So Saying That Folks Should Follow Christian Morals is NOW A Firing Offense

@Rockhead,

Quote:

phil is not an actor.

he is a "personality".

no one is going to pay to see him in Hamlet. ok, some goofy redneck christians might...

So he had less of a right to earn a living for some strange reason then all those fine men and women that was locked out of careers by a small group in the 1950s similar to GLAAD in the ways they operated.

Quote:

secondly, my guess is that dave supports the blacklist from the 50's.
all those scary communists...

So how does Dave positions effect or should effect how valid my opinions happen to be?

I remember as a child annoying my WW2 vet father over the issues of that blacklist.

2 Replies

@BillRM,

Quote:

You consider it a bad thing to defend a man right to earn a living by threatening counter economic harm to those who would try to bring back a blacklist like we have in the 1950s?

Now you're accusing A & E of trying to bring back a blacklist? That's who Faith Driven Consumers was threatening. Do you even think about what you say?

And they weren't trying to "defend a man right to earn a living"--they wanted A & E to support their viewpoint--as "Christians"--rather than allowing the network to have their own standards and values, and business interests, which might differ from theirs.

You keep confusing Robertson's right to earn a living with his right to have a reality show that pays him and his family $200,000 for each half hour episode. The network can decide who they want to employ, or get rid of, based on their own interests and standards.

No one imperiled Robertson's right to earn a living. He's got other successful business interests beside his contract with A & E--and no one "threatened" those other interests.

Like Mel Gibson, Robertson himself may threaten his own "livelihood" if he keeps saying things enough other people find offensive. People are entitled to register their disapproval. It remains to be seen whether Duck Dynasty picked up more viewers, or lost some, as the result of this latest episode.

So you don't like G.L.A.A.D., but you whole-heartedly support the NRA that goes after every legislator that doesn't support what they want, and tries to deprive that legislator of their "livelihood" if they even whisper anything about gun control.

All that hypocrisy on your part means is that you like guns and don't like gays.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

you misspelled vapid...

0 Replies

@firefly,

Quote:

he's a man who is in the duck whistle and hunting equipment business who happened to wind up with a reality TV series that turned him into a pop celebrity and icon.

Which of the signatories to the Constitution would have supported same sex "marriage"?

Quote:

if these Christian fundmentalists really had their way, I'd likely still not have the vote, and my liberties and my rights would be just as limited and curtailed as the women in any fundamentalist Muslim controlled country.

You can't possibly not know that that is rubbish ff.

You are assuming that women are better off with the vote than without it. As if women need the vote to wield power.

What a sorry sight they look in their jeans shuffling forward in a long slow-moving queue with men, to bloody vote. Talk about being leveled off.

2 Replies

@firefly,

firefly wrote:

I think that the entire issue of whether the Bible condemns homosexuality is irrelevant when it comes to equality of civil rights in a secular government.

You're right that those are entirely different issues. You're just wrong about which one you identify as irrelevant.

firefly wrote:

The problem is that fundamentalist Christians really don't want a secular government.

I don't get that out of Robertson's comments at all.

As I see it, Robertson's position is: (1) homosexuals are sinful and won't get into heaven; and (2) gays = manbutts = "ooh, icky!" I see the former as purely a theological question, which should be of no interest to non-Christians, whereas the latter is merely an esthetic choice that is not subject to any sort of logical refutation.

The reaction to Robertson's comments is far more interesting. As I see it, it boils down to something like this: (1) Robertson's claim that homosexuality is sinful is a criticism of gays; (2) how dare he criticize gays - that's prejudiced! I don't buy the first part - as I pointed out in my last post, I agree with Robertson's interpretation that the bible condemns homosexuality. That doesn't mean I'm prejudiced against gays, it just means that I can read. If you have a problem with the bible saying that gays are doomed to hell, don't take it up with Robertson, take it up with god.

And I don't think the second part logically follows. In this thread, for instance, the one group that is singled out for criticism is fundamentalist Christians, yet I don't see a lot of people arguing that you, for instance, are just as prejudiced as Robertson.

2 Replies

@spendius,

Quote:

You can't possibly not know that that is rubbish ff.

What I love is it would seems that Firefly is claiming such in order to justify attempts to removed rights from fundamentalists Christians to express their opinions without risking the danger of losing their livelihoods.

0 Replies

@BillRM,

Quote:

That is one of the things that is amusing that for some strange reason some people wish for the power to take away the livelihood of idiots who publicly believe in the bible.

The world is full of people who condemn and wish harm to people who believe different than them, regardless of which book they worship. And they all think it's the other group that is wrong in doing it. Tolerance is not a commonly found quality.

1 Reply

@spendius,

Quote:

Which of the signatories to the Constitution would have supported same sex "marriage"?

They supported a wall of separation between church and state.

Although opposition to same-sex marriage may be religiously or Biblically based, that's irrelevant when it comes to determining the Constitutionality of same-sex marriage. Increasingly, our courts have been deciding that same-sex couples have the right to marry, and to enjoy spousal rights on a par with heterosexual couples.

1 Reply

@IRFRANK,

Quote:

Tolerance is not a commonly found quality.

An such intolerance should be fought no matter what the source happen to be if you wish to live in a free nation. When and if fundamental Christians try to removed Firefly right to vote she will have my support in fighting such a move but she does not have a moral rights to try to removed their abilities to earn a living.

My personal heroes are for example are Jewish ACLU lawyers defending the constitutional rights of neo-nazies.

Or going back even before the founding of the nation John Adam defending the British soldiers who open fire on a mob in Boston.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

Quote:

As I see it, Robertson's position is: (1) homosexuals are sinful and won't get into heaven; and (2) gays = manbutts = "ooh, icky!" I see the former as purely a theological question, which should be of no interest to non-Christians, whereas the latter is merely an esthetic choice that is not subject to any sort of logical refutation.

And he used "anus" rather than a twee euphemism which suggests that he has less of an aesthetic aversion to the male anus than joe has. Ooh--it is so icky one dare not call it by its name. At least English euphemisms are less discriminating than "manbutts" so I had better not list a few here.

0 Replies

@firefly,

Quote:

Increasingly, our courts have been deciding that same-sex couples have the right to marry, and to enjoy spousal rights on a par with heterosexual couples.

I'm in favour of same-sex couples having twice as many rights as heterosexual couples if that is what elected legislators decide. Five times if you like. Rewriting the dictionary is another matter.

I don't consider "marriage" appropriate for heterosexual couples if one of them is married to somebody else. "Marriage" is for life. Change that and the flexibility goes all the way to one night stands.

If the category was abolished to prevent confusion we might all be Comrades.

1 Reply

@joefromchicago,

Quote:

I don't get that out of Robertson's comments at all.

I was talking about the general beliefs of fundamentalist Christians in this country, as a sect/group, and not just Phil Robertson.

And, I agree with David, that these groups do want a theocracy, they rail against "secular" government. They rail about "secularism" in general.

And Robertson's comments in GQ included his opinion that he wants the Ten Commandments displayed in every courthouse. Why should the Ten Commandments be displayed in any government institution? This sort of thing has been an ongoing legal fight with the more fundamentalist and conservative Christian groups, and believers, for quite some time. They want the government to promote their religious texts and views--including in school curricula and textbooks--and they are the most vocal about that, which is why I am singling them out.

I don't care if Robertson is prejudiced against gays. I honestly don't personally care what he thinks about anything. I also don't guide my life by the Bible, or believe in the Bible. But I'm definitely not questioning his right to do that.

Unlike BillRM who considers the Bible "fairy tales", and refers to those who believe and follow it as "fools", I don't disparage those who are religious. Not at all. But I also want to live in a country that functions in accord with secular laws, and not those of any religion, and that maintains a wall of separation of church and state--a firm wall.

You want to think I'm prejudiced, go right ahead. But I'm going to protest any alleged "religious views" that are used in the social/political arena to deprive anyone of their civil rights, or to scapegoat and stir up hated or mistrust toward any group. These same Biblical views were used to subjugate and subordinate women and to deprive them of equality as well--and that's still going on in Muslim fundamentalist countries. There's very little difference between the Bible thumpers and the Koran thumpers, except that in our country we have better laws and safeguards to protect the secular nature of our government--no matter how much the right-wing religious groups try to chip away at that wall of separation.

As Jefferson said, "religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God." It's essentially a private matter. It should not intrude into the halls of the government, and it should not include trying to force the government into proselytizing for any religion--which is why I don't want the Ten Commandments displayed in courthouses...

1 Reply

@spendius,

Quote:

I don't consider "marriage" appropriate for heterosexual couples if one of them is married to somebody else. "Marriage" is for life. Change that and the flexibility goes all the way to one night stands.

Well, since the divorce rate is about one out of every two marriages, how viable is the institution of marriage, for anyone, if you think of it as being "for life"?

Quote:

I'm in favour of same-sex couples having twice as many rights as heterosexual couples if that is what elected legislators decide. Five times if you like. Rewriting the dictionary is another matter.

I think I would have agreed with you about 15 years ago. I have always supported same-sex civil unions, but I had trouble with using the term "marriage" regarding them, mainly because I thought of the entire issue of "marriage" as religiously based, and I felt it was up to religious leaders and institutions to decide who they wanted to "marry".

Over time, I completely changed my thinking. It became clear to me that same-sex "domestic partnerships" were not affording those couples the exact same rights and privileges that accrued to heterosexuals "married" in a civil ceremony, and further, that, under civil law, "marriage" is a contract that provides for mutual benefits, and obligations, to the partners, and there is no reason to limit access to that contract, any more then we limit the ability of adults to enter into any other kind of contract.

And finally, I realized my own hesitancy about accepting the term "marriage" for same-sex couples had more to do with its unfamiliarity and strangeness than anything else. I had no problem with whole-heartedly supporting same-sex civil unions, I fully supported equal rights for both hetero and homosexual couples in legally sanctioned unions, and I questioned my own lack of logic in making a big deal of the word "marriage" because of the genders of the partners. I finally decided a marriage is a marriage regardless of whether the partners are of the same or opposite sex and regardless of whether any religions sanction it in addition to the state recognizing it.

I believe everyone has the right to marry regardless of their sexual orientation. The ability to love, and the desire to commit oneself to another, is part of our humanness and it has nothing to do with sexual orientation.
So now, I'm very willing to re-write the dictionary to define marriage as a contractual domestic partnership between two people, and not just between a man and a woman. It's more an expansion of the definition than a true change.

1 Reply

@firefly,

Quote:

So now, I'm very willing to re-write the dictionary to define marriage as a contractual domestic partnership between two people, and not just between a man and a woman.

But not necessarily for life eh? We don't want anybody being put to any unnecessary inconvenience do we? We don't want that, as Joyce said, "if the coming offence can send our shudders before".

A divorce rate of 50% implies a much higher breakdown rate because a large number of breakdowns are put up with for a number of practical reasons which have nothing to do with any principles regarding marriage. Affordability for example.

It is nonsensical to assume that only the divorced have broken down. Next year's divorces are not counted. Not even next weeks. Nor are the "marriages" in which a divorced person flounces. Courtship becomes a matter of browsing the shelves. Dogging one might say.

In my view you are singing your sophistries from the misogynist's hymn sheet.

Are there any other rewrites of the dictionary on your agenda?

0 Replies

@firefly,

firefly wrote:

I was talking about the general beliefs of fundamentalist Christians in this country, as a sect/group, and not just Phil Robertson.

And, I agree with David, that these groups do want a theocracy, they rail against "secular" government. They rail about "secularism" in general.

Overgeneralize much?

firefly wrote:

And Robertson's comments in GQ included his opinion that he wants the Ten Commandments displayed in every courthouse.

We're getting rather far afield here. The controversy was really over his remarks concerning gays and blacks. If Robertson had limited himself to saying that he wanted the ten commandments displayed in courthouses, I'm not sure anyone would have even noticed.

1 Reply

@BillRM,

Quote:

she does not have a moral rights to try to removed their abilities to earn a living.

I think all they wanted was an apology. No one lost their ability to earn a living, in fact it was probably enhanced. This has been beat to death.

0 Replies

@joefromchicago,

Quote:

We're getting rather far afield here. The controversy was really over his remarks concerning gays and blacks.

I don't think I'm getting far afield.

I simply bothered to read Robertson's entire GQ interview, and I did additional reading about him, his life, and other things he has said.

The types of remarks that Robertson made about gays are neither new, nor suddenly controversial, they are mainstream for much of the religious right in the South, and they are also directly tied in with political efforts, on the part of such groups, to fight the separation of church and state.

Quote:

The Christian right sees the government's proper role in society as cultivating virtue, not to interfere with the natural operations of the marketplace or the workplace. It promotes conservative or literal interpretations of the Bible as the basis for moral values, and enforcing such values by legislation.

The Christian right believes that separation of church and state is not explicit in the American Constitution, believing instead that such separation is a creation of what it claims are activist judges in the judicial system.In the United States, the Christian right often supports their claims by asserting that the country was "founded by Christians as a Christian Nation."...

Influential Christian right organizations at the forefront of anti-gay activism in the US include Focus on the Family, Family Research Council and the Family Research Institute. An important stratagem in Christian right anti-gay politics is in its rejection of "the edicts of a Big Brother" state, allowing it to profit from "a general feeling of discontent and demoralization with government". As a result, the Christian right has been a vocal supporter of the call for smaller government, and preventing it from forcing liberal values upon people's private lives. In this context, gay rights laws have come to symbolize an out-of-control, meddling government bent on "interfering with individual freedom".

The central tenets of Focus on the Family and similar organizations, such as the Family Research Council, highlight that issues such as abortion and the man of the house's central role in the family are of key importance. A number of organizations, including the New Christian Right, "have in various ways rejected liberal America in favor of the regulation of pornography, anti-abortion legislation, the criminalization of homosexuality, and the virtues of faithfulness and loyalty in sexual partnerships", according to sociologist Bryan Turner. Appeal to "family values" has become a code phrase to address these and similar issues involving human sexuality. Other vital family-related issues, such as spouse or child abuse, are absent from these conversations.

A large number of the Christian right view same-sex marriage as a central issue in the culture wars, more so than other gay rights issues and even more urgently important than abortion. The legalization of same-sex marriage in 2004 changed the Christian right, causing it to put its opposition to these marriages above most other issues.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_right

I first became really aware of the political agenda of these groups when I became involved in a lobbying group that was working to counteract the influence of Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority in the early 1980's.

Quote:

Some issues for which the Moral Majority campaigned included
Censorship of media outlets that promote an "anti-family" agenda
Enforcement of a traditional vision of family life
Opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment and Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
Opposition to state recognition and acceptance of homosexual acts
Outlawing abortion in except in cases involving incest, rape or in pregnancies where the life of the mother is at stake.
Targeting Jews and other non-Christians for conversion to conservative Christianity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_Majority

As I recall, including the teaching of Creationism in school textbooks and the school curriculum was also part of their agenda at the time.

And that was over 30 years ago, so none of this is new.

What Robertson's remarks re-ignited has been an ongoing fight, for decades and decades, between the "liberal media" and the Christian right, and between gay activist groups, like G.L.A.A,D, and right wing Christian advocacy groups, like Faith Driven Consumers.

And these advocacy groups have diametrically opposed goals. Obviously, the LGBT groups would like to see same-sex marriage legal in all 50 states, and the Christian right groups would like it legal nowhere. Robertson's remarks got A & E put in the middle of that very acrimonious conflict by the manner in which he described homosexuals, and who he chose to compare them to, and the advocacy groups, from both sides, chose to react.

Robertson's personal remarks really don't matter. The underlying legislative battle over legalizing same-sex marriage does matter because it will significantly affect people's lives, particularly the lives of those people whose right to marry will depend on the outcome of that legislation. I admit, I have a hard time understanding how anyone else's lives will be significantly affected in any adverse way by granting homosexuals that right.

And, if BillRM is interested in boycotts and "blacklists" it might interest him to know that the Christian fundamentalist American Family Association has a long list of them, including a 2012 AFA led boycott against Archie Comics when they published a comic book featuring a same-sex marriage.

And in July 2012, they considered boycotting Google due to Google's "Legalize Love" campaign which supports LGBT rights
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Family_Association#Boycotts

Quote:

For over twenty years, one of AFA's primary activities has been the organization of boycotts against sponsors of TV shows with "anti-Christian" messages and ideas. A few of the hundreds of boycott targets on AFA's list have included "Saturday Night Live," "Roseanne," "Nightline," "NYPD Blue," "Ellen," and "Desperate Housewives." A major target of AFA's had been Disney and its subsidiaries; "Disney's attack on America's families has become so blatant, so intentional, so obvious, that American Family Association has called for a boycott of all Disney products until such time as this activity ceases." AFA ended its boycott of Disney in 2005, citing the departure of Disney CEO Michael Eisner and its divestiture of Miramax films as rationale, but openly stating "AFA had moved on to other important issues, such as an increasingly activist judiciary and the push for same-sex marriage." -
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/american-family-association#sthash.UCL9zYtJ.dpuf

This whole flap was never just about Phil Robertson.

3 Replies

@firefly,

Quote:

I don't think I'm getting far afield.

Not only are you not "getting far afield", ff, but you have brought the matter into its proper focus.

The opposition to secularism, which is a process that includes all the other issues, stems from following the logic of secularism to its conclusion.

The secularism of today is heavily overlaid with the "historical pseudomorphosis" of traditional Christian theology and is nowhere near what secularism becomes when it washes up on the beach and has ceased to be shaped by Christian attitudes at all. Which is what will happen if the tide is not stemmed.

Today's secularists are indulging in the luxury of half-baked secularism without any reference to what it becomes if it reaches the shore. If the signals from Russia under Putin are anything to go by it has been decided to avoid that outcome.

Bob Colacello's book Holy Terror describes, to a certain extent, the amoral swirl surrounding Andy Warhol and The Factory which could only happen in the sophisticated centre of a "world city" where powerful media organisations swarm, where no food is produced and where population densities are at the maximum. And even that brand of secularism is strongly influenced by the pseudomorphosis: Warhol attended church every week but did not take communion. His "beautiful people" were mostly the products of Christian homes.

Maybe Warhol was not wishing to put all his eggs in the basket of the Money God. The opening of the book describes Colacello running off in a not too dissimilar a manner as Stan Laurel ran off when he was frightened. It's not far removed from Roadrunner. And Colacello was a Big Cheese in the set up. He jumped ship.

In fact, the exact same heresy as secularism, despite many minor outward variations, has appeared throughout the history of Christianity: our carnal appetites being so easy to appeal to as they are and there always being a ready supply of leaders to milk such a tender pap and usually having a coterie of enthusiastic, nubile maidens in tow.

It looks as though our version of the heresy has the traction to proceed to its destiny and thus will prove, one way or the other, whether the logic behind crushing its predecessors was valid or self-serving scaremongering on behalf of fat-cat shamans in the lap of luxury from grinding the noses of the poor and having a COMPLAINTS desk which few dare approach.

The Christian right, as they are often called, do not want to risk trying secularism to its conclusion and its opponents' scientifically derived hubris, which has a ready supply of leaders too but of a pronounced steely-eyed, pursed lips, ascetic disposition perfectly befitting having the facts on the end of all the fingertips, is very happy to do so. Facts is facts. And we, on here, cannot possibly not love science.

I try to keep an open mind, I'm not a fortune teller. I can see both points of view and what I see of secularists would lead me to think that if they do wash up on the shore the metaphor is transformed into a simile.

It is entirely pragmatic and mainly to do with sex. A subject which has yet to raise its skirts above the knee. When it does doff the kit media will treat it in a similar manner as it now does another long lost sin: gluttony. In HD. Novelty in nutrient one might say, for which Ms Lawson is famous. Fat, sugar, colouring and viscosity science targeted to titivate the tastie-tastie buds on the tips of the tounge and to sell everything a modern, secular woman might be made to want.

1 Reply

@spendius,

btw--Colacello's book is well worth having a look at.

I should have said that science is now old enough to have a historical pseudomorphosis of its own. But its at the shallow end as yet.

0 Replies

@firefly,

firefly wrote:

Quote:
We're getting rather far afield here. The controversy was really over his remarks concerning gays and blacks.

I don't think I'm getting far afield.

Yes, you are. Your concerns are with what you presume are Robertson's politics. Everyone else is concerned with his remarks about gays and blacks. So when you focus on his putative politics, you're no longer talking about the controversy, you're talking about your own particular hobby-horse.

2 Replies

So Saying That Folks Should Follow Christian Morals is NOW A Firing Offense

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know