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Post by Elfie on Jan 22, 2005 21:34:16 GMT -5
Um, stop jumping all over what I say. I've already said a few times that I support gay marriage instead of civil unions. I was pointing out to Static that even civil unions guarantee gays equal rights in the workplace, not that I favour civil unions over gay marriage.
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Post by FFVImaster on Jan 22, 2005 21:45:23 GMT -5
I'm sorry, really. I'm just...ugh...I shouldn't even look at this thread anymore, I've already said it kidna annoys me how people get themselves involved in something they are not affected by in any way. Sometimes I need to vent, I don't think that was too harsh anyway, I just need a moment. *reassures self that all is well* And Elfie, that post wasn't really directed specefically to you, it just happened to happen after your post. I have no issues with you.
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Post by Elfie on Jul 5, 2005 20:18:09 GMT -5
A couple more points about same-sex marriage:
The passages of the bible on homosexuality are very ambiguous. We already know that the bible talks primarily to men. It says "thou shalt not lie with a man as thou wouldst with a woman" in Levticus 18:22. This passage is clearly talking to men instead of women. What a lot of people forget is that it's also not talking not gays for the same reason it's not talking to women; they were not a dominant force in society. Note that God never directly says he is talking to men. He uses "thou" and leaves it for us to decide. The only thing God has ever condemned is straight men performing homosexual acts. A gay man wouldn't lay with a woman that way anyway, so he's in the clear, and this is repeated throughout the bible, like in Paul's letters. God's directions should be simple from these passages: be true to your own nature. The example He gives is of a straight man acting straight, but it could just as easily be applied to a gay man being gay, a straight woman being straight and a lesbian woman being lesbian. In fact, we already apply this to straight women even though the bible doesn't specifically mention them until Paul's letters.
The section on Soddom and Gommorah are also often taken wrong. The point of the story was the disrespect the townsfolk showed to strangers, something that was considered very wrong in biblical times. One of Jesus' main messages was to take in the stranger, not to rape him. The fact that they were men raping male angels is not the important part of the story. The section with Lot offering his virgin daughter is not meant to show that the men in the city are gay, but rather that they are determined to cause affront to the strangers who have arrived. After all, if they were gay God wouldn't need to rain down fire and brimstone: he'd just have to wait a generation. This is why the term soddomy is miscoined. The story of Soddom and Gomorrah was never meant to condemn homosexuality, but rather to condemn the mistreatment of the stranger or traveller, just as Jesus spoke of the values of taking in the stranger in the Gospels.
Of course, if you guys aren't religious then all of this explanation will be wasted, but a lot of Christians assume their religion says they are against gay marriage and therefore they must be against it to be a good Christian. This is simply untrue. If you want to be opposed to gay marriage because you just don't like gay people, I can tell you that you're the exact same as the people who didn't want to abolish slavery because they didn't like black people, but I can't actually change your mind. Do not, however, half-quote the bible to reinforce your own prejudices. Those passages condemning homosexuality only do so because you already want them to.
And:
As a religious person, I'm sick and tired of the government trying to control my religious practices. It's pretty well agreed on the religious right that the seperation of church and state was designed to keep the state from interfering with the church while still allowing members of legislative bodies the ability to vote based on the morality that religion taught them. Some left-wingers would argue that religion should never come into a political decision, but considering that to many religion is morality (for better or worse), it's like asking many people to give up their notion of right and wrong when making a decision, which leaves very little for some people to base that decision on.
That said, there are some religious practices the state does control. If your religion requires you to sacrifice virgins, the state will not allow you to practice your religion, or at least it won't recognize it as a religious institution and will have you charged with first degree murder. That, however, is because even non-religious people tend to agree that murder is wrong. In situations where there is a less clear distinction between right and wrong, like wearing religious headgear in places where hats are not allowed, the state allows the religious freedoms of that particular congregation to come first.
I believe the decision on homosexuality and the family should be treated the same way. The state should not be dictating what we can and cannot do in our own congregation. If we want to perform religious ceremonies that are harmless by themselves, like a marriage of two people of the same-sex, it should be the decision of our congregation, not the big-wigs in Washington.
If the state wants to take a hand in marriage, it should divide marriage into two categories: the religious side and the state side. This in turn would remove the religious aspect of marriage from any state decision. Essentially, the state side of marriage would be a civil union. Any two people who want a civil union, age permitting, should be able to get one. It would simply be a service the government would provide. On the religious side, the state would be removed from the equation and churches would be free to act on the will of their congregation. If the congregation wants to affirm same-sex marriages it can, and if it doesn't want to, well it doesn't have to. By dividing marriage up into the two components, we allow religious freedoms to exist to an even greater extent than we currently do while still promoting a society of equality.
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