"Moderate" rejection of homosexual rights

[JoeyKnothead]

Many folks object to homosexuals having a right to marriage based on religious reasons - duh.

For debate:

Is there a qualitative difference between the message of the Westboro Baptist Church and "moderate" Christians / theists who oppose homosexual marriage?

(edit for speling)

[Slopeshoulder]

Would you make a distinction between "disapproval" and "hate", or do you recognize no such distinction?

Intensity, I guess. I dislike it when people sing along to the radio, but I don't hate 'em. On a subject such as "approval of homosexuality", I guess the difference for teaching your children would be... "Just leave them be, go about your life and let them make their mistakes" as opposed to "inform them that they're going to Hell." There's also a distinction to be made in allowing people to do things legally while still not liking the task, and wanting it to be criminalized/constitutionally never allowed.

It seems to me that there is a three-fold distinction that should be made here (but often is not) among three different things:

1) having a sexual attraction to people of the same sex as oneself
2) engaging in sexual acts with people of the same sex as oneself
3) redefining marriage to include couples who do #2.

Do you think that people should be allowed to express the view that homosexual inclination is a disorder, and/or that homosexual acts are wrong, and/or that gay marriage should not be allowed? Or would you consider it hate only if they actually say that they hate gays, or that gays are going to hell, or that gays are subhuman, etc.?

With regard to #3, should people be allowed to vote state by state on whether or not to allow gay marriage, or is the matter so obvious that the state courts (or even the Supreme Court) should step in and legalize it?

Enough interrogation.

What do YOU think? It's clear to all the primrose path your trying to create. How about just statin' it and debatin' it?

Perhaps you would like to do it for me, since you seem to know my mind.

Second request: please state your position. Interrogation isn't debate.

[jmac2112]

Do you think that people should be allowed to express the view that homosexual inclination is a disorder, and/or that homosexual acts are wrong, and/or that gay marriage should not be allowed? Or would you consider it hate only if they actually say that they hate gays, or that gays are going to hell, or that gays are subhuman, etc.?

There are laws on defining what hatespeech is, but I'm not particularly well read on them. People trying to push that homosexuality is a disorder... I'm not happy with them, but I think it's within their rights. Outright stating that gays are going to Hell (if that counts as violent threats?), or making figures up about how homosexual people are bad (There are fabrications floating around about pedophiles and correlations to homosexuality...), or directly inciting violence against homosexuals... not so good. So I suppose the first could be fine if not plastered in public places, but the second is less appreciable.

So, we could distinguish between a) those who say that they think homosexual inclination is a disorder, or that homosexual acts are wrong, or that gay marriage is a bad idea, and b) those (like the members of the Westboro Baptist Church) who target homosexuals and publically harass them and make it very clear that they really, realy hate gays and want them to go to hell. Perhaps we have found the "qualitative distinction" that the OP mentioned.

With regard to #3, should people be allowed to vote state by state on whether or not to allow gay marriage, or is the matter so obvious that the state courts (or even the Supreme Court) should step in and legalize it?

I'm a big fan of state rights, and the state making decisions. Normally I'd say let each state have their own word on it, as that would keep individual populations contained and happy. The problem with that, though, is that marriage is meant to be common law. If it's recognized in one state, the other states are forced to respect it. Perhaps civil unions could be federally mandatory, but the rights that marriages give are decided on a state level? That's just my two cents on it, and I'm likely wrong about what rights states have in deciding marriage.

I like state's rights, too. But it is a thorny issue, as you note.

[jmac2112]

Would you make a distinction between "disapproval" and "hate", or do you recognize no such distinction?

Intensity, I guess. I dislike it when people sing along to the radio, but I don't hate 'em. On a subject such as "approval of homosexuality", I guess the difference for teaching your children would be... "Just leave them be, go about your life and let them make their mistakes" as opposed to "inform them that they're going to Hell." There's also a distinction to be made in allowing people to do things legally while still not liking the task, and wanting it to be criminalized/constitutionally never allowed.

It seems to me that there is a three-fold distinction that should be made here (but often is not) among three different things:

1) having a sexual attraction to people of the same sex as oneself
2) engaging in sexual acts with people of the same sex as oneself
3) redefining marriage to include couples who do #2.

Do you think that people should be allowed to express the view that homosexual inclination is a disorder, and/or that homosexual acts are wrong, and/or that gay marriage should not be allowed? Or would you consider it hate only if they actually say that they hate gays, or that gays are going to hell, or that gays are subhuman, etc.?

With regard to #3, should people be allowed to vote state by state on whether or not to allow gay marriage, or is the matter so obvious that the state courts (or even the Supreme Court) should step in and legalize it?

Enough interrogation.

What do YOU think? It's clear to all the primrose path your trying to create. How about just statin' it and debatin' it?

Perhaps you would like to do it for me, since you seem to know my mind.

Second request: please state your position. Interrogation isn't debate.

My request: Stop bothering me while I am attempting to clarify the position of others. It's hard to debate unless you know exactly what is under discussion. Read my latest post to see the conclusion I have reached regarding the OP's question.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 14:

What do the words "right" and "wrong" mean to you?

Right.

Wrong.

How would you tell the difference?

Discernment.

Now that we have these commonly understood words defined...

Care to comment on the OP?

[Slopeshoulder]

My request:

Invalid request.

Stop bothering me

You may find me bothersome, but I am not bothering you; I am asking you to clarify your opinion, or at least balance this out vs. your requests of others to clarify. Socratic questioning is not debate. Nor are one liners.

while I am attempting to clarify the position of others.

You do see the irony in this right?

It's hard to debate unless you know exactly what is under discussion.

I refer you to the OP.

Read my latest post to see the conclusion I have reached regarding the OP's question.

I'll look for it. If it is unclear, I shall make a third request.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 16:

Here's what I believe should happen.

1. The government should get out of the business of 'marriage' insofar as the word means anything OTHER than civil rights and responsibilities. It should call those rights and responsibilities by some other term; civil unions...something.

If you're so inclined, why not have the church get out of the business of marriage?

What church holds title to the definition of the word "marriage"?

2. Religious leaders should NOT be allowed to confirm any marriage that has any legal rights attached to it.

Actually, they don't have such now. They are allowed to perform a religious ritual, and little else. It is the government (at least in the US) that holds such "legal right" to say who is and who ain't legally married.

3. Marriage, as a word that means something MORE than the simple legal rights the government assigns, should be restricted to churches, philosophies and other belief systems, so that anyone who gets a civil union can also be married in his/her own faith/belief system....or get married in one's own faith without applying for the government rights.

"Marriage, as a term, should be restricted to those who refuse it to others."

This would allow gays to marry in every sense of the word. It would allow polygamists to marry--but allow the government to restrict or allow civil rights to whatever union they want, and leave the churches OUT of it.

In "every sense", except to, ya know, use the term most commonly understood.

...........and it would keep the government out of the business of the churches. Which, by the way, was the intent of the separation of church and state in the first place; to keep the church out of the government, and to keep the GOVERNMENT OUT OF THE CHURCHES.

Only problem is, churches keep sticking their noses in the government's business.

conservative Christianity does not own marriage.

It owns its own definition of it, where the word means something more than legal/civil rights. YOU don't own their definition, and neither should the government.

So then the government should use the conservative Christian's definition?

...
But the answer to your questions is....yes. Absolutely. Churches are --pardon the expression--sacrosanct. Freedom of belief MUST be upheld, no matter how much you disagree with those beliefs. Perhaps BECAUSE we may disagree with those beliefs.

So yes. If a church believes that homosexuals cannot marry in the eyes of God, than that's what they believe, and forcing them to behave differently is a direct violation of their freedom of religion.

I accept that many folks should be allowed to hate any group they wish.

What I don't accept is that they should then be allowed to tell the government how to act towards that group.

Just don't ask me to believe that gays can marry in the eyes of God, because I don't think it is possible. I think that they can 'marry' in they eyes of the government, and should have all those rights. I think that they should be allowed to marry in the eyes of their own belief systems.
...

I ask again...

Please cite one piece of real or proposed legislation regarding homosexual marriage that says any church must be accepting of such.

[jmac2112]

In my latest reply to Adurumus, I somehow inserted my reply in such a way that it looked like it was part of what Adurumus had said. To clarify:

Adurumus wrote:

There are laws on defining what hatespeech is, but I'm not particularly well read on them. People trying to push that homosexuality is a disorder... I'm not happy with them, but I think it's within their rights. Outright stating that gays are going to Hell (if that counts as violent threats?), or making figures up about how homosexual people are bad (There are fabrications floating around about pedophiles and correlations to homosexuality...), or directly inciting violence against homosexuals... not so good. So I suppose the first could be fine if not plastered in public places, but the second is less appreciable.


I reply:

So, we could distinguish between a) those who say that they think homosexual inclination is a disorder, or that homosexual acts are wrong, or that gay marriage is a bad idea, and b) those (like the members of the Westboro Baptist Church) who target homosexuals and publically harass them and make it very clear that they really, realy hate gays and want them to go to hell. Perhaps we have found the "qualitative distinction" that the OP mentioned.

[Slopeshoulder]

In my latest reply to Adurumus, I somehow inserted my reply in such a way that it looked like it was part of what Adurumus had said. To clarify:

Adurumus wrote:

There are laws on defining what hatespeech is, but I'm not particularly well read on them. People trying to push that homosexuality is a disorder... I'm not happy with them, but I think it's within their rights. Outright stating that gays are going to Hell (if that counts as violent threats?), or making figures up about how homosexual people are bad (There are fabrications floating around about pedophiles and correlations to homosexuality...), or directly inciting violence against homosexuals... not so good. So I suppose the first could be fine if not plastered in public places, but the second is less appreciable.


I reply:

So, we could distinguish between a) those who say that they think homosexual inclination is a disorder, or that homosexual acts are wrong, or that gay marriage is a bad idea, and b) those (like the members of the Westboro Baptist Church) who target homosexuals and publically harass them and make it very clear that they really, realy hate gays and want them to go to hell. Perhaps we have found the "qualitative distinction" that the OP mentioned.

My concern with this is that it is too blunt and binary. It also seems more quantitative than qualitative: you're either non-violent or violent. But maybe it's all violence.
It needs more shades.

Even though I disagree theologically, I am inclined to agree with Diana about separation, EXCEPT that the deal killer is how the word marriage is not made universally available. Owning a word to the exlusion of others, especially such a established word, is an incredible form of bigotry and abuse of power, and it's diffferent from witholding "man" from a "negro (boy)" only in degree. And having a church, a place that propogates morality, indoctrinates children, and may be politically activist, may not be sufficient reason for an exception.

I wouldn't force a church to teach inclusion or conduct marriages, they can do or not do what they want. But I think we should ALL be MARRIED by the state, and church gets a new word, or both get a qualifier, like civil marriage and sacred marriage or something. Although my own secular marriage is absolutely sacred. So maybe those words aren't good enough.

Net, whatever our differing views regarding the moral-natural status of gay people, I draw the line at owning a word and excluding a (minority) group of people from it, and also recoil from the endless distortions, lies, and hate that often accompanies such an endeavor (NOT you Diana!!).

Everyone gets included in the word marriage, or no one does. The rest is debate, detail, and private choice in the context of a strong separation clause.

[dianaiad]

From Post 8:

Has it ever occurred to you that some opposition to homosexual marriage isn't about the homosexuals who wish to marry.
...

Yes. Has it ever occurred to you that these are real, live human beings you seek to discriminate against?

...but about what that change in secular marriage laws would do to the freedom of belief the opposing religion has?

I'm unaware of any legislation allowing homosexual marriage that also says Christians can't be just as mean and nasty as they wanna.

The problem here is that those who advocate for homosexual marriage are trying to combine church and state in a way that will be detrimental to the church. Such attempts generally do, y'know.

I'm unaware of any proposed or real legislation that requires churches to perform gay marriages, or to be accepting of such.

For me, I don't give a great good hoot whether homosexuals have the legal rights that are assigned to secular couples who marry. Not a problem. May they live long, prosper, and if they live next door I"ll bring 'em casseroles and invite 'em to barbeques. If, that is, I ever HAD barbeques.

"They're welcome to any barbecue I ever have."

"It's just a cryin' shame I never barbecue!"

Joey, get a grip. I am more than mortally tired of your continual sniping and accusation of bigotry and discrimination, especially when the only problem you have with my position in this matter is that, while if we all did it my way, gays could not only have full civil rights AND get married, we wouldn't be doing it YOUR way...that is, not only gaining full rights (including the right to marry) but rubbing everybody else's nose in it.

Not enough to win, in other words, but to make everybody else LOSE.

Stop it.

The way they choose to live is not my business OR my problem. It's not up to me to set their moral compasses.

Then why the opposition?

Who's opposing anything? Am I against gays having all the rights of marriage?

No.

Am I against them getting married?

No.

I am against the government forcing me, from within my own faith, to change my doctrine in order to recognize the idea of gay marriage in the eyes of God. If they don't like the religious beliefs I hold, then they don't need to become LDS.

Seems fair enough to me.

If I don't like the idea of gays being married in the eyes of God, then I won't join the faith that allows that. Also seems fair to me.

I propose homosexuals getting married is "your problem", and you don't wish to fix this problem, while you go about making it "your business" by telling folks who they can and can't marry.

I have not told anybody who they may, or may not, marry. My ONLY concern is keeping the government out of MY belief system....a valid concern, given the government's propensity to mess with that.

What I DO object to (and coming from the tradition I do, I have extremely good reasons to be leery of this) is that once "MARRIAGE" is made legal between homosexual couples, the government will force ME to accept them as married in God's eyes (the government is a whole 'nuther thing).

And if I have to accept them as married in the eyes of God, then the government can force churches to accept them within institutional areas, and punish those who discriminate against them IN THE CHURCH ENVIRONMENT.

I challenge you to present one real or proposed piece of legislation that forces you to accept homosexual marriage within your church.

1st challenge.

Please don't tell me it won't happen.

It will.
It has.

When have you ever been forced, within the confines of your church to ever be anything but just as mean and nasty, or nice and loving, as you wanna be within your church?

Joey.

You are talking to a MORMON.

The great grand daughter of three sets of polygamists, some of whom were imprisoned as a direct result of the government telling them that they had to handle the marriage situation THEIR way.

Are you of the opinion that the history of the world began with your first memories? You think that we made all that history up, so that even though we have precedent after incident after ....whatever...that 'it can't happen again?"

The whole point here is that I'm opposed to such legislation BEING proposed...and oh, by the way, it's not as if I can't point to lawsuits against churches by gay couples for discrimination even under present laws. One church, which has generously allowed private property to be used as a wedding venue, was sued because it refused permission for a gay marriage ceremony.

The church lost.

So it has only two options here: it can deny its own deeply held convictions that gay marriages aren't, or it can deny ANYBODY permission to marry there.

Many of these lawsuits were successful....which is absolute evidence that the right of churches to believe and practice their own faith is being abrogated right, left and center in this area.

No wonder they are fighting so hard; it's obvious that gays don't want any sort of compromise that allows freedom of religion.

You sure don't.

So...give it a rest, give it some thought, and if you can't respond courteously and with a decided lack of sarcasm and insult, don't bother. I'm seriously trying to propose an idea that gives everybody what they claim they want; gay marriage, full equality, civil rights...the whole thing.

And still allow religious belief systems to not be run over by the government.

[Flail]

From Post 8:

Has it ever occurred to you that some opposition to homosexual marriage isn't about the homosexuals who wish to marry.
...

Yes. Has it ever occurred to you that these are real, live human beings you seek to discriminate against?

...but about what that change in secular marriage laws would do to the freedom of belief the opposing religion has?

I'm unaware of any legislation allowing homosexual marriage that also says Christians can't be just as mean and nasty as they wanna.

The problem here is that those who advocate for homosexual marriage are trying to combine church and state in a way that will be detrimental to the church. Such attempts generally do, y'know.

I'm unaware of any proposed or real legislation that requires churches to perform gay marriages, or to be accepting of such.

For me, I don't give a great good hoot whether homosexuals have the legal rights that are assigned to secular couples who marry. Not a problem. May they live long, prosper, and if they live next door I"ll bring 'em casseroles and invite 'em to barbeques. If, that is, I ever HAD barbeques.

"They're welcome to any barbecue I ever have."

"It's just a cryin' shame I never barbecue!"

Joey, get a grip. I am more than mortally tired of your continual sniping and accusation of bigotry and discrimination, especially when the only problem you have with my position in this matter is that, while if we all did it my way, gays could not only have full civil rights AND get married, we wouldn't be doing it YOUR way...that is, not only gaining full rights (including the right to marry) but rubbing everybody else's nose in it.

Not enough to win, in other words, but to make everybody else LOSE.

Stop it.

The way they choose to live is not my business OR my problem. It's not up to me to set their moral compasses.

Then why the opposition?

Who's opposing anything? Am I against gays having all the rights of marriage?

No.

Am I against them getting married?

No.

I am against the government forcing me, from within my own faith, to change my doctrine in order to recognize the idea of gay marriage in the eyes of God. If they don't like the religious beliefs I hold, then they don't need to become LDS.

Seems fair enough to me.

If I don't like the idea of gays being married in the eyes of God, then I won't join the faith that allows that. Also seems fair to me.

I propose homosexuals getting married is "your problem", and you don't wish to fix this problem, while you go about making it "your business" by telling folks who they can and can't marry.

I have not told anybody who they may, or may not, marry. My ONLY concern is keeping the government out of MY belief system....a valid concern, given the government's propensity to mess with that.

What I DO object to (and coming from the tradition I do, I have extremely good reasons to be leery of this) is that once "MARRIAGE" is made legal between homosexual couples, the government will force ME to accept them as married in God's eyes (the government is a whole 'nuther thing).

And if I have to accept them as married in the eyes of God, then the government can force churches to accept them within institutional areas, and punish those who discriminate against them IN THE CHURCH ENVIRONMENT.

I challenge you to present one real or proposed piece of legislation that forces you to accept homosexual marriage within your church.

1st challenge.

Please don't tell me it won't happen.

It will.
It has.

When have you ever been forced, within the confines of your church to ever be anything but just as mean and nasty, or nice and loving, as you wanna be within your church?

Joey.

You are talking to a MORMON.

The great grand daughter of three sets of polygamists, some of whom were imprisoned as a direct result of the government telling them that they had to handle the marriage situation THEIR way.

Are you of the opinion that the history of the world began with your first memories? You think that we made all that history up, so that even though we have precedent after incident after ....whatever...that 'it can't happen again?"

The whole point here is that I'm opposed to such legislation BEING proposed...and oh, by the way, it's not as if I can't point to lawsuits against churches by gay couples for discrimination even under present laws. One church, which has generously allowed private property to be used as a wedding venue, was sued because it refused permission for a gay marriage ceremony.

The church lost.

So it has only two options here: it can deny its own deeply held convictions that gay marriages aren't, or it can deny ANYBODY permission to marry there.

Many of these lawsuits were successful....which is absolute evidence that the right of churches to believe and practice their own faith is being abrogated right, left and center in this area.

No wonder they are fighting so hard; it's obvious that gays don't want any sort of compromise that allows freedom of religion.

You sure don't.

So...give it a rest, give it some thought, and if you can't respond courteously and with a decided lack of sarcasm and insult, don't bother. I'm seriously trying to propose an idea that gives everybody what they claim they want; gay marriage, full equality, civil rights...the whole thing.

And still allow religious belief systems to not be run over by the government.

As one who often agrees with Joey, I am going with Dianaiad on this one. Good idea, let people of faith define their unions is whatever manner they see fit without the intrusions of govt. I am for small govt in most things. The govt can hand out civil union licenses to gays and straights in order to satisfy legal tax filing and similar requirements. Everyone then is in the same boat and can go off and do their bidding as their faith dictates. Govt has more important things to consider than marriage partners.