SCOTUS: Same Sex Marriage Legal Nationwide

[the dude abides]

I cast the line and hooked a lunker.

A pseudo-intellectual lunker at that.

[Jason]

Can someone please explain to me the neocons view that this ruling means Christians will be persecuted? This ruling is moot to me, I will still go to church and believe Jesus Christ is my savior and who cares. I know what the bible says and believe it is God's job to judge and not mans. So now it is a sign of end-of-times again for the zillionth time. And who's mind comes up with ideas like what is next, we will marry our kids. Sick shit from people who need to just chill out. Thanks FOX News.

As both a Christian and a conservative, I agree with you on this. I do not feel persecuted and it will have no effect on my family or life. I just don't like how those who verbally oppose the ruling are mocked and or considered bigots. Edited June 28, 2015 by Angels N Skins

[Crampknees]

ANS, sorry if I looked like I was mocking, wasn't my intent.

[Jason]

ANS, sorry if I looked like I was mocking, wasn't my intent.

In no way was I referring to your post. You just see a lot of it on social media. Also I'm not opposed to gays getting married. I just think it should have been left at the states level.

Edited June 28, 2015 by Angels N Skins

[red321]

I once read a quote about Newt Gingrich...that he was a stupid person's idea of what a smart person sounded like. Seemed apt for our sock puppet.

[InsideThePark]

I hate to be condescending, but I feel that I must explain how analogies work: According to the post I quoted, God should judge, not man, which I took to mean that religious people shouldn't bring their morality into public issues and that we should be content to let God make the judgments. I then asked if he thought the same about Christians entering the slavery debate. If he thought that was OK, then his problem is with the issue, not whether religious people should bring their insights into politics. I have isolated his problem.

It would be like comparing people who are attracted sexually to the same sex with skin color. Everybody knows that sex and skin color aren't the same thing, but people are trying to say that public preference for heterosexual relationships is the same as Jim Crow laws.

Do you see this point? This is an honest question. I would like to know if you think analogizing two different things that share some similarity means saying that they're the same thing.

Obviously he meant that it should be left to God to judge regarding gays and such. Not everything in the Bible should legislate into law. We are not a fundamentalist Christian nation. If we were, schools would teach that the earth is 6000 years old, and that slavery (since you brought it up) is acceptable. Christians have evolved as has the rest of society. Edited June 28, 2015 by InsideThePark

[juansavage1]

I cast the line and hooked a lunker.  

Yet again, I prove something that I said the first day I started posting here after reading the baseball section for a year or two. Leftists have nothing to offer in serious debate. It's name-calling and ignorance up and down. 

 

I DARE you X 3 to respond to anything I said. 

[Spirit]

This is a good question.  Lots of black churches in the south do hate gays.  Thing is they are only labeled as libs because they are black and stereotyped as dependant on the government when they really may not be libs at all. 

 

But you are correct Geoff in your quote with the Confederate flag going down and the Rainbow flag going up.

They are only labeled as libs because of their voting record.

[juansavage1]

As both a Christian and a conservative, I agree with you on this. I do not feel persecuted and it will have no effect on my family or life. I just don't like how those who verbally oppose the ruling are mocked and or considered bigots.

You may not have thought this through. Will your church still be able to participate in the public arena, you know to teach (if it has schools), evangelize? Will your kids be bullied into thinking a certain way and maybe even be encouraged to think of you as a bigot (if you follow normative Christian ideas on this subject)? Will you be able to run your business according to your ideals?

 

Certainly, nobody expects Christians to be treated like they were after the French Revolution, in Nazi Germany, communist and Muslim countries today, or by ISIS, but it might be as bad as the homosexuals who said they were persecuted for not being able to join the FBI or marry their boyfriend. 

 

If you don't hold traditional views of marriage, then you might not think you'll be persecuted because you don't identify with normative Christianity. 

Edited June 28, 2015 by Juan Savage

[juansavage1]

They are only labeled as libs because of their voting record.

Most blacks and Hispanics aren't ideological liberals. That is, they don't have Marxist presuppositions on race, sex, and class and don't believe in great societal forces in opposition that will resolve themselves in the future. They vote that way because Democrats told them that white people are bad and because many benefit from government programs and employment. If only white government employees voted, liberals would always win. 

[juansavage1]

Obviously he meant that it should be left to God to judge regarding gays and such. Not everything in the Bible should legislate into law. We are not a fundamentalist Christian nation. If we were, schools would teach that the earth is 6000 years old, and that slavery (since you brought it up) is not to be condemned. Christians have evolved as has the rest of society.

Thanks for the reply. The issue is not judging gays. Marriage is a public policy and all citizens can lend their opinion on what it should mean and how it should be administered. Think about the question I asked about what marriage is. Why should I accept some other definition that's based upon a perversion of Christian marriage (two people, love, etc) and not be able to advocate for the original? 

 

Whether we're a fundamentalist Christian nation has nothing to do with it. If we were a fundamentalist Christian nation, we would be teaching that the earth is 6000 years old. We wouldn't necessarily be teaching slavery, however, as fundamentalists both fought against slavery and justified it with a certain interpretation of the Bible (the slavery in the Bible wasn't what was in the South which was chattel slavery. That's one instance where 3000 years later, something was worse). 

 

How? In a fundamentalist nation, all of the judges would have been appointed by fundamentalists and there may have been several amendments requiring certain interpretations of the Bible. 

 

If McCain had won and not nominated two liberal activists to the court, this narrow ruling wouldn't have happened. 

Edited June 28, 2015 by Juan Savage

[juansavage1]

A pseudo-intellectual lunker at that.

I actually hate arguing in general and find arguing with most leftists especially exasperating because of their lack of knowledge and emotional thinking, but I'll stick around to be impressed by your intellectualism. I'm sure it's very novel and not at all like the garden variety Colbert audience member. 

Edited June 28, 2015 by Juan Savage

[Angelsjunky]

As both a Christian and a conservative, I agree with you on this. I do not feel persecuted and it will have no effect on my family or life. I just don't like how those who verbally oppose the ruling are mocked and or considered bigots.

 

Maybe they/you shouldn't be mocked, but it IS a form of bigotry and discrimination. For those who support gay marriage, it is a civil rights issue. To not allow gay couples to marry is to discriminate against them, consider them second-class citizens.

 

You quote one person and then make a blanket statement based on one person.  You are constantly making statements that demean those who disagree with your point of view.  I honestly doubt you know any evangelicals or at least you haven't ever taken the time listen to their point of view.

 

I apologize for making blanket statements. I've tried to be clear that not all Christians are the same, not even all evangelicals. As for as I understand it, we're talking about three groups: Christians as a whole, which represents around 75% of the American population. From what I understand about half of American Christians are "Evangelical" - which I understand to adhere to being born again - and a smaller percentage are "fundamentalist" which I understand as believing in Biblical literalism. The other half of the total are either Catholic or "casual Protestants."

 

As I've said before, I have no problem with Christianity in principle. I consider Jesus Christ as being one of the great spiritual teachers of humanity, although I don't put him on a higher pedestal than I do, say, the Buddha. What I have a problem with is Christians who A) don't practice the "religion of love" that Christ taught, namely through hatred or discrimination against gays, Muslims, etc; and Biblical literalists, which to me is a rather vociferous form of ignorance.

 

Most Christians I know are of the more "casual Protestant" type - either Unitarians or members of the small Christian Community. I have met and conversed with Mormons and evangelicals and found both to be rather locked into their worldview with little open-mindedness. I have also met people who have become "free" from Biblical literalism.

 

I have no problem with anyone believing what they want to believe. I don't claim to know "the truth" about reality and see all religions, belief systems, and ideologies to have varying degrees of truth. But I do have a problem with religion dictating legal policy. In my mind, separation of Church and State is a generally positive development in Western civilization. If you look at the historical record, terrible things have been done in the name of religion - from the Crusades to the Inquisition, the witch burnings, etc. Today we have extremist Islamic jihad, but also "softer" forms of religious hatred like we see in the US in terms of discrimination against gays, and so forth.

 

I have said that I like Bill Maher quite a bit, but one area that I diverge with him is that while I share his criticism of fundamentalist religion - be it Christian, Islamic, or other - I don't like how he puts all religion in the same basket. I have met amazing religious people, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, etc. Maher himself is a big fan of the Pope, which is good to hear. But my point is, I don't agree with Maher's extreme (dare I say fundamentalist) atheism, perhaps because I have had my own "religious experiences" that led me to believe that the atheistic scientific/materialistic worldview is impoverished.

 

It is also worth noting that Christianity is seeing a generational decline in the United States, so more and more we're going to see policies that reflect a "secular humanism" that is supposed to serve everyone. Check out this info: http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/pr_15-05-12_rls-01/

 

 

Anyhow, I hope that clarifies where I'm coming from.

 

mt isn't wrong. You need to be more careful on how you phrase things, AJ. For instance, prop 8 was evidence that it wasn't only the religious right who opposed gay marriage. Minorities also held back the movement. If you had used the word "mainly" instead, I doubt anyone would have taken issue with that. And your comment yesterday made it appear like you were insulting the intelligence Christian fundamentalists in general, even if that's not what you meant.

 

Good point. I should have said "mainly," because that is what I meant.

 

That said, I will be honest and say that I think fundamentalism by its very nature is not intelligent. But this isn't only Christian fundamentalism - fundamentalism is by definition an narrowness of thinking, an inability to think outside one's own mental conditioning. Certainly we're all conditioned, we all have limitations, but some worldviews and ideologies are more or less expansive. Religious fundamentalism is one of the most narrow worldviews extant in the world today and I think we need to evolve/develop out of it. Just as there are different degrees of psychological maturity, so too are there different degrees of "religious maturity" - IMHO, of course! We can look at the difference between a Bryan Fischer and the Dalai Lama, or Jimmy Swaggart and the Pope.

[Angelsjunky]

Juan Savage, I have no problem with differentiating "Christian marriage" and what we could call "secular or universalist marriage" (or civil union) as long as they get the same legal rights and privileges. Personally I don't think marriage should be in the legal sphere at all. But if it is, then everyone should get the same rights and privileges (and hassle and costs of divorce, etc...lol).

 

But even if we do that, here's the problem: Not all Christians are against gay marriage and there are many gay Christians who want to be married in the Christian sense. So even if we separated this out and have a secular vs. religious marriage, with the same legal rights and privileges, you're going to have a debate within the Christian religion about whether or not gay marriage should be permitted. It just takes it out of the legal sphere.

[Crampknees]

Yet again, I prove something that I said the first day I started posting here after reading the baseball section for a year or two. Leftists have nothing to offer in serious debate. It's name-calling and ignorance up and down. 

 

I DARE you X 3 to respond to anything I said. 

lol, sorry dude I ain't got no stats jack. So since I am responding and you timesed me by 3, what do I win?

[juansavage1]

Juan Savage, I have no problem with differentiating "Christian marriage" and what we could call "secular or universalist marriage" (or civil union) as long as they get the same legal rights and privileges. Personally I don't think marriage should be in the legal sphere at all. But if it is, then everyone should get the same rights and privileges (and hassle and costs of divorce, etc...lol).

 

But even if we do that, here's the problem: Not all Christians are against gay marriage and there are many gay Christians who want to be married in the Christian sense. So even if we separated this out and have a secular vs. religious marriage, with the same legal rights and privileges, you're going to have a debate within the Christian religion about whether or not gay marriage should be permitted. It just takes it out of the legal sphere.

So, then you wouldn't really face persecution. If you were interviewed by the FBI, you'd say that people have the right to marry people of the same sex (gays always could marry, but they couldn't marry a person of the same sex, like bisexuals have to deny part of their love today), but that you think it's not Christian(?). I'm talking about people who have a different interpretation of marriage and that the public policy should reflect that view. 

[juansavage1]

Take away: Disagreeing with gay marriage is bigotry. What does society do with bigots? 

 

You tried to be respectful so I won't go into details about your arguments. 

Maybe they/you shouldn't be mocked, but it IS a form of bigotry and discrimination. For those who support gay marriage, it is a civil rights issue. To not allow gay couples to marry is to discriminate against them, consider them second-class citizens.

 

 

I apologize for making blanket statements. I've tried to be clear that not all Christians are the same, not even all evangelicals. As for as I understand it, we're talking about three groups: Christians as a whole, which represents around 75% of the American population. From what I understand about half of American Christians are "Evangelical" - which I understand to adhere to being born again - and a smaller percentage are "fundamentalist" which I understand as believing in Biblical literalism. The other half of the total are either Catholic or "casual Protestants."

 

As I've said before, I have no problem with Christianity in principle. I consider Jesus Christ as being one of the great spiritual teachers of humanity, although I don't put him on a higher pedestal than I do, say, the Buddha. What I have a problem with is Christians who A) don't practice the "religion of love" that Christ taught, namely through hatred or discrimination against gays, Muslims, etc; and Biblical literalists, which to me is a rather vociferous form of ignorance.

 

Most Christians I know are of the more "casual Protestant" type - either Unitarians or members of the small Christian Community. I have met and conversed with Mormons and evangelicals and found both to be rather locked into their worldview with little open-mindedness. I have also met people who have become "free" from Biblical literalism.

 

I have no problem with anyone believing what they want to believe. I don't claim to know "the truth" about reality and see all religions, belief systems, and ideologies to have varying degrees of truth. But I do have a problem with religion dictating legal policy. In my mind, separation of Church and State is a generally positive development in Western civilization. If you look at the historical record, terrible things have been done in the name of religion - from the Crusades to the Inquisition, the witch burnings, etc. Today we have extremist Islamic jihad, but also "softer" forms of religious hatred like we see in the US in terms of discrimination against gays, and so forth.

 

I have said that I like Bill Maher quite a bit, but one area that I diverge with him is that while I share his criticism of fundamentalist religion - be it Christian, Islamic, or other - I don't like how he puts all religion in the same basket. I have met amazing religious people, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, etc. Maher himself is a big fan of the Pope, which is good to hear. But my point is, I don't agree with Maher's extreme (dare I say fundamentalist) atheism, perhaps because I have had my own "religious experiences" that led me to believe that the atheistic scientific/materialistic worldview is impoverished.

 

It is also worth noting that Christianity is seeing a generational decline in the United States, so more and more we're going to see policies that reflect a "secular humanism" that is supposed to serve everyone. Check out this info: http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/pr_15-05-12_rls-01/

 

 

Anyhow, I hope that clarifies where I'm coming from.

 

 

Good point. I should have said "mainly," because that is what I meant.

 

That said, I will be honest and say that I think fundamentalism by its very nature is not intelligent. But this isn't only Christian fundamentalism - fundamentalism is by definition an narrowness of thinking, an inability to think outside one's own mental conditioning. Certainly we're all conditioned, we all have limitations, but some worldviews and ideologies are more or less expansive. Religious fundamentalism is one of the most narrow worldviews extant in the world today and I think we need to evolve/develop out of it. Just as there are different degrees of psychological maturity, so too are there different degrees of "religious maturity" - IMHO, of course! We can look at the difference between a Bryan Fischer and the Dalai Lama, or Jimmy Swaggart and the Pope.

[Angelsjunky]

So, then you wouldn't really face persecution. If you were interviewed by the FBI, you'd say that people have the right to marry people of the same sex (gays always could marry, but they couldn't marry a person of the same sex, like bisexuals have to deny part of their love today), but that you think it's not Christian(?). I'm talking about people who have a different interpretation of marriage and that the public policy should reflect that view. 

 

I don't know what you mean by the first two sentences. Could you clarify?

 

As to the last, yes, we have people with different interpretations of marriage. So what is your solution? I'm also pointing out that many Christians support gay marriage, so it isn't so clear that all Christians are against it. If that was the case, then we could separate "Christian marriage" and "secular marriage."

[Kevin]

My Facebook feed lately looks like a war between the confederates and a skittles factory.

I shamelessly stole this from someone else but thought we could use a little humor.

[Angelsjunky]

Take away: Disagreeing with gay marriage is bigotry. What does society do with bigots? 

 

You tried to be respectful so I won't go into details about your arguments. 

 

Well in my view we're all bigots, if we accept the google search definition of "intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself."

 

Aren't we all intolerant towards something? I admit to bigotry towards neo-Nazis, neo-cons, fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, corporatists, political correct fascists, etc etc. I don't "hate" them - actually, it is my own version of "love the sinner, hate the sin."

 

But I think the point is to evolve ourselves, to learn to be open to other ways of being in the world. That said, I also disagree with the radical pluralism of many liberal academics that ask us to accept things like clitoral castration as being "culturally appropriate."

[juansavage1]

Sorry. I'll be glad to clarify. Christians who agree with gay marriage will not be persecuted.

Obama said that Americans have a "freedom to worship," which defacto means that you can go to church and believe things as long as you don't take it outside and let it interfere with the workings of society. It's kind of how the vast majority of Christians thought about homosexuality 20 years ago.

My standard of persecution is working for the FBI. There's a thread here about how horrible it was that homosexuals couldn't work for the FBI.

So, if you apply for the FBI, you're good. I'm a bigot so I probably wouldn't be given a chance.

I don't know what you mean by the first two sentences. Could you clarify?

As to the last, yes, we have people with different interpretations of marriage. So what is your solution? I'm also pointing out that many Christians support gay marriage, so it isn't so clear that all Christians are against it. If that was the case, then we could separate "Christian marriage" and "secular marriage."

[juansavage1]

Bigotry isn't just disagreeing or hating (I hate mean people therefore I'm a bigot). It has to have an irrational component. If it just meant that, then the word as a pejorative is meaningless.

Wait, I suppose you can just mean it as you say, but then you'd be equating not letting people marry the same sex with hating nazis. I don't think that's what you meant.

Well in my view we're all bigots, if we accept the google search definition of "intolerance toward those who hold different opinions from oneself."

Aren't we all intolerant towards something? I admit to bigotry towards neo-Nazis, neo-cons, fundamentalist Christians and Muslims, corporatists, political correct fascists, etc etc. I don't "hate" them - actually, it is my own version of "love the sinner, hate the sin."

But I think the point is to evolve ourselves, to learn to be open to other ways of being in the world. That said, I also disagree with the radical pluralism of many liberal academics that ask us to accept things like clitoral castration as being "culturally appropriate."

[Crampknees]

I can't keep up. 

[gotbeer]

My Facebook feed lately looks like a war between the confederates and a skittles factory.

I shamelessly stole this from someone else but thought we could use a little humor.

 

So should we settle it the usual way?

[TobiasFunke]

I can't either. I got lost once the FBI was thrown into this mess