The Vitriol of the Pro-Gay Agenda

[dbohm]

In a debate currently occurring under the title of "Can you choose what gender you are attracted to?", I have been called a homophobe, ignorant and bigot by people who I otherwise have a high regard for in this forum.

Nowhere did I even say that homosexuality was even so much as immoral in my posts. Yet because I was putting forward a secular argument against gay marriage that is opposed to the current pro-gay agenda, I'm called any number of names.

Is this really the way to debate what is currently a very controversial and significant issue for everyone? Is it a legitimate tactic to shout down your opponents by calling them ignorant bigots because they have reasoned concerns?

[WinePusher]

No, it's not bigoted to label someone who is bigoted a "bigot".

Way to point out the obvious.

It obviously isn't bigoted to call someone else a bigot. But, it is juvenille, unintelligable, immature, closeminded, presumptioious, and an ad hominem. It's also very intolerant so it's incredibly ironic that liberals, who claim to have a monopoly on tolerance, always engage in namecalling of this sort.

I was responding to someone who said it was. His post was quoted correctly and fully visible. If it's so obvious why didn't you say anything to him? Is it because I'm the liberal atheist, and he isn't? Clearly, you have an ax to grind.

Actually, his post was only technically wrong. The overall point that he seemed to be trying to convey (that it is inappropriate to call names in a formal debate) is correct. You seem to have no problem with namecalling in debate, as evidenced by your outrageous outburst against olavisjo, and that only reinforces the negative sterotype against liberals and atheists. When you call other people names like 'bigot' or 'idiot' don't be surprised when other debaters on here start 'grinding axes' at you.

You still seem to think it's intolerant. I've heard this silly "it's intolerant to be intolerant of intolerance" argument before.

The problem here is that you liberals tend to label any and all disagreements as 'bigoted' or 'hateful.' Apparently, if you disagree with Star about gay marriage you're a bigot, and if you disagree with Star about aspects of evolutionary theory you're an idiot. That is not being intolerant of intolerance, that is simply being intolerant or disagreements and dissenting opinions which indicates closemindedness.

Obviously there is a distinction between unfair intolerance and fair intolerance, and obviously, what is considered "fair" is subjective. We're intolerant of murder, but that obviously doesn't make us "intolerant" in the context we mean. All arguments I've seen in favor of intolerance towards homosexuals (particularly males) are invalid. All concerns are unjustified. Mental health professionals feel very strongly it's something that isn't going away and must be accepted for the best mental health of all, from suicidal gay teens to the most rabid of homophobes, and the evidence supports this.

Let's be clear. I also do not tolerate real bigotry and real persecution and oppression that comes from radical Christians like the Westboro Baptist Church and radical Muslims. However, I would not say that opposition to gay marriage is bigotry, or oppressrion, or persecution. I am not going to dilute, trivialize and belitte the problem of bigotry, persecution and oppression by doing such a heinous thing, even though liberals have no problem with doing it themselves. I recognize that opposition to gay marriage is a political disagreement and can never be logically and rationally considered bigotry, persecution or oppression.

[Star]

Actually, his post was only technically wrong.

I know it was technically wrong. That is the reason I corrected it. What about this confuses you?

The overall point that he seemed to be trying to convey (that it is inappropriate to call names in a formal debate) is correct.

I only disagreed with him that calling a bigot a "bigot" isn't bigoted.

You seem to have no problem with namecalling in debate, as evidenced by your outrageous outburst against olavisjo, and that only reinforces the negative sterotype against liberals and atheists. When you call other people names like 'bigot' or 'idiot' don't be surprised when other debaters on here start 'grinding axes' at you.

He was intentionally perpetrating ridiculous strawman that we spent time trying to clarify for him. It wasn't a formal debate by any stretch. I offered to help explain it to him further if he still didn't understand. The problem is when people aren't interested in debating what their opponent is actually saying and instead supplant their own strawmen. My opinion of people who continually employ these feckless tactics stay "as is".

The problem here is that you liberals tend to label any and all disagreements as 'bigoted' or 'hateful.' Apparently, if you disagree with Star about gay marriage you're a bigot, and if you disagree with Star about aspects of evolutionary theory you're an idiot. That is not being intolerant of intolerance, that is simply being intolerant or disagreements and dissenting opinions which indicates closemindedness.

Strawman. I actually said somewhere here recently (in one of the many recent gay threads) that people aren't necessarily bigoted just for disagreeing with gay marriage. I clarified that bigots in this context are specifically people who admit they don't like gay people in general for reasons readily debunked. Why do you guys do this? I suppose strawmen make it easier for you. If so, I not only think it's unethical, but lazy.

Being prejudiced against people based on false stereotypes and irrational fear, and not accepting correction when quality information to the contrary is presented to them, is close-minded. Simply disagreeing them in itself isn't intolerant or closeminded.

If someone ever tried to prevent other people from getting married just because they are prejudiced, then I agree that would be ironically intolerant itself. But simply recognizing that people have prejudices, even if it involves ascribing a label to it (racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, etc.) isn't intolerant, in and of itself.

Let's be clear. I also do not tolerate real bigotry and real persecution and oppression that comes from radical Christians like the Westboro Baptist Church and radical Muslims. However, I would not say that opposition to gay marriage is bigotry, or oppressrion, or persecution. I am not going to dilute, trivialize and belitte the problem of bigotry, persecution and oppression by doing such a heinous thing, even though liberals have no problem with doing it themselves. I recognize that opposition to gay marriage is a political disagreement and can never be logically and rationally considered bigotry, persecution or oppression.

All that sounds good, except opposing gay marriage is oppression when you actually enforce it, either directly. It goes beyond just disagreeing with it when you impose your morals on others. If gay atheist liberals ever outlawed Christian marriage, I'm sure you'd change your tune quite quickly.

[99percentatheism]

Star:

All that sounds good, except opposing gay marriage is oppression when you actually enforce it, either directly.

Who gave homosexuals the right to redefine marriage? Can a man be another man's wife? OR husband?

Can a woman be another woman's wife? OR husband?

The intolerance didn't start with the "protect marriage crowd."

It goes beyond just disagreeing with it when you impose your morals on others.

Liberals, progressives, atheoists yada, yada, yada, are imposing their views on others. knocking over the apple cart and then blaming the apple cart's owner for being intolerant and in the way of the disrutive action.

If gay atheist liberals ever outlawed Christian marriage, I'm sure you'd change your tune quite quickly.

Ever heard of the catacombs?

The symbol of thre Christian fish would make a comeback in a real way. And not just as a bumper sticker that gets insulted by atheists.

What Christian really cares what persecution these people will really impose on us? If our genesis as "The Church" is an indication of the answer, we will not care at all.

)

It is said that during the persecution of the early church, a Christian meeting someone new would draw a single arc in the sand. If the other person was a Christian, he or she would complete the drawing of a fish with a second arc. If the second person was not a Christian, the ambiguity of the half-symbol would not reveal the first person as a Christian.

Today, when Christians (in the West)* do not need to worry about persecution, the Christian fish symbol often has "Jesus" written inside or includes a cross symbol. And of course, there have been many spoofs and variations of the popular Christian symbol, such as the famous "Darwin fish" (with legs).



- http://www.religionfacts.com/christiani ... s/fish.htm

* Of course times "change" now don't they.

[McCulloch]

Who gave homosexuals the right to redefine marriage? Can a man be another man's wife? OR husband?

Can a woman be another woman's wife? OR husband?

The intolerance didn't start with the "protect marriage crowd."

There is no intolerance in the pro-gay agenda. We have no problem with heterosexuals continuing to get married. In fact, in Canada, where same sex marriage has been legal for about ten years, men and women do continue to get married to each other just like before. My own heterosexual marriage of over thirty years has in no way been threatened by the legalization of gay marriages.

Asking, which woman in a lesbian marriage is the wife is kind of like asking which chopstick is the fork. Not all spouses are necessarily husbands or wives.

[Star]

Who gave homosexuals the right to redefine marriage? Can a man be another man's wife? OR husband?

Who gave you the right to define marriage for others?

Can a woman be another woman's wife? OR husband?

They can call themselves whatever they wish. It doesn't matter.

The intolerance didn't start with the "protect marriage crowd."

I never said it did. Try sticking to arguing what I actually say, please.

Liberals, progressives, atheoists yada, yada, yada, are imposing their views on others. knocking over the apple cart and then blaming the apple cart's owner for being intolerant and in the way of the disrutive action.

You seem to be confused about what "imposing" means. Existing, and being tolerated and accepted, isn't imposing. Imposing is when you try forcing others to conform to your personal moral code for no good defensible reason. You have no right to dictate how people live when 1) that's the way they were born, and 2) they're consenting adults, and 3) they aren't hurting anything.

Get over it.

[dbohm]

[Replying to Star]

It's not so straight forward as you'd like to make it. Legalising gay marriage does mean the imposition of that view on others if the Canadian experience is anything to go by

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/11/6758/

It's just as well you and McCulloch agree with gay marriage because life would not be so comfortable if you held a principled or reasoned objection to it.

[McCulloch]

[Replying to Star]

It's not so straight forward as you'd like to make it. Legalising gay marriage does mean the imposition of that view on others if the Canadian experience is anything to go by

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/11/6758/

It's just as well you and McCulloch agree with gay marriage because life would not be so comfortable if you held a principled or reasoned objection to it.

I know some Christians who agree with Jesus about divorce and remarriage. To them, a person who gets a divorce for the wrong reasons and remarries is committing adultery, just as Jesus himself says. These people who hold a principled and reasoned objection to many remarriages, considering them to be adulterous. However, when a couple that they know, where one or both of the partners has been improperly remarried is presented to them, outside of a church situation, they still treat them as being married. If running a Bed and Breakfast, they would not think to insist that they keep separate rooms.

Yes, in Canada, where same sex-marriage is legal and where discrimination against sexual orientation is protected along with discrimination on religious, ethnic or racial grounds. If what you have to say about same-sex marriage would be discriminatory if applied for instance to mixed race marriage, then the publisher and/or writer of such statements can be charged with discrimination. In the enacting legislation, our Parliament took the extraordinary measure to explicitly exclude religious groups from having to perform same-sex marriages. Personally, I look at it like the prohibition against pork by certain other religions. They are free to refuse pork-eaters from their religious groups and to refuse themselves from eating pork. But for those who are not Jewish or Muslim, they have no right to curtail my bacon and ham. Similarly, Christian religious groups are free to exclude same-sex couples and to refuse to perform same-sex marriages. They are even free to tell their own members that homosexual behavior (or pork eating) is a sin or unclean. But they have no right to make the rules for those who do not adhere to their beliefs. They cannot discriminate against same-sex couples any more than Jews or Muslims could discriminate against pork eating people.

Similar pressure can be—and is—brought to bear on dissenters by professional governing bodies (such as bar associations, teachers’ colleges, and the like) that have statutory power to discipline members for conduct unbecoming of the profession. Expressions of disagreement with the reasonableness of institutionalizing same-sex marriage are understood by these bodies to be acts of illegal discrimination, which are matters for professional censure.

This is as it should be. If the disagreement with same-sex marriage is based only on their religious beliefs, then it has no place in their professional conduct. A Christian teacher, for example, should not publicly while at work, expound on his belief that a same-sex marriage is sinful any more than his belief that certain Hindu parents of some of the students may be idolators according to his beliefs.

Since one of the tenets of the new orthodoxy is that same-sex relationships deserve the same respect that we give marriage, its proponents have been remarkably successful in demanding that same-sex marriage be depicted positively in the classroom. Curriculum reforms in jurisdictions such as British Columbia now prevent parents from exercising their long-held veto power over contentious educational practices. [...] Courts have been unsympathetic to parental objections: if parents are clinging to outdated bigotries, then children must bear the burden of “cognitive dissonance�—they must absorb conflicting things from home and school while school tries to win out.

I don't know what long-held veto power Bradley Miller thinks that parents have. Do you think that educational material with positive depictions of mixed race marriages would be withdrawn because some white supremacist parents complained? Neither do I. Do you think that teachers should be taught to not teach the civic duty to vote to their female students, if some of the parents' religions were strongly patriarchal? This is no different.

Neither does it prevent provincial and municipal governments from withholding benefits to religious congregations because of their marriage doctrine. For example, Bill 13, the same Ontario statute that compels Catholic schools to host "Gay-Straight Alliance" clubs (and to use that particular name),

What Bradley Miller neglected to make clear, is that in Ontario, unlike just about any other jurisdiction in North America, the Roman Catholic school system is not a private school system run by a church. It is a fully publicly funded school system. And while the taxpayers of Ontario fully pays the bill for this system, they are obliged to follow the same curriculum and human rights principles as the other publicly funded system. Personally, I agree with the United Nations Human Rights Tribunal; Ontario should not fund one religious educational system.

Once one abandons a conjugal conception of marriage, and replaces it with a conception of marriage that has adult companionship as its focus, there is no principled basis for resisting the extension of marriage licenses to polygamist and polyamorist unions.

I do find it amusing to see (presumably Christian) opponents of gay marriage bring up the polygamy issue. Don't they know that the prohibition in the Bible against homosexuality is so much clearer than any alleged prohibition against polygamy? What they are in essence saying is that we should not allow this which is clearly wrong, according to our Bible, because it might encourage people to do that where the prohibition is ambiguous. Ha ha.

He seems to have a problem with the idea that marriage is about satisfying adult desires for companionship. Isn't it? Should my widowed mother not remarry?

[Danmark]

Who gave homosexuals the right to redefine marriage? Can a man be another man's wife? OR husband?

Can a woman be another woman's wife? OR husband?

The intolerance didn't start with the "protect marriage crowd."

There is no intolerance in the pro-gay agenda. We have no problem with heterosexuals continuing to get married. In fact, in Canada, where same sex marriage has been legal for about ten years, men and women do continue to get married to each other just like before. My own heterosexual marriage of over thirty years has in no way been threatened by the legalization of gay marriages.

Asking, which woman in a lesbian marriage is the wife is kind of like asking which chopstick is the fork. Not all spouses are necessarily husbands or wives.

"...[W]hich chopstick is the fork?"
As you say, gay marriage does not threaten marriage. It simply is an idea that annoys or offends some people.
I have twice asked 99% how he has personally been 'oppressed' by this secular culture. He has yet to answer, yet call of 'oppression' continues.

I ask again, of anyone who proclaims 'oppression' because he is a Christian, to tell us his or her personal story of the 'oppression' he or she has suffered solely because of Christian beliefs.

My experience with marriage is that the threat to it is purely personal and has nothing to do with same sex marriage. I would be interested to hear exactly how same sex marriage has had any impact on the marriage of any member of this forum.

[99percentatheism]

[Replying to Star]

It's not so straight forward as you'd like to make it. Legalising gay marriage does mean the imposition of that view on others if the Canadian experience is anything to go by

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/11/6758/

It's just as well you and McCulloch agree with gay marriage because life would not be so comfortable if you held a principled or reasoned objection to it.

I know some Christians who agree with Jesus about divorce and remarriage. To them, a person who gets a divorce for the wrong reasons and remarries is committing adultery, just as Jesus himself says. These people who hold a principled and reasoned objection to many remarriages, considering them to be adulterous. However, when a couple that they know, where one or both of the partners has been improperly remarried is presented to them, outside of a church situation, they still treat them as being married. If running a Bed and Breakfast, they would not think to insist that they keep separate rooms.

Yes, in Canada, where same sex-marriage is legal and where discrimination against sexual orientation is protected along with discrimination on religious, ethnic or racial grounds. If what you have to say about same-sex marriage would be discriminatory if applied for instance to mixed race marriage, then the publisher and/or writer of such statements can be charged with discrimination. In the enacting legislation, our Parliament took the extraordinary measure to explicitly exclude religious groups from having to perform same-sex marriages. Personally, I look at it like the prohibition against pork by certain other religions. They are free to refuse pork-eaters from their religious groups and to refuse themselves from eating pork. But for those who are not Jewish or Muslim, they have no right to curtail my bacon and ham. Similarly, Christian religious groups are free to exclude same-sex couples and to refuse to perform same-sex marriages. They are even free to tell their own members that homosexual behavior (or pork eating) is a sin or unclean. But they have no right to make the rules for those who do not adhere to their beliefs. They cannot discriminate against same-sex couples any more than Jews or Muslims could discriminate against pork eating people.

Similar pressure can be—and is—brought to bear on dissenters by professional governing bodies (such as bar associations, teachers’ colleges, and the like) that have statutory power to discipline members for conduct unbecoming of the profession. Expressions of disagreement with the reasonableness of institutionalizing same-sex marriage are understood by these bodies to be acts of illegal discrimination, which are matters for professional censure.

This is as it should be. If the disagreement with same-sex marriage is based only on their religious beliefs, then it has no place in their professional conduct. A Christian teacher, for example, should not publicly while at work, expound on his belief that a same-sex marriage is sinful any more than his belief that certain Hindu parents of some of the students may be idolators according to his beliefs.

Since one of the tenets of the new orthodoxy is that same-sex relationships deserve the same respect that we give marriage, its proponents have been remarkably successful in demanding that same-sex marriage be depicted positively in the classroom. Curriculum reforms in jurisdictions such as British Columbia now prevent parents from exercising their long-held veto power over contentious educational practices. [...] Courts have been unsympathetic to parental objections: if parents are clinging to outdated bigotries, then children must bear the burden of “cognitive dissonance�—they must absorb conflicting things from home and school while school tries to win out.

I don't know what long-held veto power Bradley Miller thinks that parents have. Do you think that educational material with positive depictions of mixed race marriages would be withdrawn because some white supremacist parents complained? Neither do I. Do you think that teachers should be taught to not teach the civic duty to vote to their female students, if some of the parents' religions were strongly patriarchal? This is no different.

Neither does it prevent provincial and municipal governments from withholding benefits to religious congregations because of their marriage doctrine. For example, Bill 13, the same Ontario statute that compels Catholic schools to host "Gay-Straight Alliance" clubs (and to use that particular name),

What Bradley Miller neglected to make clear, is that in Ontario, unlike just about any other jurisdiction in North America, the Roman Catholic school system is not a private school system run by a church. It is a fully publicly funded school system. And while the taxpayers of Ontario fully pays the bill for this system, they are obliged to follow the same curriculum and human rights principles as the other publicly funded system. Personally, I agree with the United Nations Human Rights Tribunal; Ontario should not fund one religious educational system.

Once one abandons a conjugal conception of marriage, and replaces it with a conception of marriage that has adult companionship as its focus, there is no principled basis for resisting the extension of marriage licenses to polygamist and polyamorist unions.

I do find it amusing to see (presumably Christian) opponents of gay marriage bring up the polygamy issue. Don't they know that the prohibition in the Bible against homosexuality is so much clearer than any alleged prohibition against polygamy? What they are in essence saying is that we should not allow this which is clearly wrong, according to our Bible, because it might encourage people to do that where the prohibition is ambiguous. Ha ha.

He seems to have a problem with the idea that marriage is about satisfying adult desires for companionship. Isn't it? Should my widowed mother not remarry?

I read your entite post. My mouth agape that Catholics are forced to endure pro homosexuality groups such as GSA. But Oh Well I guess. Once they start funding Muslim and Jewish schools, then Christ as God Almighty will have to a place for expression in these Muslim and Jewish schools. Kind of a fringe benefit, maybe, coming our way

But what I find odd is how the promotion of homosexuality seems to be missed by secularists. To homosexual activists, gay marriage is about the full acceptance (by compulsion of law) that homosexual acts are just another version of the erotic fun people can have sexually. Otherwise you would hear of teachings ANF preaching from gay liberation proponnents that gay sex is wrong for people that are not, or do not "possess" a homosexual orientation.

And of course, once again, I guess that's just something that we Christians must teach our children (at every or any age) to be able to contend against once they are in the "anything goes" morality of "public" education. Or, as in the case of Ontario, the publically funded education system. Like Paul has written, it is time for Christians to grow up and face the reality in a mature manner, that we live in a hostile and permissive world of erotica that seeks more and more flesh to imbibe. I mean, have you ever heard a pro-gay sermon preaching holiness of sexual behavior? That would be quite the oxymoron don't you think? Talk about cognitive dissonance.

And, if we want our children, our families and converts to the faith, to be able to defend against the onslaught of unfettered lasciviousness being pushed onto our children, we have to get a bt more savvy about what our adversaries have in store for the most vulnerable in our congregations. The rise of gay power gives us the great opportunity to showcase the world and its ways, versus the mission of The Church. Right now, we still have the freedom to reach out to parents and youth in society that are strarting to realize that something has gone too far. It's exciting to see that we are basically back to the sexually permissive environment of the First Century Church. With the same charge of hostes humani generis, "Enemies of Mankind" (http://christiannews.net/2013/06/27/sca ... uman-race/) for our vocal and Biblical dissent of unfettered sexual expression and the attack on the definition of marriage.

For the time has come: . . . when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

This is exciting times to be a Christian.

[Joab]

[Replying to Star]

It's not so straight forward as you'd like to make it. Legalising gay marriage does mean the imposition of that view on others if the Canadian experience is anything to go by

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/11/6758/

It's just as well you and McCulloch agree with gay marriage because life would not be so comfortable if you held a principled or reasoned objection to it.

I know some Christians who agree with Jesus about divorce and remarriage. To them, a person who gets a divorce for the wrong reasons and remarries is committing adultery, just as Jesus himself says. These people who hold a principled and reasoned objection to many remarriages, considering them to be adulterous. However, when a couple that they know, where one or both of the partners has been improperly remarried is presented to them, outside of a church situation, they still treat them as being married. If running a Bed and Breakfast, they would not think to insist that they keep separate rooms.

Yes, in Canada, where same sex-marriage is legal and where discrimination against sexual orientation is protected along with discrimination on religious, ethnic or racial grounds. If what you have to say about same-sex marriage would be discriminatory if applied for instance to mixed race marriage, then the publisher and/or writer of such statements can be charged with discrimination. In the enacting legislation, our Parliament took the extraordinary measure to explicitly exclude religious groups from having to perform same-sex marriages. Personally, I look at it like the prohibition against pork by certain other religions. They are free to refuse pork-eaters from their religious groups and to refuse themselves from eating pork. But for those who are not Jewish or Muslim, they have no right to curtail my bacon and ham. Similarly, Christian religious groups are free to exclude same-sex couples and to refuse to perform same-sex marriages. They are even free to tell their own members that homosexual behavior (or pork eating) is a sin or unclean. But they have no right to make the rules for those who do not adhere to their beliefs. They cannot discriminate against same-sex couples any more than Jews or Muslims could discriminate against pork eating people.

Similar pressure can be—and is—brought to bear on dissenters by professional governing bodies (such as bar associations, teachers’ colleges, and the like) that have statutory power to discipline members for conduct unbecoming of the profession. Expressions of disagreement with the reasonableness of institutionalizing same-sex marriage are understood by these bodies to be acts of illegal discrimination, which are matters for professional censure.

This is as it should be. If the disagreement with same-sex marriage is based only on their religious beliefs, then it has no place in their professional conduct. A Christian teacher, for example, should not publicly while at work, expound on his belief that a same-sex marriage is sinful any more than his belief that certain Hindu parents of some of the students may be idolators according to his beliefs.

Since one of the tenets of the new orthodoxy is that same-sex relationships deserve the same respect that we give marriage, its proponents have been remarkably successful in demanding that same-sex marriage be depicted positively in the classroom. Curriculum reforms in jurisdictions such as British Columbia now prevent parents from exercising their long-held veto power over contentious educational practices. [...] Courts have been unsympathetic to parental objections: if parents are clinging to outdated bigotries, then children must bear the burden of “cognitive dissonance�—they must absorb conflicting things from home and school while school tries to win out.

I don't know what long-held veto power Bradley Miller thinks that parents have. Do you think that educational material with positive depictions of mixed race marriages would be withdrawn because some white supremacist parents complained? Neither do I. Do you think that teachers should be taught to not teach the civic duty to vote to their female students, if some of the parents' religions were strongly patriarchal? This is no different.

Neither does it prevent provincial and municipal governments from withholding benefits to religious congregations because of their marriage doctrine. For example, Bill 13, the same Ontario statute that compels Catholic schools to host "Gay-Straight Alliance" clubs (and to use that particular name),

What Bradley Miller neglected to make clear, is that in Ontario, unlike just about any other jurisdiction in North America, the Roman Catholic school system is not a private school system run by a church. It is a fully publicly funded school system. And while the taxpayers of Ontario fully pays the bill for this system, they are obliged to follow the same curriculum and human rights principles as the other publicly funded system. Personally, I agree with the United Nations Human Rights Tribunal; Ontario should not fund one religious educational system.

Once one abandons a conjugal conception of marriage, and replaces it with a conception of marriage that has adult companionship as its focus, there is no principled basis for resisting the extension of marriage licenses to polygamist and polyamorist unions.

I do find it amusing to see (presumably Christian) opponents of gay marriage bring up the polygamy issue. Don't they know that the prohibition in the Bible against homosexuality is so much clearer than any alleged prohibition against polygamy? What they are in essence saying is that we should not allow this which is clearly wrong, according to our Bible, because it might encourage people to do that where the prohibition is ambiguous. Ha ha.

He seems to have a problem with the idea that marriage is about satisfying adult desires for companionship. Isn't it? Should my widowed mother not remarry?

I read your entite post. My mouth agape that Catholics are forced to endure pro homosexuality groups such as GSA. But Oh Well I guess. Once they start funding Muslim and Jewish schools, then Christ as God Almighty will have to a place for expression in these Muslim and Jewish schools. Kind of a fringe benefit, maybe, coming our way

But what I find odd is how the promotion of homosexuality seems to be missed by secularists. To homosexual activists, gay marriage is about the full acceptance (by compulsion of law) that homosexual acts are just another version of the erotic fun people can have sexually. Otherwise you would hear of teachings ANF preaching from gay liberation proponnents that gay sex is wrong for people that are not, or do not "possess" a homosexual orientation.

And of course, once again, I guess that's just something that we Christians must teach our children (at every or any age) to be able to contend against once they are in the "anything goes" morality of "public" education. Or, as in the case of Ontario, the publically funded education system. Like Paul has written, it is time for Christians to grow up and face the reality in a mature manner, that we live in a hostile and permissive world of erotica that seeks more and more flesh to imbibe. I mean, have you ever heard a pro-gay sermon preaching holiness of sexual behavior? That would be quite the oxymoron don't you think? Talk about cognitive dissonance.

And, if we want our children, our families and converts to the faith, to be able to defend against the onslaught of unfettered lasciviousness being pushed onto our children, we have to get a bt more savvy about what our adversaries have in store for the most vulnerable in our congregations. The rise of gay power gives us the great opportunity to showcase the world and its ways, versus the mission of The Church. Right now, we still have the freedom to reach out to parents and youth in society that are strarting to realize that something has gone too far. It's exciting to see that we are basically back to the sexually permissive environment of the First Century Church. With the same charge of hostes humani generis, "Enemies of Mankind" (http://christiannews.net/2013/06/27/sca ... uman-race/) for our vocal and Biblical dissent of unfettered sexual expression and the attack on the definition of marriage.

For the time has come: . . . when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.

This is exciting times to be a Christian.

You continue to speak on behalf of christians.

Who gave you any such authority?

In my opinion you would have greater credibility were you to admit that you speak for you and no other.