Braling. You can't blame patrask for answering the way he does. He just doesn't know. And we can think back when we just didn't know as well. We were offended when someone questioned what we believed. We might even have been ashamed to see a gospel track saying that we were a sinner. We felt it was no one's business to be pushing their beliefs on someone. We upheld stupid ideals and thought nothing of acting absolutely contrary to Christ's spirit. Somehow, we believed that someone else's actions, especially our own, didn't affect the lives of others.

Patrask obviously never reads the pertinent postings here. He'll claim he does. Tunnel vision he would say the Christian mind is immersed in, like the mind of Christ, immersed in bigotry.

I was there once. Maybe you too, Braling. So all we can do, really, is to pray for patrask. It boils down to this: God does it or it doesn't get done.

Good observations all.
I just can't stand it when we don't deal with folks as individuals, every bit as complex as ourselves.
It's easier, to be sure, to ascribe characteristics and beliefs to groups of people, whether racial or religious; easier, but not right and small-minded. To assume all or even a majority of a race has been taught this or believes that is ipso facto a racist assumption.

quote:

Let's turn this around:
Why is it so important to maintain control of the definition of marriage? Do you, who are believers in the teachings of the Bible, either Testament, feel so threatened by this group of people, who wish to love one another and be allowed to live in peace with their chosen partners, that you must single them out and stone them with the rocks of difference to make yourselves feel better, or is it safer. This is nonsense. Work toward eliminating torture, child exploitation, discrimination against women, who are your equal partners in this dream we call life, and many other REAL issues that are evidence of Man's in humanity toward Man/Woman. That is an admirable quest and I would support that effort.

The days when "we" denied gays the right to love one another are past. Gays can live together now. Gays can basically work wherever they want to. With the expanded rights in Domestic Partnerships (rights I support from a civil perspective) they can do what married couples do. What gays want, as I posted above, is to be able to use the term marriage to get society to confirm a moral equivalence on that relationship--a relationship that is seen as contrary to God's will by millions. They lose EVERY time this redefinition of marriage gets on the ballot, yet they insist that America give them the public stamp of moral equivalence. This is NOT about equal rights to love, it is about them forcing the majority to grant them moral equivalence, in violation of thousands of years of human history and written revelations from God. You deny the revelations? Fine. It's a free country.

But please stop saying gays have no rights. I have a gay friend and he and his partner adopted an infant girl together. GAYS HAVE RIGHTS. They are no longer fighting for rights. They are fighting to have society at large grant them MORAL EQUIVALENCE to a heterosexual marriage. It is not "we" who are creating the problem. It is gays pushing one envelope after another. You like to claim this is a civil right, but I have news for you: Gays drink from the same drinking fountains, work in the same companies, eat at the same restaurants, live together, etc. The claim that this is simply about civil rights is simply not true. It is about public acceptance of the gay lifestyle as being morally equivalent to that of heterosexual marriage. This is not difficult to see.

Mr Dark, I'm afraid you're a bit misinformed there. The US is a patchwork of various laws; in many states gay people have almost no legal rights whatsoever. (Such as Arkansas, which recently passed legislation specifically designed to prevent gay people from adopting.)

I can guarantee that if the US made domestic partnerships (civil unions) legal on a federal level, giving gay people all the legal rights that go with such arrangements, any and all talk of "gay marriage" would be totally dead in the water. It is these legal rights that gay couples are looking for. This is the arrangement that exists in places like the UK, and it has worked out just fine for them.

Actually, I do think that the marriage system that exists in many European countries is more sensible than that of the US. In other countries, there is a distinction between a civil marriage ceremony and a religious one. The civil ceremony is necessary for the union to be recognised by the government; the religious ceremony for the union to be recognised by the individuals' own church. A couple can have one ceremony, or the other, or both. So, it is often customary for a couple to have the marriage noted by the state (a small formality taking place in a government office with witnesses) and then go straight from there to the church for the big ceremony and the party afterwards.

As the marital procedure exists in the US, you often have couples participating in these enormous church weddings which in a way are meaningless, because the couples are not particularly religious themselves and don't make church-going a part of their everyday lives.

As far as a minority "forcing" their will on a disagreeing majority, all I can say is that the majority is not always right. (America, after all, is not a democracy; an absolute democracy would tend to lead to mob rule.) Heck, look at how many states still had laws on the books that prevented mixed-race couples from marrying in the early 1960's. (A 1958 Gallup poll showed that 96 percent of white Americans disapproved of interracial marriage.) In those states, action by the court was necessary to change things. If it had been left to popular vote, things may NEVER have changed...

Octo,
Big difference between "many states" and "almost no legal rights whatsoever" and your vaguely citing one state's laws regarding adoption.
Also, the "interracial marriage" that was in dispute "in the early 1960's" was still that, i.e. a marriage as traditionally defined between a man and a woman.
Mr. D's main point, if I understand him, is centered on homosexuals seeking moral acceptance of their behaviour.
Mine is that too, but also that their being denied society's acceptance of their 'union' as equivalent to marriage cannot and should not be compared to the struggle for racial equality in our country's laws and acceptance by a racial minority by a racial majority.

In California, the state that recently passed prop 8, creating a State Contitutional Amendment, the gay backlash has included violence, religious bigotry, violations of privacy, etc. California already has some of the most liberal domestic partnership laws on the books. So the effort there clearly is not about "equal rights". It is, as I said, about the demand by the gay community that they be recognized as a morally equivalent community within our society.

I'm aware of the dangers of a majoritarian government. That is why we have a bill of rights.

quote:

Originally posted by rocket:
Whatever archaic document your quoting from is, you should still use a different term like black Americans...

I quote verbatim, good sir (that's why I didn't correct the spelling of coloured).

I'm sure glad they don't burn 'em any more:

From the early Christian era (30 to 325 CE), marriage was thought of as primarily a private matter, with no religious or other ceremony being required. Until 1545, Christian marriages in Europe were by mutual consent, declaration of intention to marry and upon the subsequent physical union of the parties. The couple would promise verbally to each other that they would be married to each other; the presence of a priest or witnesses was not required. This promise was known as the "verbum." If freely given and made in the present tense (e.g., "I marry you"), it was unquestionably binding; if made in the future tense ("I will marry you"), it would constitute a betrothal. One of the functions of churches from the Middle Ages was to register marriages, which was not obligatory. There was no state involvement in marriage and personal status, with these issues being adjudicated in ecclesiastical courts. Whereas the rape of male citizens was outlawed in the 100s CE, gay marriage was outlawed in the mid-300s by two of Constantine the Great's sons, Constantius II and Constans. While Constans was later denounced for having male lovers, emperors continued the condemnation of homosexuality. For example, a law degreed in 390 required any man "taking a women's role" in sex was to be burned to death.

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:

From the early Christian era (30 to 325 CE), marriage was thought of as primarily a private matter, with no religious or other ceremony being required.

Doug, you are obviously very pro-homosexual. And your use of the 'CE'(common-era) after the dating is a giveaway to your liberal views. For those who may not know, liberal thinkers like to get away from any reference to Jesus Christ, so they drop BC (meaning before Christ, and AD, After Death -of Christ-).

Marriage primarily a private matter? Better tell Christ that the marriage feast of Cana was a unique event. And all those marriages listed in Will and Ariel Durant's works on marriage during that century and the time of Christ as well.

quote:

Originally posted by Phil Knox:
Doug, you are obviously very pro-homosexual.

No, just pro-love.

quote:

And your use of the 'CE'(common-era) after the dating is a giveaway to your liberal views. For those who may not know, liberal thinkers like to get away from any reference to Jesus Christ, so they drop BC (meaning before Christ, and AD, After Death -of Christ-).

Actually, AD means Anno Domini, medieval Latin for "in the year of (the Lord)."

quote:

Originally posted by Doug Spaulding:

No, just pro-love.


Actually, AD means Anno Domini, medieval Latin for "in the year of (the Lord)."

Yes, I understand Anno Domini. But why use the CE unless you wish to detach Christ from historical dating?

So are you in favor of a pro homosexual lifestyle? I can readily understand loving the homosexual. And I can understand loving the adulterer, or the fornicator who lost his way. But do we approve of their lifestyles?

quote:

Originally posted by Phil Knox:
But why use the CE unless you wish to detach Christ from historical dating?

It was a copy and paste from the source.

quote:

I can readily understand loving the homosexual.

No, you mistake my meaning - I'm pro-love meaning the love between the two lovers, not how others love them.

quote:

the "interracial marriage" that was in dispute "in the early 1960's" was still that, i.e. a marriage as traditionally defined between a man and a woman.

You are glossing over the point I was making, which is simple enough. Just because a belief or opinion is held by a majority of people does not make it right. Indeed, looking over human history, quite the opposite is often true.

Doug Spaulding, there is no other way to put it: like the church in Revelation, you have lost your first love.

Mr Dark, I cannot speak for some badly-behaved people out in California. I can only go from my own experience, which is this. Just about EVERY gay person I've heard talk about the matter, is not hung up on the term "marriage." They would like to have equal legal rights on a federal level, period; they are not trying to alter the opinion the religious right holds toward gay people. It is a government matter, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the churches.

(The adverts that were running before the recent election which sponsored by religious groups, stating that churches would be forced to perform gay marriages, were an outright lie. Nothing even close to that was on the books.)