Christian marriage is man and woman/husband and wife.

[99percentatheism]

There is no secular or theological challenge to be made that a "Christian marriage" isn't immutably a man and woman/husband and wife. Therefore, it should be a criminal act under current hate crimes laws, to accuse a Christian of hate, bigotry, or irrational . . ., if they assert the immutability of the structure of marriage as man and woman/husband and wife.

As Jesus proclaimed it in the Gospels and the writings reaffirm and define it so.

Why would anyone, religious or secularist, NOT support and affirm Christians adhering to the consistent and immutable Biblical teaching that a marriage is a man/husband and woman/wife?

[Gunnarr]

McCulloch has the right it , Each Christian denomination has an elected leader and synod, they govern and dictate the practice of that denomination. Historically though the church has had sufficient power to use that the lobby parliament to create law. That has gone, you can not morally or ethically dictate to non Christian's your church law.

So this has brought up a bigger issue, in my opinion all laws should be reviewed to see if they are stemming from church law. If they are they should go.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 95:

...
Gays wanted the religious and cultural forced APPROVAL, and went to the government to force that.

I challenge Miss dianaiad to show that each and every homosexual who fights for their civil rights seek to "force" "APPROVAL" (and such must be in all capitalators for her to show she speaks truth in this regard).

It would seem that upon becoming a Christian, one is then endowed with this awesome ability to read the minds of so many folks.

I propose this is merely a projection on her part, where it is her "Christians" who seek to impose their -ahem- DISAPPROVAL onto others, simply 'cause they don't like who they do their loving with.

I notice in this entire argument of homosexual marriage, seldom to never do we hear folks complain about stupid, ugly people getting married. Ain't that a far worse crime than two hot chicks getting married, and posting the consumation?

Alas, it would seem that any attempt to offer the same rights to others as one seeks for themselves is just too great a leap for too many Christians. But of course, it's them with the, "loving God".

[no evidence no belief]

From Post 95:

...
Gays wanted the religious and cultural forced APPROVAL, and went to the government to force that.

I challenge Miss dianaiad to show that each and every homosexual who fights for their civil rights seek to "force" "APPROVAL" (and such must be in all capitalators for her to show she speaks truth in this regard).

It would seem that upon becoming a Christian, one is then endowed with this awesome ability to read the minds of so many folks.

I propose this is merely a projection on her part, where it is her "Christians" who seek to impose their -ahem- DISAPPROVAL onto others, simply 'cause they don't like who they do their loving with.

I notice in this entire argument of homosexual marriage, seldom to never do we hear folks complain about stupid, ugly people getting married. Ain't that a far worse crime than two hot chicks getting married, and posting the consumation?

Alas, it would seem that any attempt to offer the same rights to others as one seeks for themselves is just too great a leap for too many Christians. But of course, it's them with the, "loving God".

Joey,
she isn't just saying that gay activists are seeking to force approval of their spiritual ideas by using the government. She is saying that the California Supreme Court is doing so.

Boy oh boy, will we look foolish for having disagreed with her, when she quotes the publicly available record of the relevant Supreme Court Decisions!

She hasn't provided this evidence yet, but we can be confident that she has this evidence and will provide it shortly, because mormons are notorious for basing their opinions of solid empirical facts.

[connermt]

Why would anyone, religious or secularist, NOT support and affirm Christians adhering to the consistent and immutable Biblical teaching that a marriage is a man/husband and woman/wife?

I'm not sure anyone is.,, I haven't seen anyone trying to pass laws forcing christians to "believe this or that" in regards to marriage. Christians are free to think it a sin, not right, wrong, immoral, etc. The main issue is about how the laws, that are in effect for everyone no matter their religious view, effect them. That, the church has no claims on rightly in this country.
I think christians use this issue for no other reasons than to show their disapproval for gay people via their religion - hate hiding behind religion, or simply to stomp and pout and try to make themselves more relevant. And that happens far to often IMO.

[dianaiad]

Premise 1: Legal marriage is better LEGALLY than domestic partnership

You keep claiming this.

OK,

here's your chance.

Show me one, even one, LEGAL right or civil right that was gained by gays IN CALIFORNIA, that they got when 'married' that they did not get as a domestic partnership.

G'head.

The right to hospital visitation when on vacation and traveling over State lines. Married people have it, people in domestic partnerships don't.

You keep conflating federal rules, and the rules from other states, with strictly state ones.

As it happens, California did indeed recognize hospital visitation rights by gay couples with civil unions or domestic partnerships when they visited California, just as they do for married couples. California has no right, nor ability, to legislate what any other state, or the federal government, does in terms of recognizing civil rights, civil unions, domestic partnerships or marriage.

While I do love California (mostly...albeit being a conservative in California is about as popular as being a baby skunk in a litter of kittens), I am still aware that California, like all other states, can only legislate marriage and civil rights within its own borders. What makes you think that it has any broader reach...or should have?

So I'll ask you again: name me one civil right that gays gain by being married in the state of California that they didn't already have as domestic partners.

I am deeply offended by the fact that you seem to only be reading snippets of my posts to you. If you had read them fully you would be embarrassed to ask me to repeat myself as I have done right here.

The differences in the legal rights of a married couple and the rights of a couple in a domestic partnership are ENORMOUS. I've listed them in great detail. You need to educate yourself.

We are talking about the state of California. That's where Prop 8 was happening. That is where the argument is. That is where there is NO DIFFERENCE between domestic partnerships and the rights that the STATE OF CALIFORNIA gives to married couples. The state of California (and indeed, no OTHER state) can dictate what other states do in terms of marriage or civil rights appended to marriage. It cannot dictate to other states what they will, or will not, recognize...and indeed, when gays got the right to 'marry' rather than be domestic partners, they actually LOST rights in a way, because more states recognized civil unions than did marriages; California gay married couples who went across state lines didn't have the same rights in other states that they would have as domestic partners.

California cannot pass federal law.
California cannot pass laws for other states.

So your list was irrelevant. Absolutely irrelevant, because WE ARE TALKING ABOUT CALIFORNIA. The reason it is relevant to talk only about California is because California did the maximum it could do, as a state...and gave domestic partnerships every single right it could legally give marriages. EVERY one of them.

And you still have not shown me a single right that California COULD give a married couple that it did not give domestic partners.

Because there isn't any.

You are equivocating here. You are using 'legal marriage" the same way I use 'civil union.' as opposed to 'spiritual marriage."

I am not. Civil marriage grants WAAAAY more intra-state, federal and international rights than civil unions.[/quote]

Of course. But WE ARE TALKING ABOUT CALIFORNIA AND CALIFORNIA ONLY, because California can only go so far. No state can go farther...and it is in California that gays proved that they wanted the religious/cultural approval over and above the civil rights that they already had.

AGAIN. (and in caps, so that you might actually pay attention)

THOSE WHO ADVOCATED FOR 'MARRIAGE' OVER DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIPS IN CALIFORNIA WERE FULLY AWARE THAT BEING 'MARRIED' IN CALIFORNIA WOULD NOT GAIN THEM ANY ADDITIONAL RIGHTS EITHER IN ANY OTHER STATE OR IN THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. QUITE THE CONTRARY; THEY KNEW THAT THEY WERE ACTUALLY LOSING SOME, SINCE MORE STATES RECOGNIZED CIVIL UNIONS/DOMESTIC PARTNERSHIPS THAN GAY MARRIAGE. THEY WANTED THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA TO ENFORCE RELIGIOUS/CULTURAL APPROVAL UPON THEIR UNIONS IN CALIFORNIA. THEY ALREADY HAD EVERY SINGLE CIVIL RIGHT THAT THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA GAVE TO MARRIED COUPLES. THEY WANTED WHAT THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA HAD NO RIGHT TO GIVE; FORCED RELIGIOUS AND CULTURAL APPROVAL.

Did THAT get through? This isn't about federal rights. It's not about what other states do. It's about what CALIFORNIA could do.

"MARRIAGE,' the WORD and the CONCEPT, should be 'spiritual.' Period. There should be no such thing as 'legal marriage.'

Why?

Because 'marriage' (the word and the concept) has predated governments, and has been apart FROM governments, ever since humankind started pairing up.

I'm sorry but pairing up also predates religion. If there should be no "legal marriage" because pairing up predates legality, there should also be no "religious marriage" because pairing up predates religion.[/quote]

Fine. I haven't ever used the term 'religious' marriage. That's your fiction. I use the word 'marriage,' and have always used 'religious/cultural/personal."

Government has never done anything except recognize marriage and assign rights to it...but first came the relationship. The joining up part.

Right. So? The government never has done anything other than assign rights to married people. And that's what it should continue doing. Including gay people. Because it would be unconstitutional not to.

No. You aren't advocating that it continue to 'assign rights to married people.' You are insisting that it first define what 'married' is, force that upon all the religions and cultures who had the defining of that relationship FIRST, and make the civil rights the marriage...and it's not. It never has been.

Will marriage disappear if the US does? Will humans stop having such relationships if some other government takes charge? Does RUSSIA get to define marriage for you? England? Switzerland? The 'marrying tribe' of the Amazon (I like that one, actually...one wife, many husbands, though those funny headbands look itchy) ? Or is 'marriage' defined by the people who enter into it, and the government gets involved tangentally...and later?

Then came the government assigned rights, as various governments attempted to put some control over who it approves of in the joining up part.

there is no other term/word that applies to that...spiritual/cultural/relationship; 'marriage' is it.

So....since 'marriage' (the relationship) should be between the parties (and their various belief systems,) then 'marriage' THE TERM should be taken away from the government. Utterly and completely.

Right. And I assume that you can show us copies of letters you sent to your governor making this point, when gay marriage was NOT being discussed at all.

Actually, I can. Along with letters to my congress representatives, and such. Mind you, I've only been pushing this idea for twenty years or so. However, YOU can look up all the posts I've put on the internet for close to thirty years advocating this idea. They are all out there.

That's one thing about the internet, after all. You can forget conversations. You can lose...or burn..letters, but e-mail and posts on debate forums get ARCHIVED, by golly. I've been advocating this for a rather long time.

But I actually see progress here: you are reduced to criticizing, not the idea, but whether I can produce copies of letters to the governor? Good grief. You are really struggling here to find something to be nasty about.

The government, assigning rights and responsibilities to partnerships it approves of (only two, male/female, male/male, female/female, whatever other partnership it likes) should use a term that more closely describes what's happening. Civil unions. Domestic partnerships. Cohabitation contracts. Whatever...something that applies only to the legal stuff that the government has the right to assign and enforce.

The legal stuff should be the same everywhere; state to state, federal...whatever.

"Marriage" should have no legal force whatsoever; only religious/personal.

So. The government can look at a polygamous group and say 'fine...only two spouses in this arrangement get the rights," and the religion can say 'fine, only two partners in this arrangement can have the civil union, but any number can participate in the marriage.

The government can say 'You, Molly and Mary, (or Mike and Mathew, or Marcus and Marian) can have a civil union...." and they get the civil union. However, if they want to attend a wholly church owned school run for the purpose of educating members of that church, Molly and Mary (or Mike and Mathew) don't get to live in married housing.

By the same token, Marcus and Marian don't get to force, say, "Napa Valley Elopements" (which ONLY do, and rather blatantly advertise...'small, gay weddings") to photograph their very big straight wedding.

Everybody gets what they claim to want. Everybody remains free to both marry, get the rights, AND be free to believe as they wish.

What's so difficult about this?

This makes me sick to my stomach.

Millions of dollars that could have gone to charity invested in antigay campaigns, thousands of lives ruined, and all it boils down to for you is an issue of semantics?

That's what it's boiling down to for you, isn't it?
But semantics...that's not a swear word. "Words mean things." "Marriage" MEANS something. The word does. The concept does...and it is the CONCEPT that is being fought over so hard.

and don't tell me that gays aren't quite aware that it is the concept that is at issue here. They want the whole thing; religious, personal, and civil rights. I think they should be able to have the whole thing.

Remember; my idea here has the gays getting everything. Who loses?

Who is giving something up here? Not the gays, who get the rights...including the right to marry.

It's the 'straight' folk who lose, because they, too, would have to get civil unions....and their marriages wouldn't have any legal weight, either.

Indeed, 'straight' couples lose the most, because with my idea, they (and their religions) cannot force anybody else to toe their doctrinal lines in terms of what a marriage is.

But y'know what? I've NEVER had a heterosexual or 'defense of marriage' advocate object to this idea. Not once. All objection has been from gays and gay rights activists.

That alone tells me who is wanting to do the forcing here; who wants to interfere with the rights of whom....

You agree that currently gay people are not getting EXACTLY EVERY SINGLE LEGAL RIGHT that straight couples get.

Nowhere but in California, that's true.

You agree that they should get those rights.

Yep. Civil rights and the right to marry. Which should be two separate things.

You just want them not to use the word "civil marriage" or "legal marriage" to describe those rights? You want them to use the word "domestic partnership"?

Who cares, woman!?

YOU do, man. Obviously. So does everybody else (including gays) who understand that 'marriage' has a very real meaning apart from government assigned civil rights.

Here we are, talking about children going into foster care rather than staying with their families, here we are, talking about people not being able to say goodbye to the love of their life on their death bed because of hospital visitation rules, here we are, talking about people being precluded from billions of dollars in tax breaks, and you are wasting our time with the WORD?

Shame on you Diane!

Nobody cares about the word! Call it "Smarriage". Call it "Definitely not marriage because marriage is only a religious institution", call it "Whatever Diane wants to call it after she talked it over with her ghost husband".

We don't care a flying... about what you call it.

We just want the same LEGAL rights to be accessible to all consenting adults. The California Supreme Court decision to recognize gay couples as recipients of those rights was a step in the right direction.

Overturning it with prop 8 was a step in the wrong direction.

You are a homophobe.

And you are an idiot.

I will leave it to the moderators whether to call the insults here even or not.

[dianaiad]

From Post 95:

...
Gays wanted the religious and cultural forced APPROVAL, and went to the government to force that.

I challenge Miss dianaiad to show that each and every homosexual who fights for their civil rights seek to "force" "APPROVAL" (and such must be in all capitalators for her to show she speaks truth in this regard).

I challenge sir Joey to show that "Gays wanted the religious and cultural forced APPROVAL" means that 'each and every homosexual...."

I was pretty specific regarding which gay rights activists were being referred to, and you, Joey, don't get to expand beyond that.

[JoeyKnothead]

From Post 103:

Joey,
she isn't just saying that gay activists are seeking to force approval of their spiritual ideas by using the government. She is saying that the California Supreme Court is doing so.

My referenced post quotes her as referring to "The gays".

My issue is that I've repeatedly reported her for this, only to have my reports rebuffed.

She never produces any documentation whatsoever that even approaches an acknowledgement of her blanket statement. She never produces anything other'n her declaration that the entire community of gay folk, or "gay activists" want nothing other'n to kick in her church doors and make 'em all start singing some big gay happy song.

She does nothing more'n blather on about how the entire community of homosexuals seek to declare she must "APPROVE" of 'em or something, and she has been allowed to get away with this baseless, unsupported assertion any and every time she's presented it.


We must conclude that along with having Christian belief, according to the rulings in this regard, comes it the ability to know the minds and motivations of each and every individual the Christian seeks to declare them they know the mind and motivations of.


I can only ponder at what would happen if this atheist declared that each and every Christian had the motivation to poke in the eye with a pitchfork anyone who ain't.

I reject this "The Gays..." argument, 'cause, well, how on God's green earth can one who ain't gay declare they know what "the gays" want, other'n them some hot loving with some other gay folk, and what in heck is wrong with that?

I contend hers is an uncivil, unwarranted attack on gay folks, and that some are perfectly happy letting her get away with it, owing to my repeated attempts to report her for her complete and utter failure to show she speaks truth, only she gets to keep saying it, 'cause best I can tell, she's a Christian when she does it.

Who here among us is so intelligent, so knowledgeable, so proud, as to we get to declare, as fact, the wants and wishes of folks we ain't?


Alas, the Christian is "special" in these debates, 'cause they's Christian and all, and the gol-danged "Gays" need to learn their place!

[otseng]

Shame on you Diane!

We don't care a flying... about what you call it.

You are a homophobe.

And you are an idiot.

I will leave it to the moderators whether to call the insults here even or not.

Moderator Warning


OK, I call the insults here fair and even with a warning to the both of you.

Please review our Rules.

______________

Moderator warnings count as a strike against users. Additional violations in the future may warrant a final warning. Any challenges or replies to moderator postings should be made via Private Message to avoid derailing topics.

[Gunnarr]

On the insult terminology used why is it presumed being called homophobic is derogatory.

[kayky]

[Replying to post 105 by dianaiad]

So I'll ask you again: name me one civil right that gays gain by being married in the state of California that they didn't already have as domestic partners.

Being married.