members of the opposite sex.

The purpose of defining marriage as between one man and one woman is not to attempt to curve anyone’s homosexual lifestyle.

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In other words, allowing homosexual marriage will have zero effect on heterosexual marriages or the perceived societal benefits of it.

You come to that conclusion yourself?

[Lindsey 0]

I think it's the content, much more than the blank spaces, that gives it "effect"

Peace~
Lindsey

--
A conservative is just a liberal who's been mugged. A liberal is just a conservative who's been to jail

[pajarito 0]

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I think it's the content, much more than the blank spaces, that gives it "effect"

Peace~
Lindsey

It's pointless, though, because the argument isn't all about benefits. The homosexual movement would like to make it seem so and make it into a "discrimination" issue but it's just not.

[Nightingale 0]

of course the argument is about the benefits. if it were simply about the commitment, well, that's already there. many churches perform gay weddings. however, to have the same benefits, the union must be recognized by the government.

[kelpdiver 2]

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I think it's the content, much more than the blank spaces, that gives it "effect"

Peace~
Lindsey

It's pointless, though, because the argument isn't all about benefits. The homosexual movement would like to make it seem so and make it into a "discrimination" issue but it's just not.

For many gays, it is exactly about recognition and equal rights. Some are even Christian and have pastors willing to marry them, if the law permitted.

But others would be settle for a "separate but equal" civil union so long as the same benefits would apply. I can't say what the numbers are in each category.

As for the list - spacing is the most effective way to delineate separate items in a list. Bullets would be another method.