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Gay marriage debate centers on history vs. change

 
 
DrewDad
 
  1  
Reply Tue 21 Feb, 2006 11:26 pm
dyslexia wrote:
Momma Angel wrote:
dys,

What I said was I would follow the law of the land unless that law contradicted God's law and just so you know, if I did go against the law of the land in favor of God's law yes, I'd be willing to do the time for it.

and that, MA, is a definiton of Theocracy.

In a theocracy, there would be no conflict between "the law of the land" and "God's law."

I think what she describes is more in line with what's happening in Iraq.
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JPB
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 07:44 am
Lash wrote:
Parable of the Good Samaritan
Luke 10.30-37


This parable was spoken by Jesus in answer (and to answer) one question ... "who is my neighbor?" (Luke 10.29). So, the parable gives the answer to that question.

Many of you have heard endless interpretations of the details of this parable. They are all vain speculations. The details simply give an authentic setting for the teaching of the simple truth Jesus was teaching. Jesus does not give us cause nor permission to spiritualize the details of the story. Augustine (St. Augustine, according to the RCC) may have been "moved" to spiritualize the details, but the movement was not of the Holy Spirit, nor have Evangelical preachers who have seen "types and shadows" in this parable been following the leading of the Spirit or Biblical context principles of interpretation.

The parable answers the question "who is my neighbor?" with a very realistic and believable story. For indeed, there were many highway robbers operating even in those days, and most people travelled in groups to avoid being attacked by those robbers.

So, who is it that Jesus says we are to love as ourselves? Who is our neighbor?

The Jewish religious leaders who passed by could excuse themselves from being defiled by touching this broken man beside the road, for they could theologically say he must have sin in his life, and thus deserved to be punished ... why else would God have "permitted" it to happen to him? That was their theological belief (known as Deuteronomic theology, based upon Deuteronomy 28; a lot of people today want to try to appropriate the blessings of Dt 28 today {prosperity and hyper-faith "Gospel"}, but don't want to take the curses with it!), and so it excused them from responsibility to people who "just brought it on themselves."
I'll NEVER forget sitting at the table in the home of a couple who have pastored a couple of churches. The wife grew up in a Pentecostal parsonage. The conversation turned to the call that Nancy and I have professed as being called to Haiti. This dear lady absolutely left me speechless when she said "Why go there and help them? If God created them in that condition, why change what God did?" Lord, have mercy on those who work hard to "better" their living conditions and financial security, and then look down their noses at the poor as being created that way ... they must deserve it, etc.
Our neighbor is anyone we see in need. And, of all things, it took one of those "mixed race" people, a Samaritan, who were despised by the Jews, to demonstrate what we are to do for our neighbor. Jesus knew how to really skewer proud, religious people with earthy, realistic illustrations like this. Hopefully none of us found ourselves skewered too deeply as we read through this today.
__________________

Hopefully, some WILL be skewered deeply, because of their fake belief that they are superior to other people.


Thank you, Lash.
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JPB
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 07:52 am
Momma Angel wrote:
Dys,

I appreciate the sentiment but I have never said I would prefer the USA was a Christian theocracy.


No, you used the word homeland. In direct response to my question about wanting the US to be a Christian homeland you answered in the affirmative and went so far as to say you'd prefer to see a Christian world. Homeland = theocracy. Do I need to get the links?

And you still haven't answered any of the questions about historical wrongs that have been rights. Some of those (keeping slaves, discrimination, subservient women) are also found in your bible. Using the bible to defend your position, which you've already said you held prior to being a Christian, is a farce. Your position is one of pure bigotry and the bible is an invalid defense.

Did you read Lash's post on the Good Samaritan? If you equate Jesus to God, which you've said repeatedly that you do, then why ignore his words in favor of others in the bible? You use the bible to defend a position of justification of denying individuals their rights by saying it is how you interpret God's will, yet it most certainly not the will of Jesus to discriminate against anyone.
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Arella Mae
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 09:33 am
DrewDad,

I won't deny that I would like the whole world to be Christian on one hand, but on the other, if it were, I don't see there'd be much difference. There are so many different Christian doctrines and Christian beliefs that I just don't see there being much of a difference at all except then everyone would believe in the same God IMO. But to go so far as to say that I would really desire that to happen, I just can't.

Many times, I find the disagreements between two Christians more heated than I do between a non-believer and a Christian so if you were to multiply that by a world full of Christians, I'd say well, I don't think it would be really pretty, do you?

J_B,

No, Jesus did not discriminate. But, He also did not tell people that what God considers a sin is ok to do.
0 Replies
 
seaglass
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 09:46 am
Momma Angel,

What kind of person were you before you became a Christian?

I think that you should throw yourself before the altar of A2k and testify.

Confess all, we want to hear your stuff.
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Arella Mae
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 09:52 am
Actually seaglass, I have pretty much put my life out there. Now, if there is something specific you'd like to know, just ask.
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Wilso
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 09:58 am
Momma Angel wrote:


No, Jesus did not discriminate. But, He also did not tell people that what God considers a sin is ok to do.



It's only a sin based on your fantasy world. All this religious bullsh!t is just a shield for homophobia.
0 Replies
 
Arella Mae
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 10:01 am
Well good morning to you too, Wilso! Laughing
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seaglass
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 10:02 am
8242 posts is too much to edit.

How about a thumbnail sketch on your sexlife or a thesis on Momma Angel and the Seven Deadly Sins.
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Arella Mae
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 10:06 am
How about if you were really serious and wanted to know about my life and cared then I would consider it. But since I get the feeling here that you really don't give a flip about my life and why I am the way I am, I think I have to pass seaglass.

And, if I am completely wrong in my assumption (which I normally don't like to make) then I owe you one great big apology. Laughing
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sozobe
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 10:06 am
Sex life? :-?
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BumbleBeeBoogie
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 10:10 am
BBB
Oh how I wish for an addition to the Ten Commandments: Thou shall not lie on A2K.

And one more addition would be Thou shall not intentionally sabotage an A2Ker's thread to engage in compulsive attention-getting personal debate re religion.

This thread is about using tradition to assign a human's status.

BBB Rolling Eyes
-------------------------------------------------

Posted on Fri, Feb. 17, 2006
Gay marriage debate centers on history vs. change
By Stephen Henderson
Knight Ridder Newspapers

TRENTON, N.J. - As the New Jersey Supreme Court considered last week whether to make the state the second in the nation to legalize gay marriage, the arguments in the courtroom were framed by a debate over history and change.

Opponents say same-sex marriage is - among other things - a historical contradiction. Marriage, they say, has always been between a man and a woman and the laws are written to reflect that.

That argument echoes reasoning that has been proffered time and again to defend such outmoded laws as those that defined wives as the property of their husbands, or that prohibited divorce, or even prevented epileptics and other disabled people from marrying.

All of those laws eventually fell and today would be considered preposterous, despite the strong weight of history and culture in their favor when they were challenged.

One of the key questions for the justices in New Jersey, and for courts all over the nation, is whether the long traditions surrounding marriage trump demands to eliminate eons-old gender restrictions in the name of equality.

"I think people who talk about history as a reason to deny gay marriage just don't really know what the history is," said Jon Davidson, legal director for Lambda Legal Defense Fund, the advocacy group that represents the gay couples seeking marriage licenses in New Jersey.

"People need to recognize that throughout our history, there were all sorts of people not allowed to marry."

But Katherine Spaht, a law professor at Louisiana State University and an expert on family law, said permitting gay marriage would constitute a change more profound than any other in history.

"Most of the changes, historically, have been at the edges of the concept of marriage, not at its core," Spaht said. "We've changed lots of things about the relationship between married people, but not as much about the fundamental idea of what marriage is."

For their part, at least four of the seven justices in New Jersey expressed serious doubts that history was a compelling reason to deny marriage rights to gays.

Chief Justice Deborah Poritz bluntly challenged the argument.

"It's a historical fact that marriage has been between a man and a woman, but it's also a historical fact that women were property and that women couldn't accuse their husbands of rape," Poritz said. "Why should we just defer to the historical basis?"

New Jersey isn't relying explicitly on history in its arguments before the court, instead insisting that legislatures, rather than judges, ought to decide the issue. But Assistant Attorney General Patrick DeAlmeida said the state believes that protecting the "institution of marriage" is important.

Spaht said the problem with arguments that place gay marriage in a category with other changes is that they ignore the social and culture context for marriage, something she said is key to its legal existence.

"Marriage isn't a legally created institution. You're dealing with a social institution that pre-existed law," she said. "So as a consequence you have to be respectful of the purpose of this institution, which runs across generations and across cultures."

Spaht said marriage has a clear purpose in a social context.

"It's about a man and a woman, because it's about children, procreation," she said. "Even the Greeks, who were very accepting about homosexuality, never confused it with marriage."

But it's also true that under civil law in America, marriage isn't bound solely by social constructs and has instead been held to legal and constitutional standards that have evolved dramatically over time. Sometimes, those evolutions have produced profound changes.

In many states, for example, women for years had their legal identities washed away when they married. They couldn't own property, enter into contracts, sue their spouses or even earn money that belonged to them. They became legal appendages to their husbands.

Early challenges to these types of laws often met with stern lectures about the historical canons of marriage.

When Myra Blackwell, a pioneering female attorney in Illinois, first sued in 1873 to gain a law license, the state's Supreme Court was terse and unyielding. No woman could properly perform the duties of a lawyer, the court wrote, in part because of the special role that women fulfill in marital relationships.

"The paramount destiny and mission of women are to fulfill the noble and benign offices of wife and mother. This is the law of the Creator," the court wrote.

Modern advancements aside, the court said: "The harmony, not to say the identity, of interests and views which belong, or should belong, to the family institution is repugnant to the idea of a woman adopting a distinct and independent career from that of her husband."

Yet over time, those arguments were undercut by the equality that women gained in other areas of law: voting rights, property rights, laws against employment discrimination. From the legal perspective of women, today's marriages, which treat them as equals, bear little resemblance to the subservient contracts they were just a few generations ago.

Marriage laws also have been expanded to include people who were historically left out.

Slaves, for example, couldn't marry. Nor could indentured servants in many states. Inter-faith marriages were prohibited or penalized in some places.

Even post-slavery, people of different races weren't permitted to marry or were punished (sometimes criminally) when they did.

When California's Supreme Court became the first to strike down a ban on interracial marriage in 1948, a dissenting opinion relied heavily on history.

"The prohibition of miscegenetic marriage is not a recent innovation in this state, nor is such a law by any means unique among the states," the dissenting judge wrote. "The provisions of the law here attacked have remained unchallenged for nearly one hundred years and have been unchanged so far as the marriage of whites with Negroes is concerned."

Bans on interracial marriage weren't completely eradicated until 1967, when the U.S. Supreme Court declared them unconstitutional.

Others have historically been locked out of marriage for similar reasons. Epileptics were denied marriage licenses in many states out of fear that they would pass their disability on to children. Those laws weren't wiped out completely until 1976.

"The point is that the history of marriage is a history of constant change," Davidson of Lambda Legal said. "I think it's hard to argue that this change is somehow fundamentally different from the others."
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Arella Mae
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 10:23 am
Quote:

Once again, an attempt has been made to change the focus of this thread. A reminder that it is about homosexual discrimination.


Quote:
This thread is about using tradition to assign a human's status.


Can someone please explain to me what this thread REALLY is about, please? I thought it was about discrimination and that seems to be the vein in which the direction of the thread was going, but I am now informed that this is not the topic?
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mesquite
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 10:40 am
MA, we could pick it up here where you left off. This is BBB's thread and it is in the legal section.

http://www.able2know.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1874609#1874609
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Arella Mae
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 10:51 am
Mesquite,

I know whose thread it is and I also know what forum it is in. Discussions often take different turns, especially when there are so many people involved in them. I am not trying to sabotage or hijack anything. I am just answering questions asked of me or posts directed at me.

I have no problem with churches paying taxes. Actually, I think they should. I don't think churches should have special consideration concerning taxes and especially if they are going to involve themselves in the political arena. I think if they involve themselves then they are the ones putting themselves there and shold be taxed just like everyone else.

As for the comment about wrecking non-believers' lives, I would imagine there might be some people that actually do that. But, anyone that really loves the Lord sticks to their beliefs and lives by them and is supposed to show how good it is for them. Wrecking someone's life is definitely not what it's all about.
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JPB
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 10:56 am
Thanks to BBB for the attempt to refocus this thread. Momma, go back to page one. This was moving along nicely in a, "We shall overcome, someday" tone, watching/hoping for progress in New Jersey until you jumped in and started talking about your beliefs.
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sozobe
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 10:59 am
I have to say I don't really get this direction -- the thread is about gay marriage. Momma Angel is talking about gay marriage. The discussion isn't GOING anywhere in particular, sure, but it's not like she's talking about the best boy bands of the 90's, or something.
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BumbleBeeBoogie
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 11:08 am
Sozobe
sozobe wrote:
I have to say I don't really get this direction -- the thread is about gay marriage. Momma Angel is talking about gay marriage. The discussion isn't GOING anywhere in particular, sure, but it's not like she's talking about the best boy bands of the 90's, or something.


Sozobe, it's a problem when a person has a compulsive need to turn all conversation into one about that person to get attention, a familiar pattern. I don't mind an occasional digression, but when it becomes a constant pattern, then it is disrespectful.

BBB
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JPB
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 11:14 am
Momma Angel wrote:
Just because someone believes that gay marriage is not right, it does not mean they discriminate against people. It just means that they believe homosexuality is wrong. Discriminate used to have a completely different connotatin than it does now. Seems even the definition of words change with the times. It used to have a much deeper more clearly defined definition. Now, it's if you don't agree with what's going on you are discriminating against it. If this is true, then those that approve of same sex marriage would be guilty of discriminating against those that don't.

Whether same sex marriage is moral or not is something I believe everyone is going to have to decide for themselves. It all comes down to what is between them and God.

However, even if a person disagrees with same sex marriage and would vote against it, it does not mean they are discriminating against a class of people. It just means that it goes against their personal beliefs and principles. Thankfully, I am not going to get the opportunity to vote on this issue. I would abstain if I did get the opportunity.

I have two lesbian friends and I love them dearly. I can still care for a person and not agree with what they do in their lives. I don't think anyone agrees 100% with 100% of what any of us do, think, or feel. When we carry our disagreements to heap abuse upon someone else then we are definitely in the wrong. But I don't think just believing something is wrong can be in the same category as what discrimination used to mean.


This is MA's first post on this thread. What, if anything beyond her beliefs, does this have to do with the SC of NJ hearing a case on tradition vs change? Since this post there has been mighty little discussion about the article and the pending SC decision in NJ. It's been all about MA and her beliefs.
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sozobe
 
  1  
Reply Wed 22 Feb, 2006 11:15 am
Hmmm.

I guess I'm saying, how is it a digression, really?

I disagree with what she is saying, obviously, (and often with how she is saying it) but I would get as huffy if someone who started a thread with a title like, "The Iraq war was a great idea" told me I couldn't disagree in that thread.

This is a discussion forum. Things get discussed. She's discussing gay marriage on a thread about gay marriage. <shrug>

If it's just about how the discussion never seems to move FORWARD, sure, I agree with that completely, and have said so here (before giving up on it as a hopeless cause).
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