Radical Clerics, Christian Morals, and Homosexuality

Its ... original ... settlers? Though he's not very punctual in this respect, I've noticed. For example, the very foundation of the U.S. was a sin against 1 Peter 2:13-18 and Romans 13:1-6, and God still hasn't destroyed America for their godless so-called "War Of Independence". I guess he's too busy controlling the outcome of sporting events and appearing on cheese sandwiches. No you won't. The great thing about imaginary martyrdom is that it gives you that lovely warm self--righteous feeling inside without actually requiring any courage. In that respect, it sure beats the heck out of the real thing.

But unless it moves on to the actual sticks and stones, it's not persecution. You have been known to call people names yourself, but that falls short of burning people at the stake; nor do I believe that that's what you're going to move on to next.Really, Faith, persecution? St. Peter was crucified upside down. There are people in the world right now being killed for their faith and lack of it. And you're being persecuted because people disagree with you on a debate forum which you choose to post on as a hobby? Because they have an attitude different from your own? Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Well, a couple of things you may not have thought of.First of all, no-one is forcing the churches to adapt to anything. The Catholic church, for example, is free to consider that two gay people aren't married, or that someone who's divorced and remarried is really still married to her first husband, or that anyone married by a Protestant minister rather than a Roman Catholic priest isn't married, etc, etc. According to them, I'm not married to my wife, they can think that if they like. They can take whatever attitude they please, no-one's stopping them.Second, if marriage is a matter for the church, well, there are lots of churches. If, for example, a Unitarian Universalist minister marries two men in Texas, then according to Texan law they are not married. The UU minister is being told that a sacrament that s/he chose to administer is invalid. It would be a lot more reasonable to say that in that case the church is being regulated by other people's opinions "concerning what love is and what marriage is".Now, if marriage is a matter for the churches, then the UU minister should be able to marry a gay couple. And if it is a matter for the State, then the State, being secular, shouldn't show partiality by adopting one sect's concept of marriage over that of another sect, and the UU minister should still be able to marry a gay couple. But the opponents of gay marriage want it both ways. They want marriage to be a secular matter so that the state should regulate it, and a religious matter so that it should be regulated according to their religious opinions.Edited by Dr Adequate, : No reason given.

Sure. If I post on here what my wife and I like to do, and the position of the Roman Catholic Church is that it's a sin, then they are perfectly entitled to say so. No-one's stopping them.But why should their opinions be enshrined into law over the opinions of (for example) the Episcopalians? No, but you are confusing sexuality with marriage. It's already legal for gay people to fuck each other all they want. But whether they do so or have a totally non-sexual relationship, many of them can't get married. Marriage and sex are two different things.

I agree with you except the other way round. Marriage should be entirely up to churches or other groups such as humanist associations, which should be able to declare people married or unmarried according as they see fit, as indeed they already can and do. The government should recognize legal contracts --- which they can, to save the feelings of the butthurt, call something else, such as "union". The problem here is that the government is being asked to decide that some religious ceremonies are legal and some are not.

Again, God showed a distressing lack of punctuality, since the Civil War was rather some time after the first slave was brought to American soil. Really, if God's mills grind that slowly, it hardly seems worthwhile being virtuous at all --- we could establish the perfect nation and then he'll smite us for something our ancestors did in 1794. When he gets around to it.

The Milgram experiment.

You pass on made-up bullshit without taking the slightest interest in whether it's true or taking the slightest precautions against repeating falsehoods. If these are not lies in the technical sense of someone saying something he knows to be untrue, they are still morally culpable. I don't know that you're not a child molester, so maybe it would not be technically a lie for me to go about saying that you were. But would it not be both immoral and a falsehood?Well, creationists are like that.

Quite so. Without the church, where will we learn that ... Without religious instruction, this little girl would not be carrying this placard. But it does not in fact stop "within its own doors". If people got together in a church, or a closet, to hate gay people, and then outside that closet treated them as human beings, then we wouldn't be having this discussion --- because we wouldn't even know of the existence of religious homophobes. But since they put their opinions out in the public political sphere and say how God hates gays, then I have a perfect right to say: "No he doesn't".What consenting adults do behind closed doors is of course their own business. When they do it in public, then I can criticize them for doing so.

So if 53 percent of Americans support gay marriage ... then ... ?

So, this. Christian love, it's almost as good as the real thing.