Christian marriage is man and woman/husband and wife.

[99percentatheism]

There is no secular or theological challenge to be made that a "Christian marriage" isn't immutably a man and woman/husband and wife. Therefore, it should be a criminal act under current hate crimes laws, to accuse a Christian of hate, bigotry, or irrational . . ., if they assert the immutability of the structure of marriage as man and woman/husband and wife.

As Jesus proclaimed it in the Gospels and the writings reaffirm and define it so.

Why would anyone, religious or secularist, NOT support and affirm Christians adhering to the consistent and immutable Biblical teaching that a marriage is a man/husband and woman/wife?

[dianaiad]

Marriage has always been, first, cultural and religious...and THEN the government appends rights and responsibilities to it. When the government tells a church/belief system/culture that IT must change the way it defines marriage in order to accomadate the government view, it certainly has an impact on (and therefore 'has to do with') religion.

The right to freedom of religion is not the be all and end all of all rights. It is the government's job to resolve the conflicts of different rights.

It's actually the very first right enumerated in the Bill of Rights; that government should not establish a religion (that is, dictate what religious beliefs are 'legal' and 'official") and that government may not interfere with the free exercise of any citizen to practice his/her religion. That there are limits is quite true; they generally involve keeping other people from enforcing THEIR religious opinions upon others. Now here's the problem you keep ignoring: this isn't about (at least for me) forcing gays to abide by my religious opinion of what marriage is. It's about gays wanting to force ME to approve, RELIGIOUSLY, of same sex marriage. If that's not a blatant abrogation of the first amendment, I don't know what is.

...and before you get all strawman-y about this, this is NOT about forcing preachers to perform wedding ceremonies. It's about forcing religions to recognize marriages WITHIN THEIR BELIEF SYSTEM that are performed contrary to their doctrines.

You know...like forcing them to support such marriages with goods and services...

Now, the church that owns this school might be laughed at. It might be criticized...but nobody will argue that it's not the school's right (if church owned) to enforce such things.

I would. It's the the school's right to enforce all of those things. Namely homosexual people is a protected class, where as nudist isn't.

That's the begged question, isn't it? Since when does a 'protected class' mean that it can force RELIGIONS to accept them DOCTRINALLY?

Ah, but enter the government redefinition of marriage, and suddenly, while the church can still tell the students that they have to dress modestly, not drink, not smoke and generally behave themselves, they must NOW allow people to live together if they are married in the eyes of the government--whether or not they are in the eyes of the church.

And rightly so.

I see.

So...what's the difference between forcing a religion to accept gays because they are a 'protected class,' even though gay marriage is against doctrine, forcing religions to show public approval and acceptance (and to provide liturgical as well as physical goods and services even in wholly church owned facilities) and, say....

forcing atheists to attend church on Sunday, bow their heads for school prayer, singing hymns 'as if they meant it,' and making them deal with crosses and nativity scenes in the public park?

Forget that you, because you think you are correct and thus are entitled to force your opinion on everybody else for their own good (wait...isn't that what y'all seem to have a problem with when this attitude is exhibited by theists?), what's the difference? Personally, I don't see one.

The church which provides use of its facilities (for free or for a small fee) for weddings must now be forced to show that it approves of marriages it does not recognize by forcing said church to provide those facilities to weddings which violate doctrine.

As long as preachers are not forced to perform wedding ceremonies, that's fine.

I see...so in the same manner then, as long as the atheist isn't forced to actually SAY the prayer, it's acceptable to force him/her to bow the head, say "amen,' and be stuck throughout it in public school? As long as he doesn't have to put the nativity set on his lawn HIMSELF, it's fine if he is forced to allow someone ELSE to put it there? As long as he doesn't have to glue the "What would Jesus Do" or the "Honk if you love Jesus" or the Christian fish (or cross) on his car bumper, it's OK for someone else to do it for him?

As long as the American Atheists don't have to provide the pray-er, it's acceptable to force them to let the Baptist come in and open their meetings with prayer?

It's the SAME THING.

The church which provides services (for a fee or free volunteer) to church members for any reason must now be forced to show support for marriages it does not recognize by forcing it to provide those services to weddings which violate doctrine.

As long those who violate doctrine are still member of that church, sure.

Now you are moving the goalposts. You realize that gays aren't restricting this to people who are actually members of the church involved, right? As well, doesn't any organization, religious or not, have the right to deal with members who break the rules of that organization?

I rather thought that one of the problems (for instance) with the recent Catholic pedophile priest scandal was that these priests were NOT held accountable and disciplined (and turned over to the authorities) for their actions, which violate every aspect and tenet of priestly morality and ethics there are. I don't think anybody figures that being a priest gives them license to break all the rules without consequences, no matter how silly YOU might think those rules are. Why would members of a church be able to break the church rules, and violate doctrine, and still be allowed full fellowship and access to all the privileges?

....and the thing is, all this is applied with considerable bigotry and discrimination; no Catholic church is required to allow divorced heterosexual couples to use facilities and services that the church doesn't want it to...but let this couple be GAY, and everybody will be forced to it.

If they have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21th century. So be it.

Translation: as long as they are dragged kicking and screaming into YOUR opinion of the way the 21st century should be, so be it. Here's the problem with that: it doesn't matter what anybody thinks, feels or beliefs, we are ALL in the 21st century. You do not have the final say...or even the majority say..on how people should behave in it.

That's discrimination against heterosexual marriages, and puts the lie to all the bushwa about how the government isn't interfereing with the free exercise of religion.

The whole thing is.

It had always been a "lie" as it were. You never had total freedom to exercise religion.

As long as we don't interfere with someone ELSE'S freedom of religion, or do physical harm to unwilling participants (and to those who are incapable of consent) we certainly do. Those who claim that we don't, because they like THEIR religious opinions better than ours, are absolutely wrong.

We are not interfering with your freedom of religion. Gay rights advocates, when they force us to change our beliefs and practices, are very much interfering with ours.

"Marriage" should be divorced from government altogether; that is, the cultural and religious aspect of it must be. Let everybody marry...or not...according to their own beliefs. Let the government assign rights to civil unions...to everybody. Separate church and state.

Get government out of marriage altogether. Period.

So people can discriminate against homosexuals all they want? No thanks.

No. This isn't about discrimination, except for descrimination against religion.

This isn't about keeping gays out of rental housing, or health care, or survival rights, or tax advantages/disadvantages. That's the government's purview. This is about allowing churches to be true to their doctrines within their belief systems.

It's not about me refusing to cater a birthday party because the parents are gay. It's about my church being forced to publicly support gay marriage when gay marriage is totally against our beliefs. ...and heterosexual marriage is so integral to our basic doctrines that I don't see how it could ever be possible for us to recognize it AS marriage as we see it. It would be like forcing orthodox Jews to serve pork at a bar mitzvah. Worse..it would be like forcing an Orthodox Rabbi to say Mass.

...Like forcing an atheist to baptize his children, personally.

[alive]

I have always thought that Marriage between a man and a woman was the Natural order of things...My wife thought the same as well as it was within her Christian Heritiage...And it was no biggie for me to get married in a Church...

[dianaiad]

Get government out of marriage altogether. Period.

I actually kinda agree with that.

I think there should be two different words. One for the package of legal rights granted to any two consenting adults that choose to partner up (tax breaks, hospital visitations, green card applications,etc) and the other for the religious rituals that some people consider so important.

The government would be constitutionally required to grant that package of rights to any two consenting adults that requested it, and then the religious ceremonies could be left to the various churches.

Y'know, I've been advocating this for YEARS...and been uniformly criticized, vilified, called 'homophobic,' 'bigoted,' (and worse things) by gay rights activists left and left.

I should be, actually, mature about this and be grateful that someone is actually seeing the virtue in the idea, and not worry about the myriad attacks upon it because I'm the one who advocated it.

I should be.

I can't seem to manage it, though.

I CAN say this: YES, m'friend, that is EXACTLY how to solve this!

This way if Diane wants to consider herself married to a corpse (within her religion) she can, and it has nothing to do with the fact that there is no package of legal rights associated with her necrophilic relationship.

You know I'm not 'married to a corpse.' I'm married to Jim, who is NOT in the body that so betrayed him, which lies buried in a cemetery a mile and a half from here. HE is alive, spiritually, and waiting for me. I find your...description...of this to be discourteous, extremely distasteful, and more important to the discussion, incredibly inaccurate. While you might not care about the discourtesy, you should at least be interested in accuracy.

Or perhaps not.

If she wants to believe that within her religion a couple isn't married because one spouse is black and the other is white, or because they are gay, she is welcome to believe that, with the understanding that there is a wall of separation between her religious beliefs and the fact that those couple are nonetheless granted the same legal rights as any two consenting adults.

Not a problem.

Legal marriage and religious marriage should be completely separate.

yes. They should be...to the point that marriages performed by religious clerics should have no legal standing at all. Civil Unions (or domestic partnerships or whatever legal appellation that the government more accurately applies to these relationships) should be handled contractually through city hall or some other entity, period.

Legal marriage should have ZERO religious validity, and religious marriage should have ZERO legal validity.

Yes.

However, "marriage" is a bombshell word. It has too much history behind it, has been applied first to the cultural and religious aspect of the word for too long. Those who think the word 'marriage" don't think of the legal rights; this has been proven by California. Remember, gay civil unions in California had EVERY SINGLE LEGAL RIGHT that heterosexual marriages had. Every single one of them. No difference in any way. However, gays were not happy with all the legal and civil rights. They wanted the cultural and religious approval that the word 'marriage' gave them; that extra 'oomph,' over and above contractual and civil rights and obligations involved.

The government can't really give them that...it had already given them everything it could.

So...leave the word 'marriage' to the religions and the cultures, where the promises, vows and rules are personal, based on one's own belief systems, and utterly unenforceable by the government. Everybody can get married, if their own belief system allows it...and if theirs doesn't, they can change belief systems to one that does and THEN get married.

The GOVERNMENT supplies the civil rights through civil unions. Domestic partnerships; legal descriptions for legal matters. Everybody who wants those rights has to get them through the government; everybody gets civil unions. Everybody gets married.

Simple.
Everybody wins.

Solve everything, because nobody would have a gripe coming, would they? Gays get the rights AND they get married. Heterosexuals get the rights AND they get married....exactly the same way. No difference.

[alive]

Ive always said they should just go for Civil Union...This fight would be long over..It will never be Marriage...It will be a Gay Marrige...It will always be different to everyone..So heck be differenet with Civil Unions with the same rights..

[historia]

"Marriage" should be divorced from government altogether; that is, the cultural and religious aspect of it must be. Let everybody marry...or not...according to their own beliefs. Let the government assign rights to civil unions...to everybody. Separate church and state.

For the record, I have long held this opinion, and agree with you completely on this point. But I have some questions about the scenarios you outlined before, if you don't mind.

For instance:

You have a church school that says...no drinking on campus, no drugs, no smoking anywhere...and, oh, there's a dress code. No bare midriffs, everybody wears shirts, and if you race naked through the quad on game day you'll get kicked out. Oh, yeah...and if you ain't married, you ain't living together as if you were.

Now, the church that owns this school might be laughed at. It might be criticized...but nobody will argue that it's not the school's right (if church owned) to enforce such things.

Ah, but enter the government redefinition of marriage, and suddenly, while the church can still tell the students that they have to dress modestly, not drink, not smoke and generally behave themselves, they must NOW allow people to live together if they are married in the eyes of the government--whether or not they are in the eyes of the church.

I'm not sure I fully appreciate this example; perhaps you can clarify it for me. In this case, why couldn't BYU -- err, I mean, this 'church school' -- simply include among it's list of prohibited activities open homosexual relationships? That would prevent gay married couples from living together on campus, no?

The church which provides use of its facilities (for free or for a small fee) for weddings must now be forced to show that it approves of marriages it does not recognize by forcing said church to provide those facilities to weddings which violate doctrine.

Here, again, couldn't the church simply deny use of the facilities for gay marriages? As a private organization, it should still have that right, no?

I guess I'm just not sure I see how these churches are forced into providing services to married (or soon-to-be married) homosexual couples.

[dianaiad]

"Marriage" should be divorced from government altogether; that is, the cultural and religious aspect of it must be. Let everybody marry...or not...according to their own beliefs. Let the government assign rights to civil unions...to everybody. Separate church and state.

For the record, I have long held this opinion, and agree with you completely on this point. But I have some questions about the scenarios you outlined before, if you don't mind.

For instance:

You have a church school that says...no drinking on campus, no drugs, no smoking anywhere...and, oh, there's a dress code. No bare midriffs, everybody wears shirts, and if you race naked through the quad on game day you'll get kicked out. Oh, yeah...and if you ain't married, you ain't living together as if you were.

Now, the church that owns this school might be laughed at. It might be criticized...but nobody will argue that it's not the school's right (if church owned) to enforce such things.

Ah, but enter the government redefinition of marriage, and suddenly, while the church can still tell the students that they have to dress modestly, not drink, not smoke and generally behave themselves, they must NOW allow people to live together if they are married in the eyes of the government--whether or not they are in the eyes of the church.

I'm not sure I fully appreciate this example; perhaps you can clarify it for me. In this case, why couldn't BYU -- err, I mean, this 'church school' -- simply include among it's list of prohibited activities open homosexual relationships? That would prevent gay married couples from living together on campus, no?

What is prevented...at more than BYU...is living together without being married. This would automatically prevent homosexual partners from living together, in the eyes of the church. Change the law so that gays may marry, however, and the government can...and WILL...force the church to allow homosexual 'married' couples to live in married housing. I've already been told that the lawsuits are written and ready to be filed.

..............and don't tell a Mormon that the government won't do that. Good grief, the government armed soldiers to enforce it's view of marriage on a bunch of Mormons, for crying out loud, with the intent to imprison the leaders, confiscate church and personal property, divide families, take children from their parents and destroy everything.

.........and that was five years ago. We won't go into what they did back when the 'army' consisted, quite literally, of half the armed services of the USA and the leader's name was Brigham Young.

The church which provides use of its facilities (for free or for a small fee) for weddings must now be forced to show that it approves of marriages it does not recognize by forcing said church to provide those facilities to weddings which violate doctrine.

Here, again, couldn't the church simply deny use of the facilities for gay marriages? As a private organization, it should still have that right, no?

No. Lawsuits which have been filed and won against other church owned propeties have proven that one.

I guess I'm just not sure I see how these churches are forced into providing services to married (or soon-to-be married) homosexual couples.

You haven't been paying attention, have you? There have been several instances where exactly this has happened.

[99percentatheism]

[Replying to dianaiad:]

It's actually the very first right enumerated in the Bill of Rights; that government should not establish a religion (that is, dictate what religious beliefs are 'legal' and 'official") and that government may not interfere with the free exercise of any citizen to practice his/her religion. That there are limits is quite true; they generally involve keeping other people from enforcing THEIR religious opinions upon others. Now here's the problem you keep ignoring: this isn't about (at least for me) forcing gays to abide by my religious opinion of what marriage is. It's about gays wanting to force ME to approve, RELIGIOUSLY, of same sex marriage. If that's not a blatant abrogation of the first amendment, I don't know what is.

Dianalad,

Without doubt you have some of the best positions written yet on this subiect at this website.

The goal of the OP was to try to bring out the honest observation that marriage in Christian truth, based on the New Testament, is ONLY man and woman/husband and wife. If any godless secularist, or liberal and progressive ideologuet thinks that goverment or courts are going to settle the issue and force Christians to submit to secularism over Gospel," better be prepared to house tens of thousands of Christians in jails and prisons and to have violent felons running free.

Right now, in my very old and established denomination, we are discussing and will develope financial resources to pay the leagl fees for the inevitable persecutions (called discrimination lawsuits) that are to come against many, many, many, individual Christians and Churches as the frenzied "paybacks" start happen to Christians and their Churches here in America. Not one us believe that we will be supported by the typical liberal and progressive ideologue that proclaim our rights to our beliefs right now. The writing on the wall is ominous.

There is just too much power being claimed by the historic enemies of The Church over this issue and the statements show the Christians as the intended targets of a claimed revenge. Christian "Marriage" has always been a morally sound environment for sexual behavior. And this issue by our detractors is far more about the support for the sexuality of the redefintion crowd, and only the extreme ignorant of reality believes it it not.

But I do hold out hope that The Church will come together as the danger rises and is seen for what it is. We are finally seeing the "Black Church" and the "White Church" realizing we are truly family under Christ. And the other ethnically defined denominations (Korean, Hispanic, Romanisn, etc., etc.,) are seeing the same thing. We ARE truly being targeted by the "powers and principalities in high places." This may be coming at too late a date to save mankind in general, but it sure looks prophetic in scope. The rise of same gender marriage is connected to the rise of godlessness being the bottomline of what "secularism" really is.

You would think that the same kinds of people, the so-called educated liberals and progessives . . . that proclaim diversity rights and support the odd invention (through neologisms) of same gender "marriage," would be forthright towards Christians that hold to the immutability of Christian marriage. That, those Christians, are absolutely right (and innocent of any wrongdoing) in their opposition to creating a marriage that is antithetical to that Christian truth. But that seems far too much to expect in todsay's political environment of gaining power over the masses.

[99percentatheism]

An interesting read from a pro homosexuality article:

http://erikanwalsh.wordpress.com/2012/0 ... -illinois/


It shows how ominous the gay pride movement is towards the peace and safety of Christians. Sexual bahavior is not the same thing as race. But thtat is not stopping the wierd train coming down the tracks. With The Church now having the tracks palced, running right through it. Gay activists and their very powerful supporters, do not recognize the rights of Christians. And, with the following Supreme Court "decision", You can see the sharpening of the swords now.:

History and case law have demonstrated that there is no such thing as separate but equal. In its holding that the segregation of school children based on race was an unconstitutional violation of the Equal Protection clause, the U.S. Supreme Court held that:

Does segregation of children in public schools solely on the basis of race, even though the physical facilities and other ‘tangible’ factors may be equal, deprive the children of the minority group of equal educational opportunities? We believe that it does. . .To separate them from others of similar age and qualifications solely because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone.

Sexual behavior is being equated with race. Even in the common world of internet websites.

[Dantalion]

[Replying to post 38 by 99percentatheism]

Wait wait, are you saying you advocate racial segregation ?

[Peter]

Sexual behavior is being equated with race. Even in the common world of internet websites.

Actually, I believe falling in love with the same gender is being equated to race.

If you view homosexuality as simply sexual behavior then I can see why you're angry and confused.