Marriage, Back door laws and policies, and tolerance issues

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Although I do not presume to answer for Aldeth, I would say that many things taught to be sins are a part of the daily lives of a significant section of the population. No one gets arrested for preaching that "living together is a sin", or "drinking alcohol is a sin", or even "dancing is a sin". There are even religious groups that preach white supremacy -- as long as they do not act on the bias, they are not arrested. Why would you think preaching "homosexuality is a sin" to be any different?

Gnarff, IMO this is the best answer you've given in this entire thread. Well worded. And the only honest response is to concede the point. Whether the information is presented by a researcher with scientific data or a holy man with scripture; belief of the information will depend on which side of the science:theology fence an individual sits on. We are clearly on opposite sides of that fence. I will point out the preponderance of scientific data on the researchers side is what made the case for me originally.

 

I don't see what your statement has to do with whether gay marriage is legal or not. I agree with what T2 said, that there's nothing illegal about preaching that some activity is sinful. I am sure that there are people preaching in churches every day that homosexuality is sinful, and we are not prosecuting pastors. Hate speech is already criminalized in many jurisdictions, so I don't think the legalization of gay marriage would have any impact - if it were criminal to teach homosexuality as being a sin we'd already be seeing arrests. Again with a nod to T2, there are many things that are listed as sins in church that are not illegal: premarital sex, consumption of alcohol, gambling, infedelity, swearing, etc.

EDIT: I'm not trying to shoot down your point NOG, I'm just not sure how it relates to my comment, or how it affects gay marriage.

 

And round and round we go, and round and round we go. Haven't we been over the exact same arguments several times already in this thread? Gnarff/NOG says B me, Aldeth, Splunge, BTA and so on say A and rince and repeat. Heck, I think we had pretty much already covered all bases in the thread that spawned this one.

 

I would just like to point out that I have not made any relevant contributions to this thread in over two weeks.

 

And the 50th time that they conveniently ignore something that they have hit me over the head with in previous debates--the separation of Church and State. Marriage laws are simply a way to regulate a religious practice for the benefit of society. Because of the first ammendment they can't use religious terms or favour one specific faith. The people opposing me also neglect a 1878 precident where the supreme court upheld the explicit LEGAL definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. I find their opposition to be intellectually dishonest if they omit these two things.

In Canada, the laws are in place that would allow for a gay couple to charge a minister who refused to perform a ceremony for them based on their sexuality. It's only a matter of time before a gay couple tries this...

If it is a strictly civil matter, then why can't the nomenclature reflect this? I have yet to receive a valid answer to this.

And the fighting will continue between the sides until a solution is reached that recognizes the religious origins of marriage and still gives homosexuals their rights. Civil Unions will accomplish just that, but that's not good enough for my critics. Must the homosexuals have diminished rights because some people insist of provoking the religious by slandering what they consider sacred?

The laws are in place that can and likely will do just what you deny the possibility of. It's only a matter of time before this does happen.

One Man and One Woman specifically excludes homosexuality. That clause was put in place to specifically excluse polygamy by the supreme court in 1878. That claus was also constitutionally affirmed in 30 of 30 states where such a measuer was voted on in the Constitution. That pretty much throws that claim out the window. The activists can either cut their losses and give up only their pride and get what rights the law must provide without picking the fight with religion...

In Canada, and I believe some European countries, there are laws that prohibit hate speech. In Canada, there has been a case of a minister brought up on charges for publicly preaching just that. I've heard that the same thing has happened in Sweden.

So you look at the volume of reports and take their extrapolations. I still don't see that as proof enough to challenge the first ammendment...

Again, it's just a matter of time before that happens in America. It's already happened in Canada and Sweden...

But with archaeology, what safeguards are there to see that two people look at the same things and draws the same conclusion? Most science is reliably replicated, the simpler things even children in school could do that, but with Archaeology, you just have seemingly random remnats of a past society, and you're trying to replicate the psychological and sociological phenomenon of that ancient culture. There's just too many variables to control, and too many possible interpretations of what little is left...

And I keep hoping I'm going to get an actual answer...

 

What about intersex people who identify with both genders or the opposite one? For example: a man chooses to marry a woman who was once a man, or is still physically a man but identifies as being a woman?

(And intersex is the new term for transgendered)

 

I promised myself that I wasn't going to jump back in to this debate, but sometimes I read something so colossally idiotic that I can't keep quiet.

I am now totally convinced that Gnarff just says whatever happens to pop into his head at any given moment, without actually checking to see if there is any truth to it.

The legal basis for same-sex marriage in Canada comes from The Civil Marriage Act:

The "Charter" referred to is Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

In other words, contrary to what Gnarff would like everyone to think, the Supreme Court of Canada says that ministers can't be forced to perform same-sex marriage ceremonies. If the Charter is good enough for the Supreme Court, it's good enough for me.

I'm not going to bother responding to the rest of his nonsense because I'd just be repeating what I and others have said many times already.

 

Gnarff, neither the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Law (1862) nor the Edmunds Act (1882) specifically define marriage as a man and a woman -- only that someone cannot have more than one spouse. I can't find anywhere in Reynolds v. United States (1878) where the court defines marriage as one man and one woman either. Again, the court simply ruled that a person can only have one spouse. Perhaps you should find a legal precident that does explicitly use your definition.

 

The answer you will continue to get (which is valid) is that giving them something with the same rights but a different name is still not equality because of the connotations that society has for marriage. Marriage is desirable and civil unions are second-best. Additionally, civil unions have fewer rights than marriage.

To name a few rights that marriage has that civil unions do not:
1. Portability - if you get married in one state, every other state recognizes that marriage. Not so with civil unions.
2. Right to leave work to take care of a spouse (those 'unified' cannot do so)
3. Right to sponsor an immigrant spouse.
4. Social security privileges (not sure of the details on this one)
5. Taxes (exemptions), healthcare, etc, benefits are not applicable to civil unions.

Those were taken from: http://www.massequality.org/ourwork/marriage/marriagevscivilunions.pdf

I have a feeling you are going to say it is biased, but there it is for you to read anyways.

Also, in the U.S. the only thing that gives legal benefits is a civil marriage (which is the term the federal government uses, Gnarff), and then you can have a religious ceremony as well, but with or without the religious ceremony, you have all of the rights of a marriage. Right now gays are being denied a civil marriage because of religious reasons. That makes no sense - why is something that is civil being governed by something that is not?

 

You know Gnarff, while the Constitution has just the simple phrase in the first amendment which guarantees freedom of religion, it doesn't mean that you can take that phrase and interpret it any way you feel like it. In fact, there have been many Supreme Court cases over the years that have addressed the issue of freedom of religion and separatation of church and state. The rulings in those cases form the legal definitions for those terms. Your interpretation of these terms of the Supreme Court's interpretation of these terms are different. This is a polite way of saying that from a legal perspective, you are wrong.

 

Saber: I would go with the current gender...

I understand that you are confident that this would protect religious authority from being charged under anti-discrimination laws, but I don't share that confidence. This also springs from the link you provided:

While that lists marriage specifically, I believe that would also apply to anything that lawyers, judges and politicians touch. That opens the door to strike down that guarantee that you cite.

But would that be good enough for a future Supreme Court? I'm not confident of that. Your link provides evidence that one Supreme Court has ruled differently than prior supreme courts.

Polygamy was a challenge to the traditional definition of Marriage. It was criminalized and this prohibition was upheld by the Supreme Court. This means that all future challenges to the traditional definition of Marriage would also be condemned to end in failure unless the Supreme Court wants to admit that the legislation you cited was an act of hatred against what was back then a fringe religion.

These are things that would have to be fixed for this solution to work. It means that politicians have to get off their ass and work instead of giving to one group at the offense of a larger group.

That wasn't a problem until the movement started to extend this to homosexuals...

That's why I want a separate term used. I want it reflected that Religion washes their hands of the abominations of this group. I also don't want something sacred degraded by handcuffing it to these abominations...

But that doesn't validate the extrapolations that come from trying to interpret random artifacts. All Archaeology gives us is a guess at what has come before...

So because the state insisted on regulating a religious practice, now the rights of religion are not worth the paper they are printed on? And you wonder why this issue is so contentious. The Government wants to give gays certain rights then they should use different terminology that will guarantee those rights without using the same terminology as Religion uses to reflect this separation, but obviously that will not be the case. This is why the people in 30 of 30 states where this has come into play have voted to ammend their constitution to explicitly define marriage as heterosexual in nature. In the insistance of some activists to provoke a battle, they have lost the war...

 

So you have no problem having a person with male reproductive parts who identifies as a woman marrying a man because they are opposite gender, despite being the same sex?

Why? Your point the entire time has been that religion is being infringed upon... a civil marriage has NOTHING to do with religion. Nothing. If they extended a civil marriage to homosexuals, they would have all the rights and nothing would change for you, because regardless of whether or not you think the word 'marriage' is solely religious, it is being used by the federal government as a specifically (as the term 'civil' implies) NON-religious word.

Poor choice of words (abomination)... we discussed a while ago that homosexuality is not an abomination, unless you also qualify eating shellfish or bugs an abomination. Your statement has the safe effect as me saying, "I want it reflected that Legal Seafoods* washes their hands of these abominations. I don't want something a delicious as normal fish being degraded by seeing it on the same menu as these abominations."


*Legal Seafoods is a popular chain of high-end fish restaurants in the U.S. (not sure if they have them in Canada)

 

Actually, I meant going with the current parts that are there.

But if it has nothing to do with religion, then why take the name of a religious ordinance?

An Abomination is a sin that is greatly offensive to God. As for shellfish, I thought it was common sense that you refrain from eating anything that looks like it came from an ox's nose...

 

You can lead a horse to water but can't make him play with the little rubber duckies....

No, Gnarff. What you are assuming to be persecution was an act of protection. The belief this law was simply persecution and a violation of the First Amendment is so typical of Mormons in general (if heard it many, many times) -- it's taught in Sunday School classes at a young age without an examination of the laws or the instances which brought the laws about.

The law specifically stated a person cannot have more than one spouse. Period. It did not define marriage. The primary reason for the Morrill Anti-Bigamy Law came from stories of young women being forced to marry older men who had high standing in the church. Brigham Young himself did this -- in fact (and you can look this one up) he excommunicated at least two women who turned him down and made them outcasts in SLC. There were many examples where the younger wife became basically a servant -- in essence the young woman was a house servant during the day and a sex slave at night.

A few of these stories can be validated. To be honest, only one would have been necessary for the Congress to make the Anti-Bigamy Bill into law. There was no act of hatred.

The Supreme Court did not make judgement on the traditional definition of marriage, but rather whether or not the Anti-Bigamy Law was Constitutional. Since there was evidence of some people abusing the rights of young women in cases of polygamy, the law stood. It's really that simple. The "traditional" definition of marriage could be changed to simply two individuals and it would not affect the Anti-Bigamy law nor Reynolds v. US in the slightest. Your interpretation of the ruling is wrong. You should take the time to read the appropriate documents and you will see this for yourself.

Of course, since I am no longer a Mormon I obviously have no credibility in this subject -- just ignore the fact that I come from a family that practised polygamy and have read the journals of my ancestors and know the stories from my great-grandfather about how his mother (the youngest wife) was treated. And I've read many similar stories from other families as well. What is going on in today's polygamy sects is no different than what was happening in Mormon communities in the mid to late 1800's. The government is right to stop such things today and they were right to stop it then as well.

 

First off, Gnarff, the two quotes you cite were from the Ontario Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court of Canada trumps Ontario.

Second, thank you for confirming what I said earlier - that you will say anything, no matter how ridiculous, without bothering to check whether there is any basis for saying it. The second quote you cite is says that the definition of marriage under 91(26) of the Constitution is broad enough that it doesn't require a constitutional amendment to have it include same-sex marriages. The comment has absolutely nothing to do with freedom of religion, nor is there any reasonable basis for assuming that it could be broadened to cover freedom of religion, your "belief" nothwithstanding.

 

That doesn't seem fair. If everyone treats the person as a woman, she sees herself that way, why can't she be married as a woman? Because she happened to be born with a penis? You have been using the word gender throughout your whole argument. Her gender is female (gender being how the societal and personal aspects of a person's sexuality - if she carries herself as a woman, dresses, acts, etc, like a woman, her gender is female), despite her sex being male (sex is the biological aspect).

Since you are so concerned with Men only marrying women, I don't see what is wrong with a man marrying someone who believes themselves a woman, by your belief.

Besides the fact that we (mostly Aldeth and Splunge) have continually told you that marriage is not solely a religious thing, words evolve. While at one point it may have meant a religious ceremony, the U.S. federal government does not believe so. Since I am a United States citizen, I will base whether or not my marriage is religious or not off of what they tell me it legally is. Since a civil marriage has legally nothing to do with religion to them, so it does for me.

Have you read Leviticus? It clearly states that both homosexuality and eating shrimp are abominations. What makes shrimp so offensive to God? Poor little critters... I object to using the term abomination in reference to homosexuality unless you are also going to use it whenever you see someone eating shellfish.

"Shrimp cocktail, sir?"
"No thank you, God might smite me for that."

o.0 Seem reasonable?

 

This shouldn't be so hard to understand...

And still you are wrong. Evidently, when you dig yourself a hole, you think the best way to get out is digging deeper. First of all, allowing gay marriage would not be regulating a religious practice, because they would not force churches to change what they were doing. (As a side point, even if they did require churches to do so, it be deregulating a religious practice as it would be removing a regulation currently in place, but your poor use of vocabulary is ancillary to the arguement at hand.)

Secondly, you refer to the "rights of religion". Religion has no rights under the US Constitution. People have the right to practice a religion as they see fit, provided that they are not breaking any other laws. (And in fact, there is even some leeway there - Voodoo practictioners are not prosecuted for animal cruelty for killing a chicken in a religious ceremony, nor are Native Americans prosecuted for ingesting hallucinogenic plants (which are otherwise considered an illegal drug) if it's for a religous ceremony.)

What the Supreme Court has ruled - many times over - is that the rights of people to freely practice their religion shall not be infringed. Allowing gays to get married at the courthouse does not infringe on your rights to be a Mormon, to practice Mormonism, to preach Mormonism, to go to the Mormon Temple, or to affect anything about Mormonism in any way. And you still retain the right to believe that homosexuality is an abomination, so you aren't even required to like the law.

Here's the bottom line point that you keep missing repeatedly - I'll even put it in bold face so as to make it clear to you: Allowing gay marriage does not violate the 1st Amendment of the Constitution's freedom of religion clause, because allowing gays to gain the benefits of marriage in a civil ceremony does not affect how any group (Mormon or otherwise) practice their religion.

Don't know how much clearer I can make it. If you want to claim that your right to freedom of religion is being infringed (and let me stress again this is your right - not your religion's right) it may be helpful to present a case that actually has something to do with how you practice your religion.