There have been many debates raging on the forums regarding whether or not religion is harmful. I’d like to speak specifically about discrimination against gays.
Unfortunately, California passed a constitution amendment banning gay marriage, overturning a California Supreme Court ruling from a few months back. elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/05 … ationwide/
It doesn’t seem to me there is any other reason that gay marriage would be resisted aside from religious belief.
I recently saw a poll on RD forums with over 200 votes asking people to vote on whether or not they supported gay marriage. Ninety-five percent of atheists answered they did support gay marriage, compared to two percent who didn’t. This lead me to conclude either the atheists on RD forums are only one specific liberal segment of the atheist population, or that atheists in general are more liberal when it comes to gay marriage.
I’d like to conduct the same poll here, and please answer honestly. Feel free to debate the issue of gay marriage itself, but I’m really interested in seeing if the resistance to gay marriage is a religious sentiment, or a sentiment that is equally shared by people of every theological stripe.
Oh, and it completely SUCKS what happened with Prop 8 in California. We were invaded by out-of-state Mormons and their money. And the inheritance money of a crazy bastard named Ahmanson who believes that biblical law should be the law of the land.
Florida also passed an anti-gay marriage law yesterday. I think we should consider an alternative. Civil marriage ceremonies are now a mish-mash of the secular and religious. Why not purge them of religious considerations? If people want to enter into “civil union” contracts why prevent them? On the other hand, since marriage is a religious instituition, why not let the churches marry whomever they will? All the state would do is license “civil unions” of both heterosexual or homosexual couples. Such rights as flow from the civil union would follow regardless of sexual orientation. That would remove the religious aspect from the state institution and would not deprive groups of equal rights. Nor would it deprive individuals of the right to marry according to the rules of whatever church they belong to. It would represent progress in the area of church-state separation by taking the state out of the marriage business.
It’s too bad that the constitution got amended, but this is what happens when you use the Supreme Court to force legislation that the people don’t support- it was their only recourse. I’m definitely against gay marriage, but it’s a tragedy that there has to be something in state constitutions about it at all.
Right. The state is confounded with religious authority as a remnant of the past. By what right does a civil servant confers “the bonds of holy matrimony?”
Yes. And that is actually one of my problems with the whole gay marriage debate. It is a Church/State separation issue and not one that makes terribly much sense. The legal, religious, and romantic aspects of the institution are fused and arbitrated by the state. We need to tease these things apart. And I think it is absolutely a tragedy what happened with Prop 8.
It's only a remnant of the past insofar as we agree to let it become one. The civil servant does what he does, because that's how the civilians want it. That's how he gets empowered. Now, ONE solution would be to remove marriage from the state as a practice altogether, so that this discrimination issues don't arise. It may come to that, but an [i]ideal[/i] situation would be to nip this whole 'homosexual as a class of person' lie in the bud, and eliminate the discrimination question altogether.
But there was nothing about this that violated a seperation of Church and State- at least, not in any way you can do something about. The issue was raised by the people, and the people have had their say. Now, it's true that the will of the people was religiously informed in large part, no doubt. But if that's problematic, then seperation of church and state as recently concieved simply contradicts democracy- the people will be informed by all kinds of stuff when they make their decisions.
Let's not forget, this whole 'seperation of Church and State' thing is only a big deal because the [i]Constitution[/i] says it's a big deal. Well, now the CA [i]Constitution[/i] says gay relationships can't be sealed with marriage liscences.
Yeah…I heard a guy on the news talking about how there really needs to be a proposition renaming the required civil institution something other than ‘marriage’ and leaving ‘marriage’ as something optional that could be done, extra, in a church. Because certainly there are churches that would be just fine with marrying people of both orientations, just as there are churches that would choose to follow their particular religious doctrine and limit who they’ll marry.
Frankly, I thought that made more sense than changing the state constitution, as Prop 8 purports to do. It’ll end up in the courts, anyway, so all that money wasted.
THEREFORE, anyone caring to contribute $1 million to my 2009 Proposition 1 fund may PM me with the details of the offer.
How is the state served by denying legal legitimacy to long term relationships between gays? I know couples in that situation. Why do people want to hurt them deny them legal legitimacy, see them protected? How is that OK? How do their relationships threaten heterosexual couples or society?
I’m all for churches setting their own rules about these things according to their convictions. Let them freely associate with whom they wish. But this is a fairness issue for society at large. Injustice to one minority group is not the way to go.
So I propose eliminating “holy matrimony” from state law. The state should allow civil unions between mutally consenting adults with the rights and responsibilites incumbant upon the contract. Leave criterions of purity to the churches to confer or deny to persons who are members on a voluntary basis.
All fascinating questions. What's relevant is that the courts tried to strong-arm the people into a position they didn't support, and the people fought back in the way everybody should have predicted. Hey man, gay marriage is [i]unconstitutional[/i]. You aren't going to try to push your morality on me now in defiance of the law, are you?
Here's the point: Last I heard you were a Christian, so I don't have to tell you the moral arguments against homosexual relationships. You either agree with them or you don't, but you've surely heard them already. But now you see that the law in this country isn't determined by me winning a moral argument with you. I'm against gay marriage, you apparently aren't. We just had a vote on it....what's the [i]next[/i] hoop I have to jump through to make my position stick?
Well, apparently it is. Except that it’s not ‘injustice’ now that it’s in the constitution, unless you want to propose some universal morality that we’re all obligated to obey, even if most of us disagree. You could always try appealing to religion.
OK, and who does this, under what authority? We just amended the constitution. Are you demanding a do-over on the grounds that you personally disagree with the result? If we have a do-over, and you get the result you want, can I call for a do-over again the week after? I got one for ya- how about we eliminate ‘holy matrimony’ from state law, and we only grant civil unions to 1 man + 1 woman couples anyway. Then it’s not a religious issue, and the people get what they voted for.
Me: Injustice to one minority group is not the way to go.
So you are advocating injustice?
So something unjust becomes just when it is ratified by law?
Incidently, I voted “I’m a theist who doesn’t support gay marriage” in the above poll.
I voted against The Florida Marriage Amendment, also known as Proposition 2. The ballot language says, “This amendment protects marriage as the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife and provides that no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”
I disagree with the language which denies gay couples a legal union that is treated as the substantial equilvalent of marriage under civil law.
What I’m driving at here, is that you can discuss morality, or you can discuss public policy, but you can’t discuss them both at the same time. In morality, you’re free to stick to your guns until the stars burn out, always disagreeing with the other side, and always trying to prove or defend your position. In public policy, you have to resolve things while people of good faith are still disagreeing. In terms of morality, there’s probably a lot left to talk about. In terms of public policy, the ‘what to do when there’s honest disagreement’ thing seems to have played itself out as well as can be expected- you can’t do much better than the people’s will be expressed.
Sure. It’s just a question of how the issue is best resolved. Courts push issues like this and then the electorate has to respond. That isn’t the courts strong-arming an issue, that is the courts serving their purpose in the system of checks-and-balances. It was the same deal with the Civil Rights movement, the Supreme Court said that the situation was unacceptable, which bounced to the executive branch (because how can the enforce the laws?) so the Civil Rights bill got introduced to the legislature, played around with, passed, and then signed into law by the President.
Same deal at play here, only it was a referendum instead of a bill. And it went the other way. But that isn’t activist courts, that is the courts serving their function.
Interesting perspective… What do you think has been driving public policy? Rational thinking? Morality (read: religion) is the impetus behind refusing civil rights to a minority group whose only “sin” is being homosexual. If there is a problem mixing morality and public policy, it is in religion. There is no rational reason behind the denial of equal rights to homosexuals other than morality - a morality of religion. The idea that you can’t mix morality and public policy is… well I won’t say it.
Well tent, if you want to go by ‘biblical’ standard, it is hypocritical to the Christian religion. Marriage is Christian, so I think they have a greater say in what counts as ‘moral’ and what doesn’t than the gays who are actually being hypocritical by claiming that it’s moral under such a religion.
What he proposed seems to me the only reasonable solution to the conflict. Eliminating the religion and its biases toward sodomy out of their marriage laws and instead making it legal without the scripture makes perfectly fine sense.
You can’t call holy what isn’t made to be. I understand that the Bible has been altered in many ways, but openly being a hypocrite about it is another thing.
Obviously morality is the driving force behind this vote and many others. Still, I stand by what I said- we can discuss the morality of homosexual marriage all you want, but as a matter of policy, you have to have a way to resolve it before an agreement is reached (because it never will be). I’m sure the gay rights activists would have instantly seen a problem with the idea of gay marriage being forbidden unless and until they can convince me that it’s morally acceptable, and likewise, there’s a problem with the people of California being unable to define marriage the way they obviously want to without being first able to convince you.
Morality (read: religion) is the impetus behind refusing civil rights to a minority group whose only “sin” is being homosexual. If there is a problem mixing morality and public policy, it is in religion. There is no rational reason behind the denial of equal rights to homosexuals other than morality - a morality of religion. The idea that you can’t mix morality and public policy is… well I won’t say it.