Marriage, Back door laws and policies, and tolerance issues

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In the bottom left corner there is a tab that can adjust the snow, the three options are essentially to have snow on every page, snow on only the forum home, and no snow at all.

Basically I don't see what the big issue is with the use of the word marriage. I understand that it is a religious ceremony (for some), but you also have to understand that it is the word to describe a state action as well. As henkie stated above me, it most certainly is not the only word with multiple meanings, and as such it shouldn't be am issue. If you are living your marriage and got married, then people would see that it was a religious marriage (hopefully). If a couple is clearly not in with your religion and got married, then people should realize that it was not a religious marriage (towards that extent).

I don't think I made much sense, but it makes less sense to have to change the wording for all non-religiously sanctioned (or all in general) marriages.

 

I would take it further and then also abolish marriage as a legal entity entirely, abolishing all rights currently automatically assigned by marriage (health insurance, tax rights, surrogate rights, etc) and instead create a system under which a person has to specifically state who gets these rights formerly assigned to marriage.

 

It's the social consequences of political correctness that worries me. It's an attempt to use social pressure to silence dissenting opinion. It's as if some people have decided this is right, and pressure others to shut up and accept this. Religion tried that and failed. The Inquisition or Salem Witch hunts may have worked in the short term, but eventually these had to be abandoned. I don't seek to censure my opponents in such a matter, but I do believe that a proper resolution would leave them less to ***** about. And I still get the peace and quiet...

You call it marriage, you accept the covenants, whether you seek Religious sanction or not. If you don't want to take it seriously, then call it something else. By considering courthouse marriages as less than a Religious ceremony, the process of degrading the sacred ordinance of marriage occurs, and the progression to the unforgivable occurs. 30 of 50 states have drawn the line in the sand, halting this attack before that line is crossed.

Remind the gays in California of this. Their hate rallies against those religions that took a public role in supporting Prop 8 are somewhat disturbing.

I think what Silvery was talking about was harassment and abuse. Should the family and friends of the alcoholic in question intervene, and out of love, beseech them to change their behaviour? Of course. But beating them up because they are an alcoholic is wrong.

United? Just an idea...

Well, you've given me a reason to reject NOG's Idea...

And when given the voice, the people are clarifying it to be between a man and a woman.

God doesn't change to meet our will. The changes of the times do demand more understanding of the principles that God teaches...

That's one I haven't heard. As long as they are heterosexual, they have that option. But I would accept a specifically non-religious option--NOT CALLED MARRIAGE or using other related terminology--that can be extended to people that reject the religious implications of the ordinance but have the legal status of the union. Since it is of civil origin, it would not matter what gender(s) the couple is composed of.

Where their argument fails is when they call marriage a right. It is a privilege. I can't just go out and demand a wife, I have to seek her out, win her affections and convince her to agree to marry me. And when I've done this, if I don't treat her well, she will likely bugger off with half my stuff and stick me paying her off for the rest of my life...

But doesn't that just open another can of worms? What about families and adoptions? This is what is really in danger. The majority of Judeo Chirstian faiths teacht hat Marriage is not just about civil rights and privileged and property concerns, but rather about establishing the family. Such doctrines establish Gender roles and the importance of both a father and a mother in the home as the ideal. To them, Gay Marriage is a mockery of that which is sacred, and provides a sub optimal setting for the raising of children.

 

All I can comfort myself with when reading discussions like these is that things move forward so barring a fascist theocratic revolution in the western world homosexuals will be able to enjoy equal rights sometime in the future.

The more I think about this issue the more radical I get. It is identical to not allowing straight people to marry whomever they want that is of legal age. The people advocating against is the modern version of the people fighting to keep slavery or who praised the system of "separate but equal". It will not stand for long and if it does humanity has taken a dark turn to the past.

Another thing that I have pondered is where they should get married at first I thought it was natural that a church should be allowed to marry who they want and no one should be forced to perform rites but now I am wavering. Can a church refuse to marry a black and a white person? Can they refuse to marry people with red hair? If they are allowed to discriminate as to who can join and who can get married then let them continue but if they are not allowed to discriminate based on other things they should not be allowed to discriminate based on sexuality.

We need to fight the dark forces that Gnarff, chev and others, much worse, like them represent. It sounds a bit melodramatic and I am not a person fond of causes but that is a cause I can support. We need to wrench humanity away from ancient superstitions and not let our laws and lives be governed by the ramblings of long dead ignorant politicians.

 

And thank you for proving my point. I'm not arguing with god, though, I'm arguing with people who are interpreting what they percieve as the will of their god. Religious people are generally rather prone to stick to their respective religious dogmas, making discussions rather pointless as usually the only point I can agree with them on is that we agree to disagree. But I'm going offtopic here.

But why should you get the sole right to the word marriage? Why can't marriage have a different meaning to you than to me? Why can't you change the word you use for marriage and must we change it instead? (I'm using 'you' and 'we' here, but this isn't meant to be personal, but rather more general, so you may replace 'you' with religious people and 'we' with atheists or law makers.)

This is basically the favoritism I was referring to in my previous post as well. It seems rather strange that only christian faiths should have the right to use the word marriage to describe the bond between two people where people with another set of values or believe system are denied the right to use this word. Regardless of the weight you put on it, it is still only a word which may describe different things to different people.

For instance, to you marriage entails some kind of holy bonding ritual, while to me it is merely a formalisation of a relationship which I would only do if the rights and benefits associated with said formalisation work significantly in my or my partner's favor.

I don't know who 'they' are, but assuming you're responding to my post in particular, I believe you misunderstand me. I'm not saying that marriage is a right, nor do I believe it to be a privilege. I'm saying that if you attach certain rights and other benefits to marriage (Stefanina names quite a few of these), then these rights and benefits should be freely available to everyone who wishes to formalise their relation (i.e. marry). Otherwise you can't rightfully claim that law is equally applicable to everyone.

As such, Stefanina's suggestion has merit. Discouple the rights and benefits presently associated with marriage from it and make these available to anyone in a relationship and wishing to make use of these rights. On the other hand, this would make the whole point of going through the civil procedure to get married rather pointless and would truly make marriage only attractive to religious people and people who'd like to be able to say that they're married.

And many thanks to you, kind sir.

 

OK, wait a minute. Am I understanding you correctly here?

You frequently use the word "covenant". "Covenant" is another word for "promise" or "agreement", and I have always assumed you were referring to the stated covenants in the wedding ceremony. In the case of a religious ceremony, that would be the covenants between the man and woman, and between the couple and god. In the case of a non-religious ceremony, that would only be the covenants between the two people getting married.

But you are now referring to "courthouse marriages" as "a Religious ceremony", which implies that there is an agreement with god, even though the entire purpose of such a civil ceremony is to keep religion out of the picture. From your last response to me in the other thread, I realize that you think that the couple is accountable to god for their actions, but "accountability" is not the same thing as “agreement”. How can there be an agreement when one of the parties hasn’t entered into it? "Accountability" comes in the after-life, if it exists.

My whole point here is that you've never objected to calling civil unions "marriages". But now it seems to me that, despite what you've said before, you should object because, contrary to what covenants you think exist, there is absolutely no agreement with god, implied or otherwise. And by extension, this means that the word "marriage" is the sole property of, and is to be used only by, the church.

 

Ok, there's been a lot of response here, and I'm a little under the weather (I think all this snow has given me a chill ), I'll try to take things slowly. If I begin to ramble about flying mushrooms, it's just the fever.

Now, you see, here's the beauty of it. The courts aren't changing the definition. They're specifically giving up on that. It's like they're saying, 'You know what, forget it. You can use marriage however you want. We've tried to define it, and it was messy. We're not going there again. From now on, they're all Civil Unions.' The only part of the definition of marriage that is being 'changed' is it's role as a legal contract, which I think is the least important part being argued over, especially since there's a replacement contract. Ok, so there is a little change, but I don't think anyone would object, whereas changing it to accept homosexuality obviously brings great objections from many.

Well, if it's the wording of the paperwork that concerns you, that will have to be changed anyway. The current forms all (or almost all) have something along the lines of 'Husband' and 'Wife' or 'Bride' and 'Groom' and those will all have to be replaced with 'Spouse A' and 'Spouse B'. I'm just suggesting that, while they're at it, they change the 'Certificate of Marriage' to a 'Certificate of Civil Union'. As for the on-the-book definition, again, it's going to have to be changed one way or the other anyway. As for why religion shouldn't change their term, regardless of which version of ancient history you believe, I think we can all agree that religion claimed the term 'marriage' long, long before the US Circuit Courts did. At the same time, to religion, marriage is a sacred thing, while to the Courts, it's just a title. It's like if the Courts took up a Jewish holiday as tax day, renamed taxation after the holiday, and then expected the Jews to rename their holiday. Well, kinda, almost.

I don't see any practical problems with this, other than all the work needed to put it into effect, but I also don't see any significant gains. Why would you want this? The vast majority of people probably want those rights in the hands of their spouses anyway, and the few who don't can probably remove them through legal action already (I'm guessing on that one). You would put everyone through a great deal of work for what I can see as no real gain.

Actually, if you look through history, things tend to move rather cyclicly, with the widespread acceptance of homosexuality, sexual promiscuity, and reckless outward conquest generally indicating the last days of a civilization. Of course, those last days are usually accompanied by an acceptance of slavery and a few other things we've put behind us (mostly), but if the Chinese invade, look for things to start over again.

 

It's really not about gays. Really, Joac. It's about sex. If the church can control people's sexual behavior: with whom people have sex, and when they can, and for whatever reasons people have sex, then it can control just about any aspect of people's lives. God has little to do with any of this; it's really about the power of the church.

Personally, the thing for me is that gays can still be Christians AND be gay. In this light, I can't see why they can't get married.

But I don't believe that Chev and Gnarff are dark forces to be fought. They, as are most Christains, still fairly tolerant people. I'm not sure how Jewish people view the treatment of gay rights, but I suspect they are fairly tolerant as well. The point is, I'm not sure about the "Western World" thing: Some sects of Islam are much worse in this regard, since they execute people for being gay. Now that's dark.

 

I live in the western world and most contacts I have are with people in the western world. We are the most advanced (or most degenerate according to some) society in the world so we need to break the new ground.

As for the Chinese coming I do not think it would be such a giant leap backwards societal wise. They are moving forward as well and generally tend to be quite pragmatic in most ways. Not to mention that due to their one child policy their demographic lends itself very nicely towards male homosexuality. Might be rougher for the women but as we can see here and most other places where this is discussed female homosexuality always have played second fiddle to the male version both amongst the "bashers" and amongst the homosexuals themselves.

Chandos, I have thought about gays being religious as well and for me it just points out how preposterous and illogical religious belief is. Here we have people whose entire identity is clearly and without doubt is rejected by a religion and yet they choose to identify themselves with it? What rational person would want to be a part of a religion that is clearly against what he is? It is like a black person joining the KKK. I do not see why people try to fit the ancient religions with the modern world, if you pick and choose from the holy book what is holy then how can the book be holy? Take the package deal or create your own religion.

 

Now you are buying into the way in which the church paints it. Once upon a time, the Catholic church tried to do the very same thing with people who were divorced. In fact, my grandfather was not given his Last Rights on his death bed because he was divorced and remarried. Now, how many people would say that if you are divorced, you cannot believe in the Salvation of Jesus Christ? Yes, there may be a few conservative traditionalists who would say that there is no hope for anyone who is "outside" the dogma of the church (whichever you go to), but most people would say that it is stupid, even most Christians.

What they are trying to do to gays is to isolate them socially, and that means they can be politically marginalized (not have any say in things).

I don't know much about the Chinese and how they treat gays. I know I won't buy their products if I can avoid it. I get my quota of poison from Jack Daniels...

 

Why would he want the last rites/rights (which one is it?) from an organisation that had rejected him? It is written quite clearly in the bible in more than one place that homosexuality is a heinous sin (together with many many other things, this is one of the things that makes it so baffling that people take it seriously) and if you believe in christianity then I guess you get the word of god from the bible? If you dont you may believe that Jesus was a nice guy who was the son of a god (the god?) but you don't really know much about him or his teachings as you can't believe what is written in the bible. This is one instance where I can actually respect religous fundamentalists, at least they stand up for what they believe in and take the package deal no matter how nutty it is. How anyone can claim any divinity or holiness to a book you have rejected large parts of is beyond me.

 

Chandos, are you really becoming a conspiracy theorist now? I mean, the Church trying to control the lives of all humanity by dictating who they may bed?

As for divorce, that was always a weird Catholic thing. I mean, it's bad and all, but it's not 'unpardonable'. For that matter, the whole issue of Last Rights is one of those weird Catholic things. They have a lot of them. No offense Chev.

Joacqin:

Ok, I'm guessing you're talking about the cleanliness laws (like don't eat shellfish, don't touch a dead body, etc.), and I'm also guessing you haven't been here when I've talked about those before. Those aren't sin laws, meaning breaking them isn't a sin you need to be forgiven for. Those are disease prevention and control procedures. That's why all of them are followed with things like 'If you do, go out of town for 6 days (quarantine), then present yourselves to the priests (educated elite) for inspection to be judged clean (uninfected or uncontagious).' The few that don't (foods, mostly) deal with parasites that are harder to judge.

 

Show me where Christ commented on gay marriage. God does nothing in vain, Joac. And keep in mind to, that Satan does some of his best work within the church.

The theory is not mine, I must admit, but credit goes to a historian who studied and wrote extensively on the subject, Michel Foucault. Michel believed that Christian authorities are obsessed with sex and power, and he's probably right in that regard.

 

Actually, it is establishing heterosexuality as the sanctioned norm, and deciding to what degree we will tolerate a deviant behaviour. I draw the line at Marriage and Adoption.

I fear the opposite of what you rail against. I fear a world where laws are torn down because enough people don't like them, and government is powerless to keep order, thus spiralling the world into chaos. I fear that those that resist this change will be shackled as slaves to politically correct practices that will force out religious doctrine and forbid faith. There will be nothing to teach people to choose the right course of action. All that will matter is the whims and desires of the individual and the rest be damned. That scares the **** out of me!

And what would you replace it with? Corrupt politicians? Hedonistic, pleasure-seeking celebrities? Activists only interested in advancing their cause? Maybe just some stoned guy in the corner? I don't just blindly follow my faith, I look at the doctrine and believe that it is right. I didn't just list every religion I could think of, put them on pieces of paper and draw Mormonism out of a hat...

Add in the word Divine before promise or agreement, and you have the picture. Marriage is instituted of God, and thus even using the word gets His attention on the union, whether sought, acknowledged, even believed or not. You want to remove the divine connotations of this union, use another word.

Ironic, isn't it? That you still get the attention of He who you want left out of the union? Call it something else, and there is no mix up.

That doesn't follow. Is it a "civil union" or is it a marriage. If the active term is civil union, then God has been specifically excluded. This makes it fine to extend to homosexuals because there is nothing sacred involved. Call it a marriage, and God is involved. When the courthouse insists upon using the term marriage, then it puts the couple under sacred covenent--even if they don't believe in God.

Those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. With the decadence of those past civilizations, order and the rule of law broke down. The society teetered on the brink of oblivion, and some force that by rights should not have been any degree of a threat all but destroyed them. I can see that attitude in joacqin's post. What people fail to realize is that while tolerance has an important place in society, it also has limits...

That's ridiculous. What is the point of a church but to serve and worship God. It is the divine definition of marriage, as between a man and a woman, that the various churches have united to defend in California. It is not about a church trying to take power over the statem, and I resent any such implications.

What makes a person a Christian? Is it simple belief or claims of affiliation or is it obedience? Christ once told his followers that if they loved Him they would keep His commandments. Is it possible for someone facing temptation of same sex attraction to be Christian? Of course. But to actively and openly practice it when they KNOW that it is specifically forbidden in the strongest language in the Bible is a direct defiance of God's laws. Further, Marriage, to Christian doctrine is explicitly between a man and a woman, and as such is denied to homosexuals. To a point, they can be Chirstians, but only to a point.

Homosexuality is a temptation, they can choose to identify themselves by the temptation they face, or they can seek spiritual help to overcome this unnatural desire and try to do something better with their lives.

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Taking this one step further, ALL commandments given by God are for the benefit of the faithful and society in general. Therefore, the forbiddance of homosexuality, and the explicit definition of marriage as a heterosexual ordinance are for the good of all.

Hence the commandment: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord, thy God, in vain, for the Lord shall not hold him blameless that taketh the Lord's name in vain. Simply put, don't use God's name to justify your own vain whims. When you take the name of God, be sure that you are doing His will. Perhaps the Crusaders, Inquisitioners and Witch Hunters forgot this. Possibly worse yet is that the faithful may be judged by corrupt, vengeful, or inaccurate teachings of past religious figures who've perpetrated great wrongs in the name of God...

 

@NOG, the entire thing is a laugh riot of silliness. It is a compilation of the musings and opinions of every other guy in the middle east with too much spare time on their hands. These writings were then collected, edited, edited some more, translated and then put together in one book.

If you first control who people sleep with then you can easily control what they eat and if you control that you control everything. I heard a very interesting theory about why pork is forbidden in the monotheistic religions. There was a time, long time ago when human sacrifice happened but someone noticed the spooky similiarity between roast human and roast pig smell, not to mention the very human like shrieks pigs can let out or their very social and intelligent behaviour if let to live naturally and finally that if you open them up they are more or less identical to humans on the inside. The theory is that you weren't/aren't supposed to eat pigs because they are too similar to man. This was kinda

@Gnarff you make it sound like the stoned guy in the corner would be worse than a stoned guy who stood in a corner 2500 years ago. I can at least somehow vote or otherwise influence contemperary corrupt politicians. How am I supposed to influence long dead corrupt politicians whose words are interpreted by modern day corrupt politicians/priests? As for the rest, my it sounds like a grand world you describe Gnarff. Religious belief is silly, I am continiously baffled how intelligent reasonably aware people can have religious belief. For me it is no different than the four year olds belief in Santa Claus. Quaint and kinda cute but not something that makes me respect that four year old's intellectual prowess, the difference is that the four year old will grow up and will lose his faith in santa. Religious people are like people who grew up but never lost faith in Santa.

@Chandos, the old testament commented quite heavily on homosexuality didnt it? Didnt Jesus say that all the old laws would be in effect or something similar? Also didn't Paul have pretty strong opinions on the matter? Seeing as it isn't Jesus or God himself who have written the bible how can you know what is divine word to be followed and what is just that guys opinion? You say god doesn't do anything in vain but how do you know what is god's work and what isn't? To me it sounds like everything you agree with is god's work and what you don't agree with isn't. I mean, that is how most of the more sensible and rational branches of religions work, well they can't be sensible when the basic foundation is so horrendously irrational but modern. If you are going to pick and choose from the holy scripture in the first place what need do you then have of having a religion? Why not just have your own set of morals and beliefs and be satisfied with that?

 

What you claim only makes sense if I were to accept that that the church has legal ownership of the word "marriage", and has the legal right to restrict its use outside of the church only to those who agree to use it the way the church wants it to be used. But the courts say otherwise (thus the ability to call a civil union a marriage without requiring the church's permission). God is involved only if the couple accepts that involvement.

Here is the part that you fail to get - one of the main purposes of a civil ceremony is to keep god out of it. Therefore, you should be objecting to the use of the word "marriage" in every civil ceremony. But you don't. You seem to think that, because my wife and I (for example) call our civil union a "marriage", we have somehow automatically, unknowingly and unwillingly made an agreement with a god. But we haven't; we've only made an agreement with each other. In order to have an agreement, both parties must agree to it; that's why it's called an agreement. And "covenant" is just another word for "agreement" - and putting the word "divine" in front of it doesn't change a thing; all it does is make god the originator of the agreement, but the other side has to agree to it as well.

We're clearly at an impasse here. It's like I'm trying to convince you that 2+2=4, but despite anything I say, you insist that it equals 5. I'm not going to bother continuing this debate, because it's going nowhere. I may respond if you actually start making sense, but in all likelihood I'll just keep quiet. Don't take my silence as an indication that you won (unless, of course, your objective was just to make me stop posting, in which case consider yourself victorious for now).

 

The intolerance on these boards is amazing! A lot of us would be classed as 'outcasts' because we play RPGs and a look at the thread on a charity rejecting money from a games company shows what people can think about gamers!

However, we wouldn't expect to be abused because of the games we play so why should we in turn refuse to accept somebodys lifestyle?

It may be a silly anaology to most people but it's not that different! A lifestyle is a lifestyle and as long as you aren't hurting anybody then what's the problem? It's not like homosexuality is a diesese and, believe it or not, just because somebody is gay doesn't mean they're going to come onto you; In all reality, you probably aren't that attractive!

Whether one likes it or not, it happens and will continue to happen until we become an a-sexual society. Don't negatively comment about the way somebody lives and the rights that they are given until you can say that you have been a target for abuse and been denied your rights

 

Like Joacquin indicated, it's all throughout. There's condemnation of homosexuality in Genesis, Leviticus, the Psalms I think, and most of the major and minor prophets. Jesus then says He has come to fulfill the Law, not to erase it, and yes, Paul speaks agianst it a couple of times.

This is quite true and well worth remembering.

Well, authorities in general are obsessed with power. Seriously, find me one who isn't. As to sex, it's one of the hardest urges to control in either men or women and has a very, very long history of corrupting people. Many of them went well over the top in an attempt to restrain it (it's a sin for the woman to be on top?), but the intent is simple and 'innocent' enough to understand.

Umm, no, more like about 40 guys, almost all from Israel, and it all fits not only within itself, but with all archeological history of the region to date.

Again, not really. The oldest copies of any of it's texts we have are absolutely identical in content to the latest ones, meaning it shows a greater degree of known fidelity to the original work than any other text in history over such a period of time.

Or, it could be that they carry a wide variety of parasites that can also infest man. Like I said, the cleanliness laws (pigs are unclean, for example) are disease control procedures for primitive people.

This seems to me to be mainly due to some gross misunderstandings you have.

 

You just don't get it, do you?

Allowing gay marriage does target those who oppose it because it means that, by extension, they might also be gay. And because of that, it denies their right to be heterosexual (or at least their right to have a heterosexual marriage).

 

NOG so just because some of 40 people may actually have existed that means that their word is divine law? So just because I am real what I say is the word of god? NOG, I have not done much research about the creation of the bible (new testament) but what little I have learnt points towards it being firstly written decades after Christ based on second and third hand observation. Then a church council picked and chose which texts to include and how to interpret them. Are you telling me that all these people were directly inspired by god? I guess you do.

I would also like for you to point out what gross misconceptions I am under? I think it was Bill Maher that likened religion to a virus or a disease of the brain and I agree. It is a virus that targets the young, the weak and the ignorant. Anyhoo, this is all off-topic what is on topic is that there is no reason to be against gay marriage except homophobia. Why you are a homophobe does not matter much, you do not like and approve of gay people so you do not want them to marry. It is as simple as that and I do not understand why people are so ashamed of admitting it maybe even to themselves.