Discrimination ok, if based on religion? what else then?

Count me as one of the "some".Jesus directed Christians to take care of the sick and hungry, but they have failed miserably. Governments have had to step in to take the responsibility that churches have shirked.If churches shirk their responsibility to unwanted children, I suppose governments will have to step in yet again. I don't see where the churches have a reason to whine about that.

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Churches do have a right to follow their own beliefs - but only insofar as their beliefs don't violate the laws of the land. "Render unto Caesar" doesn't mean just cash - it also means law-abiding respect.Churches also have a moral obligation to take care of orphans.Do you want to excuse them from their legal obligations and their moral obligations just because of a misinterpretation of the Bible?

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I hope you're right. It would be nice to see Christians not being the poster-boys for anti-Christianity for once. It has already been pointed out, there is no shortage of bigotry in the world anyway. One more source won't make much difference.

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It isn't the same at all.Children will torment other children because their parents are gay or because their clothes went out of style last week or because they have a funny haircut. There's always going to be something.There is "so much poverty in the world" partly because the churches are falling down in their responsibility. I don't think you've addressed that point yet. They have a reponsibility to alleviate the destitution of all families, not just dole out the adoptees to the families that manage to prosper on their own.

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Those are two very different situations though.A person who believes he/she was born gay can "act out" that belief - i.e. he/she can "live gay". His/her "gayness" is so apparent that it brings the bigots slavering out of the woodwork.On the other hand, can a person who believes he/she has "met God" act out that belief? Can he/she "live God"? Is his/her "Godliness" so apparent that anybody notices?More often than not, no.A person's true beliefs - what they "know" inside - is revealed in their actions.The churches in question may claim to "love God", but they are living out their hatred for God's (gay) people.Edited by Ringo, : Punctuation.

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Exactly. But bigots are always whining about gay people "shoving it in their faces" - i.e. hand-holding, kissing, etc. More to the point, why do you see it as "effeminate"? What is it about a man's clothing and/or demeanor that lets you "know" (or even suspect) that he's gay?And what is there about a Christian that lets you know he/she's a Christian? Too often, unfortunately, it's expressions of hatred for God's people.

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Running an adoption agency is also a priviledge. And other people (through their government) determine the qualifications to run one - based their standards, not the church's.

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Point is, in this case the people as government decide what the people as church can get away with. The people as government won't let the people as church discriminate against the people as adoptive parents. All this being in the best interest of the people as adoptees, not the people as church. Thus the people as church are not allowed to infringe on the right to "freedom of belief, of expression, of existance" of the people as adoptive parents. The happy medium is obey the speed limit or stay off the road. If you need to drive - say to take your child to the doctor - you also need to not infringe on the rights of others.Similarly, the happy medium in adoption is to respect other people's freedom or get out of the adoption game. If you need to provide adoption services - say to fulfill that pesky "love thy neighbour" clause - you also need to not infringe on the rights of others.

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Because the people as government take precedence over the people as church. The people as church seem to recognize that they have a responsibility toward orphaned children now. If the people as government refuse to let them discriminate against gays, does that responsibility just disappear?The rational solution is for the people as church to give up their irrational discrimination, not to give up their rational responsibility.

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The key word there is "private". Sitting at a table in a bar is not "private association". A bar is a public facility, regulated by the public (through their government) in many ways. One more regulation is not a danger to anybody's rights.If I can't do woodwork at my table in a bar, spewing sawdust all over the place, why should anybody else be allowed to smoke?

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I'm not sure what you mean by that.For the record, here in Saskatchewan, smoking is banned in all public places for a couple of years now, so there is no place "where smoking is allowed".We had a case in Canada a while back where a woman who had been a waitress for twenty-odd years got lung cancer even though she had never smoked. Her situation prompted a lot of smoking bans across the country, I think. We do tend to rate health above "a smoker's enjoyment". Go figure. Maybe it's the power tools.

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How many acts of racism does it take to make a racist?If a particular act is "ambiguous" isn't that cause for self-examination rather than knee-jerk self-defense?Instead of trying to bury all possible wrong-doing in a mountain of ambiguity, why not direct your energy toward helping the Church get it's house in order? You can't clean house if you refuse to acknowledge the dirt.

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It doesn't work that way. You have to do your best to undo the bad acts, not just cover them up with good ones. You can't just trample the hungry on your way to heal the sick.You need to clean the house, not just paint over the dirt.

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