This thread is meant for clarification purposes:
As a christian, what do you fear the legalization of gay marriage will do to the country, your faith and yourself personally?
Please provide examples of past issues where something was made legal and created a negative issue with your country, faith and/or yourself.
Of course there are extremes on each side, but the majority of people who are pro-legal gay marriage don't seem to much care what a church says, so long as their legal rights are adhered to just like eveyone else's.
I've looked at many responses to both sides and can honestly not see, other than hate or "being gay is gross", any legitimate reasons that would want one to say "gay people who care about each other and live in a relationship shouldn't have the say legal rights as straight people.
Any elightenment on the subject would be appreciated.
What exactly is the christian fear of gay marriage?
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Post #91
And it's a suit they will lose. And rightly so. Even after Obama changed the law so that the Catholic church did not have to pay for contraception but that the insurance companies would have to offer it for free, the Catholic church was still not satisfied. This proves that it was never an issue of religious freedom for them. It was simply their desire to force their oppressive views onto nonCatholic women.
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Post #92
Except for one small problem. Some of those Catholic institutions do not purchase third party insurance plans. Some of them are 'self-insured," meaning that they provide all the services out of their own pockets...not at a remove, as when someone contracts with a group like Kaiser-Permanente, but directly.kayky wrote: And it's a suit they will lose. And rightly so. Even after Obama changed the law so that the Catholic church did not have to pay for contraception but that the insurance companies would have to offer it for free, the Catholic church was still not satisfied. This proves that it was never an issue of religious freedom for them. It was simply their desire to force their oppressive views onto nonCatholic women.
Obama's 'change' simply meant that the Catholics would have one of two choices: provide contraception and abortion services for free in direct violation of their doctrine, or to stop providing direct care to their employees and contract insurance out to third party companies who would provide such services.
You are, then, correct; it's about coercion. It's about the government forcing a religion to change it's doctrine and views to march with that of the government.
Or, to put it more simply....what's the difference between forcing an Orthodox Jew to personally carve and serve ham at a wedding reception--and forcing him, if he won't do it, to hire a caterer who will?
YOU may not approve of the Catholic stance on this. I may not. (and, in fact, I don't). But that's not the point. THEY do, and it's THEIR religion. If you think that it is permissible to force them to do something that fundamentally against their faith because YOU don't like it, what have you left yourself as defense if someday they, who have a bunch more people to vote, decide that they don't like something YOU believe?
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Post #93
This looks like a really strong argument, D; as most of your posts do.dianaiad wrote:Except for one small problem. Some of those Catholic institutions do not purchase third party insurance plans. Some of them are 'self-insured," meaning that they provide all the services out of their own pockets...not at a remove, as when someone contracts with a group like Kaiser-Permanente, but directly.kayky wrote: And it's a suit they will lose. And rightly so. Even after Obama changed the law so that the Catholic church did not have to pay for contraception but that the insurance companies would have to offer it for free, the Catholic church was still not satisfied. This proves that it was never an issue of religious freedom for them. It was simply their desire to force their oppressive views onto nonCatholic women.
Obama's 'change' simply meant that the Catholics would have one of two choices: provide contraception and abortion services for free in direct violation of their doctrine, or to stop providing direct care to their employees and contract insurance out to third party companies who would provide such services.
You are, then, correct; it's about coercion. It's about the government forcing a religion to change it's doctrine and views to march with that of the government.
Or, to put it more simply....what's the difference between forcing an Orthodox Jew to personally carve and serve ham at a wedding reception--and forcing him, if he won't do it, to hire a caterer who will?
YOU may not approve of the Catholic stance on this. I may not. (and, in fact, I don't). But that's not the point. THEY do, and it's THEIR religion. If you think that it is permissible to force them to do something that fundamentally against their faith because YOU don't like it, what have you left yourself as defense if someday they, who have a bunch more people to vote, decide that they don't like something YOU believe?

I'm not best qualified to intervene in the discussion between you and kayky, (whose arguments also look pretty strong to me) because I'm not American, and not all that familiar with your political and legal structures. So I'm seeking clarification here.
Suppose I work as a plumber in an office block belonging to the JW's. I'm not a JW, in fact I know zip about the JW faith; but I'm a competent plumber, and the JW's are ok with hiring me.
And suppose one day I'm particularly clumsy, or unlucky, and I suddenly need a blood transfusion? Whose rights are paramount? My rights as a worker, (and a human being) or the JW's rights not to pay for blood transfusions? And what if my wages are partly funded by the state? Does that make a difference?
Post #94
You get it, Jax. Regardless of who is right about who is coercing who, the rights of women to adequate health care outweighs the Catholic complaint. And they do have recourse. They can stop taking government money. But I don't think that will happen. They'll find a way to assuage their consciences and move on.
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Post #95
Since you are not American, I need to clarify something regarding the situation your clumsy plumber finds himself in.Jax Agnesson wrote:
This looks like a really strong argument, D; as most of your posts do.
I'm not best qualified to intervene in the discussion between you and kayky, (whose arguments also look pretty strong to me) because I'm not American, and not all that familiar with your political and legal structures. So I'm seeking clarification here.
Suppose I work as a plumber in an office block belonging to the JW's. I'm not a JW, in fact I know zip about the JW faith; but I'm a competent plumber, and the JW's are ok with hiring me.
And suppose one day I'm particularly clumsy, or unlucky, and I suddenly need a blood transfusion? Whose rights are paramount? My rights as a worker, (and a human being) or the JW's rights not to pay for blood transfusions? And what if my wages are partly funded by the state? Does that make a difference?

That is, an accident at work is paid for out of different funds than any other health situation. For instance, if a patient goes into a Kaiser Permanente urgent care facility with a broken arm, one of the questions asked will be 'did you do this at work?" If so, Kaiser will still provide the care, but will bill Workman's Compensation, not its own funds. Workman's compensation is a fund that pretty much everybody has to pay into, here---even home-owners who hire someone to do odd jobs. This fund takes care of accidents and work based incidents--which, by the way, have never included situations for which the cure is birth control pills.
What this means is that the JW's, who are neither responsible for, nor in charge of, medical care for their non-JW plumbers in a building, are not involved in whether a blood transfusion is required. The only problem that might arise is if the WORKER is a JW, in which case he or she might refuse to accept one. They are not directly prescribing, nor providing, blood transfusions.
What this means is....not much, except that your example isn't a good one for the situation.
Good try, though---and if we didn't have the workman's compensation system that is entirely apart from direct insurance provided by employers, (and which is entirely about the workers) it would have been a puzzler.

Post #96
Dianiad, you are simply picking out a technicality in Jax's scenario instead of the principle he is trying to illustrate. Taking advantage of the fact that Jax is not American does nothing to further your case
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Post #97
WILL they?kayky wrote: You get it, Jax. Regardless of who is right about who is coercing who, the rights of women to adequate health care outweighs the Catholic complaint. And they do have recourse. They can stop taking government money. But I don't think that will happen. They'll find a way to assuage their consciences and move on.
I hope not. That will mean that the constitution will have been fractured. Not that such attacks upon it haven't tried before---nor that such haven't actually succeeded before, but this one?
This one's a biggee.
And no, the 'rights of women to adequate health care' do NOT outweigh the 'Catholics' complaint,' when women are free to find birth control pills elsewhere---and they most certainly are.
Your right to refuse to do something that is against your faith ALWAYS supersedes my right to make you do it--and frankly, I see absolutely no difference between, say.....my right to make you sing Christmas carols supersedes your right to refuse to sing them, even if you ARE the only singer in the county.
My right to learn to raise tomatoes upside down does NOT supersede your right to refuse to teach me.
My right to get birth control pills does not supersede your right to refuse to prescribe them, especially when I can get them elsewhere--and you won't prescribe them for anybody else, either.
As to government money--
I happen to believe that churches shouldn't take government money, and for this very reason; the government tends to want to tie entirely irrelevant strings to such funds; it's a very underhanded method of shredding the first amendment. However, that's a matter of self-protection, because the government IS dishonorable in those things. What SHOULD happen is that those grants and moneys should be given without such irrelevant requirements, never mind the times (as it is here with the Catholic hospitals) that the government hands over money under one set of rules, then changes the rules LATER. THAT is underhanded, unconscionable and just plain dishonest.
Finally, grants given to, say, purchase instruments for an operating room should have rules relating ONLY to the use of those instruments. Using such grants as a way to coerce compliance in areas that have nothing whatsoever to do with those instruments should not be allowed.
But they will be, because people like you figure that your opinion about what is 'good' and 'right' is more important than anybody else's--and so any method y'all can use to make others toe the line is perfectly fine.
The problem is---that's going to back fire and bite y'all square in the posterior. Given history, you should KNOW that. It's not like this is new.
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Post #99
Calling it a technicality doesn't make it one. The point is, Jax's scenario isn't applicable. The situation under discussion is pretty narrow; does the government have the right to force a religion to change it's doctrines, and do something that is AGAINST its beliefs, in order to comply with what the government thinks should be the 'proper' way to believe, religiously speaking?kayky wrote: Dianiad, you are simply picking out a technicality in Jax's scenario instead of the principle he is trying to illustrate. Taking advantage of the fact that Jax is not American does nothing to further your case
The answer is...no. That is specifically against the first amendment, whether you or I think that the religion in question is correct or not.
This goes for the government forcing Catholics to provide birth control pills and abortion services to women when using contraception and getting an abortion are considered excommunicable offenses in Catholicism--and it also goes for the government redefining marriage so that religions have to recognize, RELIGIOUSLY, marriages that they do not consider to BE marriages within their own doctrines.
In both cases, it's about the government establishing a religion...telling religions what they must believe, and how they must exercise those beliefs.
It is a very, very dangerous and slippery slope you are in favor of, here---and along the way, your own beliefs WILL be affected. Somehow, some day, the government will decide that what YOU believe is somehow not correct, and because you have allowed it to do this to someone you don't agree with, you will have absolutely no recourse when it comes after you.
................and that isn't paranoia. That's HISTORY. It happens every single time one opinion about religion becomes government approved. EVERY time--it has never, ever, failed.
Ever.
Religion is the last bastion of free thought there is, believe it or not. That is, individual religions may not be all that tolerant of variety, but any American can, if s/he doesn't like what her faith is telling her, leave and find another that she likes better. Once you allow the government to dictate to religions what they can, and cannot, teach and do, that freedom is then gone and all that is left is political correctness gone amuck.
True, some people have made political correctness their religion--but that's dangerous too, because THAT changes. What is 'correct' today may be anything but next year--and then what? Are you going to allow 'them' to dictate what your beliefs and opinions are the rest of your life, or are you going to find your own, stick to them----and allow everybody else to have theirs, even if theirs are different from yours?
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Post #100
What about it?Fuzzy Dunlop wrote:What if it wasn't an accident at work, but an accident at home?dianaiad wrote:That is, an accident at work is paid for out of different funds than any other health situation.
JW's don't, as far as I am aware, directly provide health care. They contract their health services out to third party insurance companies.
However, if the situation is the same; that is, if the plumber injures himself at home, uses the insurance that is provided by the JW's (and the JW"s directly pay for the care rather than contract it out) then I'm sure that the plumber knows VERY well what the JW position is on the use of blood products. He accepted the job knowing this. He accepted the insurance knowing this. So if he is injured and needs a blood transfusion, I suppose that he will have a choice: don't accept a transfusion, accept blood substitutes (for which the JW's would pay) or pay for the blood himself.
The situation, however, wouldn't be the same, since JW's do not, as some of the Catholics who are now suing, supply health care directly.