Any country claiming that they are a free and open society that provides and protects the freedom and equality of their citizens (religiously, politically, philosophically, sexually, ethnically, and socially) is but a Lie unless it applies equally to all of their citizens v. just a "selected” few, or even the selected many, but not too all.
This country, America, is supposed to have a secular government that does not discriminate against religions In-Accordance-With our Constitution’s 1st Amendment. Yet today anti-democratic, anti-American, anti-personal freedom and equality religious groups, churches, and certain elected officials, in 33 States, have succeeded in passing prejudicial laws prohibiting equal rights, equality, and freedoms to the LGBT minority within this country. This is all too reminiscent of what the Nazi Party and Fascist did to the Jews, Gypsies, other non-Caucasians, political adversaries, and what the South, and for that matter the North, East and West of the U.S, did to Blacks after 1865.
Hopefully, optimistically, the U.S. Supreme Court, as it has in the past, will be presented with a civil rights case that will overturn and so rectify the prejudicial and discriminatory laws that are now standing in these States.
Until that happens, every time that someone raises an America Flag there is a Shadow Swastika, a Shadow Vatican, and Shadow Fundamentalist Baptist Flags of prejudice, hate, and discrimination that rise with our Flag in quiet denunciation of all that America is supposed to stand for in the world today.
Harley, evolution is a complex thing, and evolutionary selection doesn’t necessarily follow a simple story. For example, there is evidence that female relatives of male homosexuals have higher than normal fertility, in many cases. This supports a hypothesis that some genes which may be associated with homosexuality in males which carry them could support fertility in females which carry them. This, in turn, means that the genes will still be maintained in a relatively high frequency in the population, even if the men that carry the genes have fewer children than normal. Differential benefits to different genders is actually quite a common phenomenon in genetics.
I know that you really weren’t interested in that, and probably won’t even read it, and it is kind of a side note to this political cartoon, but I keep seeing questions like this all the time and I think people ought to know that there IS an answer.
@zoidknight – please don’t confuse creationism with enlightenment. This not a case of ‘he who smelt it dealt it.’The left is pointing out the right’s hypocrisy – holding up their ‘war on women’ as just one example.
If something exists in a biological system, homosexuality for instance, there’s an evolutionary reason for it. It’s not always evident to the casual observer, but it’s there, and can be teased out with a little study.
Oh he is saying republicans don’t believe in evolution. Ok. But no! A belief in something greater then ourselves does not mean we do not believe in science. If there is a God and I believe there is then he created reason to let us know what we need and want to know. It may take us time but we get there it took man thousand of years to create flight. The issue with reason you can over reason anything and a belief in God can help you in stopping that. Atheism is a Religion, some atheist say they know their is no God, but they can’t know, so their belief is a Religion, they believe they don’t know. Ever seen a atheist winter solstice event, saw a documentary on TV once. They sang songs talked, had a speaker it was like a church service.
any sex engaged in ANy other reason but to produce children is a “sex-crime” in the novel “1984”. Things are going backward in the tea-bags way of things.
they do believe in Darwin’s Theory of the survival of the fittest"
Evolving often means thinking over things and THEN making a decision, such as reading on how people don’t chose the gay lifestyle, they are born that way.
“Atheism” is not a religion, although there are atheist religions such as Buddhism, or certain pagan systems (perhaps OnTarget’s Solstice rite was part of one). Atheism also need not mean “belief that there is no god”, it can also mean “NOT believing that there IS a god”.
I call myself an agnostic in that I can’t claim to know whether or not a god exists. But I call myself an atheist insofar as I DON’T believe that any god DOES exist, and I make no allowances for the existence of any in my life. I observe no rites or rituals, I don’t have a metaphysic, and I make no claim that my ethos has been “revealed” or “inspired” by any outside (non-human) source.
Nearly everybody disbelieves in nearly every god that has ever been put forth for popular consumption. Atheists just disbelieve in one more than most. Personally, nobody has ever articulated any god to me that I could find remotely believable, but that rules out nothing for the future. Still, my respect for the office of god is such that I’m forced to consider the position vacant.
“No, theos means god, so atheism means there is no god.”If the word was “atheos” your comment might have some merit. But the word is “atheism”, and a quick trip to dictionary.com will reveal that “theism” means the belief in a god, not the god itself. Atheism simply means a lack of belief in a god. Nothing omniscient about it.
I’m glad there are people who did find that interesting. Also, DrCanuck is right: “kin selection” is another important concept. Individuals who don’t have offspring of their own can contribute significantly to the survival of offspring of their relatives. Think of bees, for example. Meerkats and wolves are other examples: fewer than a quarter of meerkats or wolves may actually have offspring of their own. The others are dedicated to babysitting for their breeding kin, and food-gathering and guard duties. It is the strength of the group as a whole which contributes to survival. For another example, closer to home: think of the centuries in which rich families “dedicated a child to the Church”, and family status was enhanced and ties with the (rich, property-owning) Medieval churches were solidified, by designating one child to become a celibate servant of a religious order rather than marry and have children of his own. Ironic, in light of this conversation, no?
So, what you are saying is that you are willing to ignore some traditional parameters of marriage, just not others. Similarly, I’m willing to bet that you are willing to ignore the bits of tradition which dictate death to witches and to disrespectful children. So, what are your criteria for deciding what to ignore, and what to defend as sacrosanct?
“Do not bother with one man with multiple women… I did not say One man + one women.”Uh, yeah, you did. You said “Marriage is between a man and a woman …” and I’m pretty certain that “a” is a singular pronoun.Thus, you’ll have to deal with biblical marriages like "King David, “the man after God’s own heart,” had at least eight wives. His wise son Solomon kept a harem with 700 wives and 300 concubines."
Read more: Quillen: Varied states of marriage – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/quillen/ci_19932197#ixzz1uflNVRLE
More from http://www.godweb.org/biblemarriage.htm:
1. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5)
2. Marriage shall not impede a man’s right to take concubines, in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)
3. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)
4. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)
5. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)
6. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother’s widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe, and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)
7. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)
Given that you can’t even spell “Wiccan”, I’m disinclined to take your argument as anything other than the blatantly transparent bit of attempted misdirection than it is. Answer the question, please: what are your criteria for determining what bits of tradition you decide to discard and what you want to consider sacrosanct.
Gresch, when you say “any member of a group”, the word “member” is still singular…so you are indeed talking about one man and one woman.And you are still having troubles reading what I write: You say “All of your examples have a man marrying a women (sic)”, whereas in reality I specifically gave the example of “King David, “the man after God’s own heart,” had at least eight wives. His wise son Solomon kept a harem with 700 wives and 300 concubines.”
Indefinite Articles: “A” and “an” signal that the noun modified is indefinite, referring to any member of a group.
All of your examples have a man marrying a women."
. So if “a” means “one or more”, you’re arguing for group marriage as long as there are both men and women involved? Maybe it would be better to just admit, “you mis-spoke yourself”.
Sorry, but abortion, and the “marriage argument”, are both all about what GUYS determined to be “religious tenets”, assuring that MEN maintained control of property, and the state. It’s a “property fight”, just like wars, and driven by loose nuts behind the wheel.
Gresch, you still seem to be going out of your way to avoid my original point, which was what all the gay-hating christians call “traditional marriage”, based on what they think is in their bible, is not as exclusively supported as they think.There’s only one honest reason to be against gay marriage, and that’s because you don’t like gays, and want to hurt them.
The Bible as it was originally written doesn’t use the word “marriage” at all. It was in Hebrew. When it was translated into English, they used the word “marriage.”
Genesis 42:25 (KJV) reads “Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn…” Of course, the Hebrew version wouldn’t have used the word “corn”, and in Jacobean English the word “corn” might have referred to several types of grain, but it would not have meant “sweetcorn” or “maize”, which was a New World crop and CERTAINLY would have been unavailable to Joseph in Egypt.
Words change their meanings all the time. We already use the word “marriage” to refer to both the civil institution and the religious institution, and even in religious terms we use it for non-Judeo-Christian partnerships as well (or would you deny that a man and woman who were wed in a Shinto temple would have their marriage recognized under Christian terms?). If we open the civil institution to same-sex couples, why shouldn’t we just call it “marriage”? We’re expanding the definition of the word, but we’re not fundamentally changing it.
The only thing your Google searches bring up for “wicken”, by the way, is an area of England. If you can’t even be honest about a spelling mistake, I suppose it’s way too much to hope for to have you deal honestly with an argument.
There are enough pre-existing definitions of marriage in history (and in the bible) that one more won’t matter. And since adding “gay marriage” would make millions of people happy, and have no ill effects on everyone else (except those that hate gays and want to hurt them), then I see no reason to not allow it.“Hate” may not be a big feature of Christianity, but it is certainly a feature of many Christians…so my use of the phrase “gay-hating christians” stands.
Glad that you see it’s a mistake. It’s also just a kind of ironic little side note to your first attempt to derail having to answer a question. TERRIBLY handy how your faux outrage keeps you from answering the question, still.
Do you think that if you harp on about “wicken”/Wiccan long enough that we’ll all forget that you are still refusing to answer a very straightforward question on what traditions you are ok with discarding and what traditions you wish to keep sacred, and how exactly you make your mind up about which is which?
Gresch, this shouldn’t be this difficult. We are assured by many, including you, that “traditional” marriage means only one man married to one woman. I have shown you that there are many other historical definitions of marriage. Adding “gay marriage” to the list would make millions of people happy, and have no ill effects on anyone else (except those that hate gays and want to hurt them).
“If I do could Moslems drink Bourbon since it is made from corn , which is listed a vegetable in the US ?”
Moslems in this country can drink it already, and do. There’s no law against it here. Likewise, there are no laws against Jews eating pork, lobster, or cheeseburgers, and the closest Jesus ever came to lifting the Kosher dietary restrictions for his followers was saying “It is not what goes into a man’s mouth which defiles him, but what comes out of it” (which seems to come awful close to licensing fellatio). Likewise, there are no laws in this country against wearing wool and linen garments at the same time, which the Bible describes as an abomination. Have YOU committed an abomination today? Are there degrees of abominability, or is an abomination an abomination?
It matters not a bit whether same-sex marriage is mentioned in the Bible. Our country is not obliged to follow the Bible when making our laws, and the Bible doesn’t hold the patent on marriages, since marriages are and have been formed in ages and places where they wouldn’t know the God of Abraham if they tripped over Him.
And if you want precedents for same-sex marriages, you needn’t comb through the Bible anyway. They’re already being performed and recognized in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina, Mexico, and (like it or not) parts of the United States. Everywhere they happen, they are called marriages. It’s already happened. The horse is out of the bottle, the genie is out of the barn.
Of course, nobody can ever force YOU to use the word “marriage” to describe same-sex marriages, but you can call a tomato a “suspension bridge” if you like. A rose by any other name…
Bible scholar that you are, you’re no doubt aware that St. Paul was hardly an avid supporter of opposite-sex marriage, either, but he considered it a necessary evil for those who couldn’t hack a celibate lifestyle. “I say there shall be no more marriages! Those that are married already – all but one – shall live. The rest shall keep as they are!” Wait, sorry, that was Hamlet. Paul said “But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.”1 Corinthians 7:9
Gresch, this shouldn’t be this difficult. We are assured by many, including you, that “traditional” marriage means only one man married to one woman. I have shown you that there are many other historical definitions of marriage. Adding “gay marriage” to the list would make millions of people happy, and have no ill effects on anyone else (except those that hate gays and want to hurt them).
“Have you tried to serve alcohol to others in Saudi Arabia yet?”
Why would I wish to do that? In Saudi Arabia their civil laws are dictated by their religious texts. I would not wish to live in a country where that is the case. Would you?
“A carnation is not a rose, no matter how often it calls itself a rose.”
When people start calling carnations “roses,” then the word “roses” includes carnations. Alternatively, from “A rose is a flower” and “A carnation is not a rose”, it does not follow that “A carnation is not a flower.” Same-sex marriages are occurring. The people entering them call them “marriages.” The people performing them call them “marriages.” The bodies authorizing them call them “marriages.” You’ve already lost this one, but again it’s all the same to me whether or not YOU ever call them “marriages”…
No glitch. You asked the same question. The legal term for it is “asked and answered”.(I finally got around to looking up my old password so I could switch back to my original handle. R.I.P. Yassir…)
G., the only thing you have said which even vaguely approaches being an answer (if it’s a poor light and you squint and are inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt) would beYour question calls for a definite answer to a quite broad question.
My criteria would start with not making a decision without hearing which bit of tradition is being discussed. I would need more definite definition of “discard” and “sacrosanct”.
One would always believe one has an open mind, but given the choice I would still prefer to have meatloaf every day. That is not an answer, however. That is a waffle. It answers nothing at all about why you choose to preserve some tradition as inviolable, and discard other traditions with nary a mention. You basically just don’t want to justify yourself, is the distinct impression I get. You just want to be able to deny marriage to people who love each other, and avoid having to justify why.
Ah, so you’re of the sect that says marriage is only for breeders, huh, Gresch? So no marriage for senior citizens. No marriage for gays. No marriage for infertile couples. Got it.
Tpenna, your first post in over a year, and it’s on the tail end of a 5-day old thread? I am honored!In this case, it’s only a problem for the gays who can’t get married because the Christians wish to impose their religious beliefs on them.
So if a woman without ovaries and a uterus agrees to try to get pregnant, then you’ll allow her to get married?Will you give a gay couple equality on that if they also agree to try?
My husband and I knew that we wouldn’t be able to “naturally merge our DNA” and breed before we got married, and we agreed in advance that if we ever got to a point that we really wanted children we would simply adopt. So, in your view, my marriage isn’t a legitimate marriage and we aren’t entitled to the word?
Besides, there have been legal same-sex marriages in a number of traditional cultures around the world. Why do you get to define the word solely to suit yourself?
Yeah, that pesky 2%. We have to make sure we don’t let such a small minority get rights. The rest of us might run out of ours! There are only so many to go around, right?
What about a happily married heterosexual couple in which the wife gets a hysterectomy, or the husband gets a vasectomy, Gresch? Do they have to get divorced on your planet, or do your breeder-only rules only apply to preventing marriage in the first place?
br />And this is your business, why now? And I am obliged to justify my reproductive decisions to you, why exactly? My, what a large sense of righteous entitlement you have. And I guess it stretches to include your believed right to condemn all the marriages where people simply don’t want children. My god! How DARE they! Surely, they can’t call themselves married! ::horror::
Does any part of this highlight to you the kind of person that you are being, here?
As it happens, no, I didn’t try and wouldn’t ever; due to scar tissue from injuries, if I did ever succeed in getting pregnant, it could kill me. I’m not heartbroken over it, though, because being a mother was never one of my life’s ambitions anyway. So, gosh, in your righteous, entitled, ever-so-superior judgement, gee whiz., am I entitled to call myself “married” or not? I await your judgment breathlessly, since >obviously< whether or not mine is a “legitimate” marriage depends on the approval of a random pseudonymous bigot-apparent on the internet.
Second, I gave you a link above which specifically named some of those cultures. (The text highlighted in blue: in case you haven’t run into that before, that’s a link.) It lists “the Yoruba and Ibo of West Africa, the Nuer of Sudan, the Lovedu, Zulu and Sotho of South Africa, and the Kikuyu and Nandi of East Africa.” To this I would add the Igbo of Nigeria, the Lakota, Navajo and Mohave of the American tribes (the “two-spirit marriages”) before Christian missionaries worked on fostering homophobia, and in China under the Ming dynasty. And this circles back around to the question which you still have never really answered:
Why do you feel it is right to discard these traditions of marriage, but preserve others? How do you, personally, decide what traditions should be kept and which discarded?
And, come to that: who said you could forbid any percent of the world’s population the right to form a legal, equal-status married partnership with the freely consenting adult that they love? Who said you could redefine marriage to exclude people?
I think Gresch knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on, Lynne. He can’t respond to a single point we’ve made. I mean, how could he? He obviously gave little thought to what he was saying…he’s just been parroting what he’s been told to say, and lacking the integrity to admit it, now all he can do is run away with his tail between his legs.
Gresch said:“The people who call man+woman marriage are the ones having the children and will be teaching them to call it marriage. The ones who call man+man and woman+woman anything but unions can not breed quick enough”Then Gresch said:“yes there of plenty of marriages that do not involve perfect love…(arranged marriages, etc.) but marriage is the “breeders” word.”Then 2 days later Gresch said:“Antony / Yassir introduced the canard of “breeding” being a requirements.”Obviously Gresch has a poor memory, and forgot that his posts are still there for all to see.
No, Gresch, the only reason I brought up the biblical definitions of marriage is to show you that your contention that traditional marriage is one man and one woman is both short sighted and incorrect.My main “augment” (sic) is simply that allowing gays to marry would make millions of people happy, and have no ill effects on anyone else (except those that hate gays and want to hurt them).
Don’t be dishonest, you’ve made the ability to have children central to your argument from the start; for example, two days ago you said to me No you would rather dilute the special relationship of a man+woman who can pair bond and naturally merge their DNA. That’s not even about humor; that’s a serious part of your argument, from everything you’ve said.
The point is, “marriage” as a concept isn’t immutable. It has been changed in numerous ways in the past and present. Your claim that we need to preserve “traditional” marriage runs hard into the fact that “traditional” marriage has in the past included an awful lot of things not part of the definition today, and what is considered to be ok continues to shift according to the attitudes of the population — it isn’t some sacred, immutable, untouchable, God-dictated truth.
And as I’ve pointed out before, as multiple people have pointed out before, in fact: marriage is a legal status. This legal status already exists outside the remit of religion. It is the rights and protections and responsibilities of the legal status that homosexual couples want to be able to claim and share in. And there IS nothing but “marriage” which embodies those.
But heck, even if “marriage” were just a word, some people who truly love each other would want to use it – and I think it is particularly mean-spirited to say that two equal, competent, consenting adults shouldn’t be allowed to use the most sincere form of commitment to each other that we have just because you don’t like the idea.
Incidentally, I do note that you said (and good for you):
“Why in this day and age civil unions do not have the same civil protections as marriage is beyond me.”.
Well, the fact is that they don’t, and there is no legal precedent for them to do so. So we are faced with a couple of choices:
1. Invent an entirely new status from scratch, force it to be recognized nationally and internationally, amend all current legislation which makes reference to “marriage” to also make reference to this new type of status, and establish a body of case law to support it.
or
2. Allow the word and status of “marriage” to simply apply to same-sex couples as well as opposite-sex couples, as long as they go through the same legal processes to register that status.
Soooo….which is simpler, less costly, and far more likely to succeed, ya think.
The second choice is simpler, but the first choice is more satisfying. And it wouldn’t really be a new type of status…it would just call the current legal status of marriage “civil union”, and apply it to everyone.
But they can use it…independent of getting a civil union with all the legal implications, any couple would also be free to get “married” at the institution of their choice.
Okay, you win, Gresch. We’ll just use the old testament meaning of marriage (one man with hundreds of wives), and not “make up” any different meanings. That way your bigotry will be satisfied, which is obviously far more important to you than the happiness of millions of gay people.
Well, this was fun. I must admit a feeling of schadenfreude watching Gresch get roundly trounced.@ Anthony: Finally I know who was behind Yassir! Excellent. Welcome back (but I still enjoyed Yassir).
taunted with “You know that there are researchers who feel that “schadenfreude” is a sign of low self-esteem”Lifted off wikipedia without understanding what it was, uh-uh. And yet again providing us with a perfect example of a troll comment.
Gresch, without bothering to ask them, I feel pretty confident that gays don’t need or desire your input on whether their love and commitment is “real”, especially since your only motivation is to hurt them.omQ, thanks! But I’m curious…how did you happen upon what is now an 8-day-old thread?
Nevertheless, you were “quick to throw that troll word around” yourself.Not sure if your question was directed at me, but if you’d like to redirect the discussion to couples other than consenting adults, we can. What’s your position?I didn’t really think I was setting you straight. Your insistence on hurting millions of gays seems pretty set in stone (which is the main thing you have taught me).
Actually that’s a pretty big agreement on how the government should handle the issue.But I’m not sure I see how this agreement to equalize marriage between straights and gays is “hurting Billions of people”. While I’m sure there will be a certain amount of people who will bemoan anything that doesn’t hurt gays, I have little sympathy for them.But you’re right…I don’t think I’ve ever posted on a thread so many days after it started, so let’s go find another one.
leweclectic almost 12 years ago
Any country claiming that they are a free and open society that provides and protects the freedom and equality of their citizens (religiously, politically, philosophically, sexually, ethnically, and socially) is but a Lie unless it applies equally to all of their citizens v. just a "selected” few, or even the selected many, but not too all.
This country, America, is supposed to have a secular government that does not discriminate against religions In-Accordance-With our Constitution’s 1st Amendment. Yet today anti-democratic, anti-American, anti-personal freedom and equality religious groups, churches, and certain elected officials, in 33 States, have succeeded in passing prejudicial laws prohibiting equal rights, equality, and freedoms to the LGBT minority within this country. This is all too reminiscent of what the Nazi Party and Fascist did to the Jews, Gypsies, other non-Caucasians, political adversaries, and what the South, and for that matter the North, East and West of the U.S, did to Blacks after 1865.
Hopefully, optimistically, the U.S. Supreme Court, as it has in the past, will be presented with a civil rights case that will overturn and so rectify the prejudicial and discriminatory laws that are now standing in these States.
Until that happens, every time that someone raises an America Flag there is a Shadow Swastika, a Shadow Vatican, and Shadow Fundamentalist Baptist Flags of prejudice, hate, and discrimination that rise with our Flag in quiet denunciation of all that America is supposed to stand for in the world today.
Richard Howland-Bolton Premium Member almost 12 years ago
masterskrain what an appropriate quote since it was made by the evil pigs :-)
walruscarver2000 almost 12 years ago
Newt? Is that you?
zoidknight almost 12 years ago
And the fight to suppress freedom never ends.
Ink-adink-adoo almost 12 years ago
“Trog.” Ha!
lbatik almost 12 years ago
Harley, evolution is a complex thing, and evolutionary selection doesn’t necessarily follow a simple story. For example, there is evidence that female relatives of male homosexuals have higher than normal fertility, in many cases. This supports a hypothesis that some genes which may be associated with homosexuality in males which carry them could support fertility in females which carry them. This, in turn, means that the genes will still be maintained in a relatively high frequency in the population, even if the men that carry the genes have fewer children than normal. Differential benefits to different genders is actually quite a common phenomenon in genetics.
I know that you really weren’t interested in that, and probably won’t even read it, and it is kind of a side note to this political cartoon, but I keep seeing questions like this all the time and I think people ought to know that there IS an answer.
ossiningaling almost 12 years ago
@zoidknight – please don’t confuse creationism with enlightenment. This not a case of ‘he who smelt it dealt it.’The left is pointing out the right’s hypocrisy – holding up their ‘war on women’ as just one example.
ARodney almost 12 years ago
If something exists in a biological system, homosexuality for instance, there’s an evolutionary reason for it. It’s not always evident to the casual observer, but it’s there, and can be teased out with a little study.
OnTarget almost 12 years ago
Oh he is saying republicans don’t believe in evolution. Ok. But no! A belief in something greater then ourselves does not mean we do not believe in science. If there is a God and I believe there is then he created reason to let us know what we need and want to know. It may take us time but we get there it took man thousand of years to create flight. The issue with reason you can over reason anything and a belief in God can help you in stopping that. Atheism is a Religion, some atheist say they know their is no God, but they can’t know, so their belief is a Religion, they believe they don’t know. Ever seen a atheist winter solstice event, saw a documentary on TV once. They sang songs talked, had a speaker it was like a church service.
STLDan almost 12 years ago
How can you “evolve” on an issue that denies evolution? that makes zero sense lol Gay marriage denies evolution? You must be smoking up with zoidnight
pam Miner almost 12 years ago
any sex engaged in ANy other reason but to produce children is a “sex-crime” in the novel “1984”. Things are going backward in the tea-bags way of things.
they do believe in Darwin’s Theory of the survival of the fittest"
Evolving often means thinking over things and THEN making a decision, such as reading on how people don’t chose the gay lifestyle, they are born that way.
fritzoid Premium Member almost 12 years ago
“Atheism” is not a religion, although there are atheist religions such as Buddhism, or certain pagan systems (perhaps OnTarget’s Solstice rite was part of one). Atheism also need not mean “belief that there is no god”, it can also mean “NOT believing that there IS a god”.
I call myself an agnostic in that I can’t claim to know whether or not a god exists. But I call myself an atheist insofar as I DON’T believe that any god DOES exist, and I make no allowances for the existence of any in my life. I observe no rites or rituals, I don’t have a metaphysic, and I make no claim that my ethos has been “revealed” or “inspired” by any outside (non-human) source.
fritzoid Premium Member almost 12 years ago
Nearly everybody disbelieves in nearly every god that has ever been put forth for popular consumption. Atheists just disbelieve in one more than most. Personally, nobody has ever articulated any god to me that I could find remotely believable, but that rules out nothing for the future. Still, my respect for the office of god is such that I’m forced to consider the position vacant.
Yassir Thasmebebbi almost 12 years ago
“No, theos means god, so atheism means there is no god.”If the word was “atheos” your comment might have some merit. But the word is “atheism”, and a quick trip to dictionary.com will reveal that “theism” means the belief in a god, not the god itself. Atheism simply means a lack of belief in a god. Nothing omniscient about it.
Yassir Thasmebebbi almost 12 years ago
How lucky your god is to have you to tell me what he believes. Pity he is incapable of telling me himself.
Yassir Thasmebebbi almost 12 years ago
“Marriage is between a man and a woman …”Not according to your bible, Gresch. Ever read it? It has far more variety than that.
kamwick almost 12 years ago
So, instead of Neanderthal, the GOP equals Trogs!
Yes, that works too!
lbatik almost 12 years ago
I’m glad there are people who did find that interesting. Also, DrCanuck is right: “kin selection” is another important concept. Individuals who don’t have offspring of their own can contribute significantly to the survival of offspring of their relatives. Think of bees, for example. Meerkats and wolves are other examples: fewer than a quarter of meerkats or wolves may actually have offspring of their own. The others are dedicated to babysitting for their breeding kin, and food-gathering and guard duties. It is the strength of the group as a whole which contributes to survival. For another example, closer to home: think of the centuries in which rich families “dedicated a child to the Church”, and family status was enhanced and ties with the (rich, property-owning) Medieval churches were solidified, by designating one child to become a celibate servant of a religious order rather than marry and have children of his own. Ironic, in light of this conversation, no?
lbatik almost 12 years ago
So, what you are saying is that you are willing to ignore some traditional parameters of marriage, just not others. Similarly, I’m willing to bet that you are willing to ignore the bits of tradition which dictate death to witches and to disrespectful children. So, what are your criteria for deciding what to ignore, and what to defend as sacrosanct?
Yassir Thasmebebbi almost 12 years ago
“Do not bother with one man with multiple women… I did not say One man + one women.”Uh, yeah, you did. You said “Marriage is between a man and a woman …” and I’m pretty certain that “a” is a singular pronoun.Thus, you’ll have to deal with biblical marriages like "King David, “the man after God’s own heart,” had at least eight wives. His wise son Solomon kept a harem with 700 wives and 300 concubines."
Read more: Quillen: Varied states of marriage – The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/quillen/ci_19932197#ixzz1uflNVRLE
More from http://www.godweb.org/biblemarriage.htm:
1. Marriage in the United States shall consist of a union between one man and one or more women. (Gen 29:17-28; II Sam 3:2-5)
2. Marriage shall not impede a man’s right to take concubines, in addition to his wife or wives. (II Sam 5:13; I Kings 11:3; II Chron 11:21)
3. A marriage shall be considered valid only if the wife is a virgin. If the wife is not a virgin, she shall be executed. (Deut 22:13-21)
4. Marriage of a believer and a non-believer shall be forbidden. (Gen 24:3; Num 25:1-9; Ezra 9:12; Neh 10:30)
5. Since marriage is for life, neither this Constitution nor the constitution of any State, nor any state or federal law, shall be construed to permit divorce. (Deut 22:19; Mark 10:9)
6. If a married man dies without children, his brother shall marry the widow. If he refuses to marry his brother’s widow or deliberately does not give her children, he shall pay a fine of one shoe, and be otherwise punished in a manner to be determined by law. (Gen. 38:6-10; Deut 25:5-10)
7. In lieu of marriage, if there are no acceptable men in your town, it is required that you get your dad drunk and have sex with him (even if he had previously offered you up as a sex toy to men young and old), tag-teaming with any sisters you may have. Of course, this rule applies only if you are female. (Gen 19:31-36)
lbatik almost 12 years ago
Given that you can’t even spell “Wiccan”, I’m disinclined to take your argument as anything other than the blatantly transparent bit of attempted misdirection than it is. Answer the question, please: what are your criteria for determining what bits of tradition you decide to discard and what you want to consider sacrosanct.
Yassir Thasmebebbi almost 12 years ago
Gresch, when you say “any member of a group”, the word “member” is still singular…so you are indeed talking about one man and one woman.And you are still having troubles reading what I write: You say “All of your examples have a man marrying a women (sic)”, whereas in reality I specifically gave the example of “King David, “the man after God’s own heart,” had at least eight wives. His wise son Solomon kept a harem with 700 wives and 300 concubines.”
Yontrop almost 12 years ago
“I looked it up …
Indefinite Articles: “A” and “an” signal that the noun modified is indefinite, referring to any member of a group.
All of your examples have a man marrying a women."
. So if “a” means “one or more”, you’re arguing for group marriage as long as there are both men and women involved? Maybe it would be better to just admit, “you mis-spoke yourself”.
Dtroutma almost 12 years ago
Sorry, but abortion, and the “marriage argument”, are both all about what GUYS determined to be “religious tenets”, assuring that MEN maintained control of property, and the state. It’s a “property fight”, just like wars, and driven by loose nuts behind the wheel.
Yassir Thasmebebbi almost 12 years ago
Gresch, you still seem to be going out of your way to avoid my original point, which was what all the gay-hating christians call “traditional marriage”, based on what they think is in their bible, is not as exclusively supported as they think.There’s only one honest reason to be against gay marriage, and that’s because you don’t like gays, and want to hurt them.
Yassir Thasmebebbi almost 12 years ago
(“You” in that last sentence is a generalized “you”, and not referring to you in particular, Gresch.)
fritzoid Premium Member almost 12 years ago
The Bible as it was originally written doesn’t use the word “marriage” at all. It was in Hebrew. When it was translated into English, they used the word “marriage.”
Genesis 42:25 (KJV) reads “Then Joseph commanded to fill their sacks with corn…” Of course, the Hebrew version wouldn’t have used the word “corn”, and in Jacobean English the word “corn” might have referred to several types of grain, but it would not have meant “sweetcorn” or “maize”, which was a New World crop and CERTAINLY would have been unavailable to Joseph in Egypt.
Words change their meanings all the time. We already use the word “marriage” to refer to both the civil institution and the religious institution, and even in religious terms we use it for non-Judeo-Christian partnerships as well (or would you deny that a man and woman who were wed in a Shinto temple would have their marriage recognized under Christian terms?). If we open the civil institution to same-sex couples, why shouldn’t we just call it “marriage”? We’re expanding the definition of the word, but we’re not fundamentally changing it.
lbatik almost 12 years ago
You basically just don’t HAVE an answer, do you.
lbatik almost 12 years ago
The only thing your Google searches bring up for “wicken”, by the way, is an area of England. If you can’t even be honest about a spelling mistake, I suppose it’s way too much to hope for to have you deal honestly with an argument.
Yassir Thasmebebbi almost 12 years ago
Well, since you don’t seem to want to address any of the points I brought up, I’ll bite: To what oxymorons do you refer?
Yassir Thasmebebbi almost 12 years ago
There are enough pre-existing definitions of marriage in history (and in the bible) that one more won’t matter. And since adding “gay marriage” would make millions of people happy, and have no ill effects on everyone else (except those that hate gays and want to hurt them), then I see no reason to not allow it.“Hate” may not be a big feature of Christianity, but it is certainly a feature of many Christians…so my use of the phrase “gay-hating christians” stands.
lbatik almost 12 years ago
Glad that you see it’s a mistake. It’s also just a kind of ironic little side note to your first attempt to derail having to answer a question. TERRIBLY handy how your faux outrage keeps you from answering the question, still.
Do you think that if you harp on about “wicken”/Wiccan long enough that we’ll all forget that you are still refusing to answer a very straightforward question on what traditions you are ok with discarding and what traditions you wish to keep sacred, and how exactly you make your mind up about which is which?
Seriously, answer the question.
Yassir Thasmebebbi almost 12 years ago
Going off on tangents to avoid having to answer pointed questions seems to be a bit of a modus operandi for Gresch.
fritzoid Premium Member almost 12 years ago
Gresch, please defend the common American usage of the word “corn” to mean maize in light of Genesis 42:25.
For that matter, defend the use of the word “corn” to mean a podiatric condition.
Yassir Thasmebebbi almost 12 years ago
Gresch, this shouldn’t be this difficult. We are assured by many, including you, that “traditional” marriage means only one man married to one woman. I have shown you that there are many other historical definitions of marriage. Adding “gay marriage” to the list would make millions of people happy, and have no ill effects on anyone else (except those that hate gays and want to hurt them).
fritzoid Premium Member almost 12 years ago
“If I do could Moslems drink Bourbon since it is made from corn , which is listed a vegetable in the US ?”
Moslems in this country can drink it already, and do. There’s no law against it here. Likewise, there are no laws against Jews eating pork, lobster, or cheeseburgers, and the closest Jesus ever came to lifting the Kosher dietary restrictions for his followers was saying “It is not what goes into a man’s mouth which defiles him, but what comes out of it” (which seems to come awful close to licensing fellatio). Likewise, there are no laws in this country against wearing wool and linen garments at the same time, which the Bible describes as an abomination. Have YOU committed an abomination today? Are there degrees of abominability, or is an abomination an abomination?
It matters not a bit whether same-sex marriage is mentioned in the Bible. Our country is not obliged to follow the Bible when making our laws, and the Bible doesn’t hold the patent on marriages, since marriages are and have been formed in ages and places where they wouldn’t know the God of Abraham if they tripped over Him.
And if you want precedents for same-sex marriages, you needn’t comb through the Bible anyway. They’re already being performed and recognized in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa, Norway, Sweden, Portugal, Iceland, Argentina, Mexico, and (like it or not) parts of the United States. Everywhere they happen, they are called marriages. It’s already happened. The horse is out of the bottle, the genie is out of the barn.
Of course, nobody can ever force YOU to use the word “marriage” to describe same-sex marriages, but you can call a tomato a “suspension bridge” if you like. A rose by any other name…
fritzoid Premium Member almost 12 years ago
Bible scholar that you are, you’re no doubt aware that St. Paul was hardly an avid supporter of opposite-sex marriage, either, but he considered it a necessary evil for those who couldn’t hack a celibate lifestyle. “I say there shall be no more marriages! Those that are married already – all but one – shall live. The rest shall keep as they are!” Wait, sorry, that was Hamlet. Paul said “But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn.” 1 Corinthians 7:9
Yassir Thasmebebbi almost 12 years ago
Gresch, this shouldn’t be this difficult. We are assured by many, including you, that “traditional” marriage means only one man married to one woman. I have shown you that there are many other historical definitions of marriage. Adding “gay marriage” to the list would make millions of people happy, and have no ill effects on anyone else (except those that hate gays and want to hurt them).
fritzoid Premium Member almost 12 years ago
“Have you tried to serve alcohol to others in Saudi Arabia yet?”
Why would I wish to do that? In Saudi Arabia their civil laws are dictated by their religious texts. I would not wish to live in a country where that is the case. Would you?
“A carnation is not a rose, no matter how often it calls itself a rose.”
When people start calling carnations “roses,” then the word “roses” includes carnations. Alternatively, from “A rose is a flower” and “A carnation is not a rose”, it does not follow that “A carnation is not a flower.” Same-sex marriages are occurring. The people entering them call them “marriages.” The people performing them call them “marriages.” The bodies authorizing them call them “marriages.” You’ve already lost this one, but again it’s all the same to me whether or not YOU ever call them “marriages”…
riley05 almost 12 years ago
No glitch. You asked the same question. The legal term for it is “asked and answered”.(I finally got around to looking up my old password so I could switch back to my original handle. R.I.P. Yassir…)
lbatik almost 12 years ago
G., the only thing you have said which even vaguely approaches being an answer (if it’s a poor light and you squint and are inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt) would beYour question calls for a definite answer to a quite broad question.
My criteria would start with not making a decision without hearing which bit of tradition is being discussed. I would need more definite definition of “discard” and “sacrosanct”.
One would always believe one has an open mind, but given the choice I would still prefer to have meatloaf every day. That is not an answer, however. That is a waffle. It answers nothing at all about why you choose to preserve some tradition as inviolable, and discard other traditions with nary a mention. You basically just don’t want to justify yourself, is the distinct impression I get. You just want to be able to deny marriage to people who love each other, and avoid having to justify why.
riley05 almost 12 years ago
No, it was actually the http://www.gocomics.com/bensargent/2012/05/10/ thread that finally made me bother to look up the old password.
riley05 almost 12 years ago
Ah, so you’re of the sect that says marriage is only for breeders, huh, Gresch? So no marriage for senior citizens. No marriage for gays. No marriage for infertile couples. Got it.
riley05 almost 12 years ago
Tpenna, your first post in over a year, and it’s on the tail end of a 5-day old thread? I am honored!In this case, it’s only a problem for the gays who can’t get married because the Christians wish to impose their religious beliefs on them.
riley05 almost 12 years ago
So if a woman without ovaries and a uterus agrees to try to get pregnant, then you’ll allow her to get married?Will you give a gay couple equality on that if they also agree to try?
lbatik almost 12 years ago
My husband and I knew that we wouldn’t be able to “naturally merge our DNA” and breed before we got married, and we agreed in advance that if we ever got to a point that we really wanted children we would simply adopt. So, in your view, my marriage isn’t a legitimate marriage and we aren’t entitled to the word?
lbatik almost 12 years ago
Besides, there have been legal same-sex marriages in a number of traditional cultures around the world. Why do you get to define the word solely to suit yourself?
tpenna almost 12 years ago
Yeah, that pesky 2%. We have to make sure we don’t let such a small minority get rights. The rest of us might run out of ours! There are only so many to go around, right?
riley05 almost 12 years ago
What about a happily married heterosexual couple in which the wife gets a hysterectomy, or the husband gets a vasectomy, Gresch? Do they have to get divorced on your planet, or do your breeder-only rules only apply to preventing marriage in the first place?
riley05 almost 12 years ago
That’s only around 4 million people in the USA, Tpenna. Just a drop in the bucket…hardly worth worrying about.
lbatik almost 12 years ago
Did you at least try?
br />And this is your business, why now? And I am obliged to justify my reproductive decisions to you, why exactly? My, what a large sense of righteous entitlement you have. And I guess it stretches to include your believed right to condemn all the marriages where people simply don’t want children. My god! How DARE they! Surely, they can’t call themselves married! ::horror::
Does any part of this highlight to you the kind of person that you are being, here?
As it happens, no, I didn’t try and wouldn’t ever; due to scar tissue from injuries, if I did ever succeed in getting pregnant, it could kill me. I’m not heartbroken over it, though, because being a mother was never one of my life’s ambitions anyway. So, gosh, in your righteous, entitled, ever-so-superior judgement, gee whiz., am I entitled to call myself “married” or not? I await your judgment breathlessly, since >obviously< whether or not mine is a “legitimate” marriage depends on the approval of a random pseudonymous bigot-apparent on the internet.
Second, I gave you a link above which specifically named some of those cultures. (The text highlighted in blue: in case you haven’t run into that before, that’s a link.) It lists “the Yoruba and Ibo of West Africa, the Nuer of Sudan, the Lovedu, Zulu and Sotho of South Africa, and the Kikuyu and Nandi of East Africa.” To this I would add the Igbo of Nigeria, the Lakota, Navajo and Mohave of the American tribes (the “two-spirit marriages”) before Christian missionaries worked on fostering homophobia, and in China under the Ming dynasty. And this circles back around to the question which you still have never really answered:
Why do you feel it is right to discard these traditions of marriage, but preserve others? How do you, personally, decide what traditions should be kept and which discarded?
And, come to that: who said you could forbid any percent of the world’s population the right to form a legal, equal-status married partnership with the freely consenting adult that they love? Who said you could redefine marriage to exclude people?
riley05 almost 12 years ago
I think Gresch knows he doesn’t have a leg to stand on, Lynne. He can’t respond to a single point we’ve made. I mean, how could he? He obviously gave little thought to what he was saying…he’s just been parroting what he’s been told to say, and lacking the integrity to admit it, now all he can do is run away with his tail between his legs.
riley05 almost 12 years ago
Gresch said:“The people who call man+woman marriage are the ones having the children and will be teaching them to call it marriage. The ones who call man+man and woman+woman anything but unions can not breed quick enough”Then Gresch said:“yes there of plenty of marriages that do not involve perfect love…(arranged marriages, etc.) but marriage is the “breeders” word.”Then 2 days later Gresch said:“Antony / Yassir introduced the canard of “breeding” being a requirements.”Obviously Gresch has a poor memory, and forgot that his posts are still there for all to see.
riley05 almost 12 years ago
No, Gresch, the only reason I brought up the biblical definitions of marriage is to show you that your contention that traditional marriage is one man and one woman is both short sighted and incorrect.My main “augment” (sic) is simply that allowing gays to marry would make millions of people happy, and have no ill effects on anyone else (except those that hate gays and want to hurt them).
lbatik almost 12 years ago
Don’t be dishonest, you’ve made the ability to have children central to your argument from the start; for example, two days ago you said to me No you would rather dilute the special relationship of a man+woman who can pair bond and naturally merge their DNA. That’s not even about humor; that’s a serious part of your argument, from everything you’ve said.
The point is, “marriage” as a concept isn’t immutable. It has been changed in numerous ways in the past and present. Your claim that we need to preserve “traditional” marriage runs hard into the fact that “traditional” marriage has in the past included an awful lot of things not part of the definition today, and what is considered to be ok continues to shift according to the attitudes of the population — it isn’t some sacred, immutable, untouchable, God-dictated truth.
And as I’ve pointed out before, as multiple people have pointed out before, in fact: marriage is a legal status. This legal status already exists outside the remit of religion. It is the rights and protections and responsibilities of the legal status that homosexual couples want to be able to claim and share in. And there IS nothing but “marriage” which embodies those.
But heck, even if “marriage” were just a word, some people who truly love each other would want to use it – and I think it is particularly mean-spirited to say that two equal, competent, consenting adults shouldn’t be allowed to use the most sincere form of commitment to each other that we have just because you don’t like the idea.
lbatik almost 12 years ago
Incidentally, I do note that you said (and good for you):
“Why in this day and age civil unions do not have the same civil protections as marriage is beyond me.”.
Well, the fact is that they don’t, and there is no legal precedent for them to do so. So we are faced with a couple of choices:
1. Invent an entirely new status from scratch, force it to be recognized nationally and internationally, amend all current legislation which makes reference to “marriage” to also make reference to this new type of status, and establish a body of case law to support it.
or
2. Allow the word and status of “marriage” to simply apply to same-sex couples as well as opposite-sex couples, as long as they go through the same legal processes to register that status.
Soooo….which is simpler, less costly, and far more likely to succeed, ya think.
riley05 almost 12 years ago
The second choice is simpler, but the first choice is more satisfying. And it wouldn’t really be a new type of status…it would just call the current legal status of marriage “civil union”, and apply it to everyone.
riley05 almost 12 years ago
But they can use it…independent of getting a civil union with all the legal implications, any couple would also be free to get “married” at the institution of their choice.
riley05 almost 12 years ago
Okay, you win, Gresch. We’ll just use the old testament meaning of marriage (one man with hundreds of wives), and not “make up” any different meanings. That way your bigotry will be satisfied, which is obviously far more important to you than the happiness of millions of gay people.
OmqR-IV.0 almost 12 years ago
Well, this was fun. I must admit a feeling of schadenfreude watching Gresch get roundly trounced.@ Anthony: Finally I know who was behind Yassir! Excellent. Welcome back (but I still enjoyed Yassir).
OmqR-IV.0 almost 12 years ago
taunted with “You know that there are researchers who feel that “schadenfreude” is a sign of low self-esteem”Lifted off wikipedia without understanding what it was, uh-uh. And yet again providing us with a perfect example of a troll comment.
riley05 almost 12 years ago
Gresch, without bothering to ask them, I feel pretty confident that gays don’t need or desire your input on whether their love and commitment is “real”, especially since your only motivation is to hurt them.omQ, thanks! But I’m curious…how did you happen upon what is now an 8-day-old thread?
riley05 almost 12 years ago
Nevertheless, you were “quick to throw that troll word around” yourself.Not sure if your question was directed at me, but if you’d like to redirect the discussion to couples other than consenting adults, we can. What’s your position?I didn’t really think I was setting you straight. Your insistence on hurting millions of gays seems pretty set in stone (which is the main thing you have taught me).
riley05 almost 12 years ago
Actually that’s a pretty big agreement on how the government should handle the issue.But I’m not sure I see how this agreement to equalize marriage between straights and gays is “hurting Billions of people”. While I’m sure there will be a certain amount of people who will bemoan anything that doesn’t hurt gays, I have little sympathy for them.But you’re right…I don’t think I’ve ever posted on a thread so many days after it started, so let’s go find another one.