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Depends on your definition of marriage. If you believe that marriage by definition is between a man and a woman, then Obama's position can be described as a war against marriage. 5/9 9:10 PM | IP: Logged |
When Obama was born, his parents' marriage would have been illegal in 22 states.
This post was edited on 5/9 9:50 PM by GoDores2005
So what's your point? That we should have a huge government to manage our society and our economy?
Should I point out that huge government, huge bureaucracy, and centralized planning were the Soviet Way?
5/9 9:30 PM | IP: Logged
Originally posted by Doreking:
So what's your point? That we should have a huge government to manage our society and our economy?
Should I point out that huge government, huge bureaucracy, and centralized planning were the Soviet Way?
That's what you took from pointing out the fact that interracial marriage was illegal in a significant number of states when our relatively young President was born?
Yep. Your were making an irrelevant and veiled attack at conservatives, implying they are racists.
That's what liberals do. . . they make personal attacks, and play the race card when they want the upper hand. Rarely do they make policy arguments, because when fully explained their policies rarely make sense.
This post was edited on 5/9 9:58 PM by Doreking
Originally posted by Doreking:
Yep. Your were making an irrelevant and veiled attack at conservatives, implying they are racists.
That's what liberals do. . . they make personal attacks, and play the race card when they want the upper hand. Rarely do they make policy arguments, because when fully explained their policies rarely make sense.This post was edited on 5/9 9:58 PM by Doreking
No, I was pointing out that that 22 states had racist laws when Obama was born to draw an analog to the states like North Carolina that are taking a bigoted stance against gay marriage.
This post was edited on 5/10 6:50 PM by GoDores2005
Well then NC and 29 other states are just loaded with black bigots, based on that argument.
5/10 6:38 PM | IP: Logged
I still don't get it.
5/10 5:40 PM | IP: Logged
You're really comparing the old jim crow laws to the gay marriage debate? Really?
5/10 5:56 PM | IP: Logged
Originally posted by Doreking:
You're really comparing the old jim crow laws to the gay marriage debate? Really?
Yes. They're both discrimination in the context of marriage.
Sigh. End of discussion for me. Yet again I'm reminded why I only come here for sports updates and not serious adult discussion. And I get not being able to have intelligent discussion of serious topics on a sports message board, but what kills me is that the 4 or 5 folks on here that posture themselves as being of superior intellect to us pee-ons are usually the first to resort to the childish bullshit posts to prove their point. My parting thoughts are
- that signifies my main issue with the debate in general. it has nothing to do with actual rights and as usual is all about seeking social approval. anybody that is or has been married knows that marriage is more of a restriction of rights than a granting of rights. good luck legislating peoples' consciences.
-you in particular always compare gay marriage to racial discrimination. I'd suggest you talk to the black community. Not only are they overwhelmingly against gay marriage, they generally find that comparison ludicrous. To a person, it infuriates every one of my black friends.
- if I ever happen to wake up bi-sexual one day, I'm going to demand the 'right' to marry one of each simultaneously.
5/10 7:46 PM | IP: Logged
Marriage has always been defined as between a man and woman. That's what it is.
Further, it's not any of the federal government's business. The states can do whatever they want. But if you believe in the importance of traditional marriage to society, that doesn't make you a bigot as liberals suggest.
5/10 7:55 PM | IP: Logged
On the criticism of this discussion as being devoid of intellectual content, you're 100% correct. The gay marriage debate is one for which debate is essentially useless because it comes down to one side calling the other abominations and/or supporters of abomination and the other side calling the first bigots. The only two actual questions I would posit to someone from the other side are these:
1) Please name one argument for banning gay marriage that does not rely upon the bible (in other words, looking for a secular purpose for such a law)?
2) Since we're voting on human rights now, would you support the right of the majority in a Islamic nation voting on the rights of Christians or any other heathen or apostate?
I also wonder why a state constitution could be amended on a straight up and down vote and why it was done now rather than in concert with the General Election. Super majorities have a purpose. But that is not the case with all states.
Back to the two questions, I have yet to hear an argument with secular purpose that holds any water. As for voting on rights, it's extraordinarily dangerous. I do think constitutions can set forth and govern rights, but a vote like this is a little disturbing.
Anyway, getting away from the actual arguments for and against gay marriage, I find the data from this gallop poll interesting.
Originally posted by NewYorkDore:
1) Please name one argument for banning gay marriage that does not rely upon the bible (in other words, looking for a secular purpose for such a law)?
This.
Families are important. Children raised in families with 2 parents are much more successful compared to those who aren't. There are statistics that prove this. Calling things marriage that really aren't further trivialize the importance of marriage in our society.
The liberals, with the social programs and trillions spent in the last 30 years, have failed to replicate the success and importance of the family in society.
5/10 11:25 PM | IP: Logged
I actually agree with you that two parent families are important... I'm just baffled as to why you think two men or two women don't qualify as a two parent household. Obviously, not every two parent family is better than a single mom or single dad family, but I think it's fair to say that on average you have a more stable environment and ability to support a child financially.
This is, however, another failure to provide a secular purpose to ban gay marriages. Even if you argued that a gay couple doesn't qualify as a two parent family, you would have to establish that gay parents would be worse than any other arrangement (including orphanages and foster homes) to establish a secular purpose -- or you'd have to establish that gay marriage somehow damages heterosexual families. I do not believe either point has ever been established. Unless you can establish one or the other, this does not qualify as a secular purpose.
As for the comment re: liberals and social programs vs. family, I really am not quite sure what you mean. Where have social programs been intended to replace families?
5/10 11:40 PM | IP: Logged
Originally posted by NewYorkDore:
I actually agree with you that two parent families are important... I'm just baffled as to why you think two men or two women don't qualify as a two parent household. Obviously, not every two parent family is better than a single mom or single dad family, but I think it's fair to say that on average you have a more stable environment and ability to support a child financially.
This is, however, another failure to provide a secular purpose to ban gay marriages. Even if you argued that a gay couple doesn't qualify as a two parent family, you would have to establish that gay parents would be worse than any other arrangement (including orphanages and foster homes) to establish a secular purpose -- or you'd have to establish that gay marriage somehow damages heterosexual families. I do not believe either point has ever been established. Unless you can establish one or the other, this does not qualify as a secular purpose.
As for the comment re: liberals and social programs vs. family, I really am not quite sure what you mean. Where have social programs been intended to replace families?
Maybe because gay families are not physically capable of producing offspring. It's certainly not a natural environment to raise children.
Marriage has historically meant something special. Again, I believe calling gay partnership marriage further waters down what has been a special institution which has accordingly been granted special legal privileges.
I really don't care what gays do, but to call gay relationships marriage is like calling the color red blue. Should I now apologize if I offended any color blind people?
Originally posted by Doreking:
Maybe because gay families are not physically capable of producing offspring. It's certainly not a natural environment to raise children.
There are plenty of people permitted to marry who are incapable of bearing children. The elderly and sterile get married all the time. Furthermore, vasectomies are quite popular. This is not a valid secular argument against gay marriage.
Originally posted by Doreking:
Marriage has historically meant something special. Again, I believe calling gay partnership marriage further waters down what has been a special institution which has accordingly been granted special legal privileges.
Historically marriage has taken many forms and has changed over the years. This argument is the same argument against interracial marriage and is the same argument used in favor of polygamy when that was at issue. It again fails... in large part because you are relying on a religious definition based on a modern (and not permanent) interpretation of how one religion addresses marriage, which religion is not shared by the entire community. Again this argument fails and it does not even make an effort at identifying a secular purpose.
To the contrary, you are again indicating that gays should not be afforded equal treatment in their relationships... which is the definition of taking beliefs into active bigotry.
Originally posted by Doreking:
I really don't care what gays do, but to call gay relationships marriage is like calling the color red blue. Should I now apologize if I offended any color blind people?
You quite clearly care about what gays do if you:
1) say they cannot call their relationships "marriage", or
2) support legislation that not only prohibits them from calling their relationships marriage, but also prohibits their relationships from being recognized in any form by the state.
For an individual who professes to state that their is divine inspiration in our nation's founding, you sure seem intent on ensuring that certain citizens are not entitled to their inalienable right to pursue happiness.
Originally posted by NewYorkDore:
As for the comment re: liberals and social programs vs. family, I really am not quite sure what you mean. Where have social programs been intended to replace families?
Most social and big government policies of the left have taken away incentives to stay in families as well personal responsibility in general. Humans tend to respond to incentives, which is why leftist policies, especially their economic ones, don't work as intended.
DK, please explain what policies attack families.
I do know of some gospels that are anti-family, but cannot think of any social policies that are aimed at destroying the family.
Originally posted by Jesus:
35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and a man's foes will be those of his own household.
37 He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
(Matt. 10:35-37; Luke 12:51-53)
Originally posted by Jesus:
29 And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.
30 But many that are first will be last, and the last first.
(Matt. 19:29-30)
Originally posted by Jesus:
26 If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
(Luke 14:26)
Originally posted by NewYorkDore:
DK, please explain what policies attack families.
I do know of some gospels that are anti-family, but cannot think of any social policies that are aimed at destroying the family.
Originally posted by Jesus:
35 For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
36 and a man's foes will be those of his own household.
37 He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
(Matt. 10:35-37; Luke 12:51-53)
Originally posted by Jesus:
29 And every one who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life.
30 But many that are first will be last, and the last first.
(Matt. 19:29-30)
Originally posted by Jesus:
26 If any one comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple.
(Luke 14:26)
Let me just address the first passage by putting it into context which, while NYD did not do purposefully, is extremely truncated. Here is the passage as the NIV lays it out:
34 “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn
“‘a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law ?
36 a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’[c]
37 “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. 38 Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. 39 Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.
Jesus clearly intends, and almost no scholar would suggest these words are not the ipsissima verba of Jesus, that it be understood that following him means family must be secondary to following him. I don't accept that Jesus here, as suggests Dominic Crossan a liberal scholar would, that Jesus is seeking to "attack families". Jesus is simply staking out his Messianic claim as N.T. Wright would suggest. Implicitly Jesus may be making a claim to divinity as he echoes the theme found in the OT that God, not church, takes precedence over the family. Deuteronomy 33: 9 is an example of this.
The Levites obeyed your word
and guarded your covenant.
They were more loyal to you
than to their own parents.
They ignored their relatives
and did not acknowledge their own children.
Ultimately God, and Evangelicals believe Jesus is God, takes precedence over family but that does not divide families typically except as non-believing family members reject Christians. Note that Paul said in 1 Corinthians 7 the following...hardly an injunction to divide families but rather a direct teaching to keep families together unless the unbeliever wishes to leave:
12 Now, I will speak to the rest of you, though I do not have a direct command from the Lord. If a Christian man[c] has a wife who is not a believer and she is willing to continue living with him, he must not leave her. 13 And if a Christian woman has a husband who is not a believer and he is willing to continue living with her, she must not leave him.
Just a few words also about gay "marriage". Given I have family who are gay who have lived with their partner for the last 15 years and others who have been with their partner a shorter time I get the need for same sex unions. As a Christian I'm not comfortable surrendering a word that has been reserved for a union between a man and a woman to a differing arrangement. Yet, gay unions from the vantage point of benefits, rights, and yes, even the conservative principle of stability, make sense in secular law.
However, as an evangelical who accepts biblical authority, I've yet to hear a credible case the expression of sexuality in a homosexual relationship being God's design but then again I've never heard a credible case for sexuality in a heterosexual relationship outside a faithful and loving marriage being God's design either. Therefore, I find myself, as a covenant matter, affirming celibate singleness, faithful and loving heterosexual marriage, and the traditional understanding of family, husband, wife, children, as God's design. And when such does not occur I extend grace and forgiveness not condemnation as Jesus did to the woman caught in adultery.
Now can a gay couple create a loving family. The answer it seems to me is yes. I think the ideal is a loving and faithful relationship between a father and a mother who provides solid role models of what it means to be a man and a woman. Yet, I've lived long enough to know gay couples can provide, if not the ideal, a home filled with love, care, and nurture. I'd prefer the former to the latter and I believe the former is biblical while the latter is not, yet, we evangelicals really need to understand our expression of sexuality is a covenantal choice entered into freely to witness the power of our ethos to a fallen world. As far as I know the early Christian had no hope of legislating sexual mores in the Roman world but shifted the ethos of that world by demonstrating a better way. However, secular folks need to understand that just as they wish to legislate their morals and impose them if able to do so having the power that Christians, conservatives, and others who agree with their positions have the same right. What is ironic in all this is that the graph NYD found about the acceptance of gay marriage is being paralleled by a rejection of abortion on demand. Politically, you win some and you lose some.
By the way GoDores feel free to post this in the WR under all comers I know it will do you good. Just as a side bar to this I'm still taking a break from the WR until football season but NYD's invitation to participate in this discussion was too good to pass up not to mention a gesture that meant quite a bit.
Seriously? I'm no expert on the gospels, but I'm sure there are others qualified to respond to that.
What policies attack families? How about welfare in general. Look at the statistics regarding black families today versus before the government got huge in the 1960's or so.
The left and the feminist movement are not concerned with families, and they certainly do not respect women who stay home to raise children. Who was it who recently said Romney's wife hasn't worked a day in her life?
This post was edited on 5/11 12:17 PM by Doreking
Originally posted by Doreking:
Seriously? I'm no expert on the gospels, but I'm sure there are others qualified to respond to that.
Perhaps VADore will come out of retirement for this one. I'll email him and ask him.
Originally posted by Doreking:
What policies attack families? How about welfare in general. Look at the statistics regarding black families today versus before the government got huge in the 1960's or so.
The decline of the African American family is a real problem, as attested to by Daniel Patrick Moynihan. That said, I see not causation between federal programs and such decline. Historically, the fracturing of the black family traces it's roots directly to the practices of slavery.
Furthermore, federal programs do not function solely to serve minorities. Whites are by far the largest consumers of government programs... so please address the issue without regard to racial breakdowns.
As to welfare in general, please advise as to how exactly food stamps, section 8 housing, unemployment benefits and the like attack the family.
Originally posted by Doreking:
The left and the feminist movement are not concerned with families, and they certainly do not respect women who stay home to raise children. Who was it who recently said Romney's wife hasn't worked a day in her life?
Please address exactly why you believe the left and feminists are not concerned with families (cite specific examples, please, and not simply references to traditional gender roles from patriarchal eras).
Furthermore, please acknowledge that there is a massive difference between Ann Romney (who hasn't worked in her life in large part because she is the wife of a multi-millionaire born into affluence) and the average stay-at-home mom who is not afforded the pleasure of housekeepers, drivers and multiple nannies.
On top of that, note that there was no attack on Ann Romney in general. There was a direct statement from a lobbyist that Ann Romney was not qualified to advise a presidential nominee on the economy (this was in response to a comment from Gov Romney that his wife provided important economic advice).
Without knowing Ann Romney's academic background and actual day-to-day activities, I can't say if she lacks any qualifications at all, but I would say that it is quite dubious to argue that being a pampered country club wife (which is a far more accurate description of her than "stay-at-home mom") is not the most desirable characteristic for providing sage economic advise.
Now, a stay-at-home mom who has to struggle to make ends meet, raise her children herself and clip coupons and shop wisely most certainly has something to say about a consumer driven economy where real wages for the middle class are sliding down toward the poverty line. Ann Romney is, however, not that woman.
Originally posted by NewYorkDore:
Originally posted by Doreking:
Seriously? I'm no expert on the gospels, but I'm sure there are others qualified to respond to that.
Perhaps VADore will come out of retirement for this one. I'll email him and ask him.
I'm no Vadore and I hope he will emerge and speak to this. If he doesn't or until he does, I'll take a stab at it.
it's imperative to get the right perspective. Jesus spoke in parables and used imagery and analogy in teaching. Also, the many different translations of the Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic vary. IOW, we have to dig.
I sit under a PHD in Old Testament Studies from Vandy in my Sunday School class, and my sister has a doctorate in Education from a Christian university. Over the years I've come to understand a bit better about how to receive the printed words, or at least I think I have.
It's probably fair to say that to "hate" one's father or mother really means to forsake for His sake. Certainly, when Jesus spoke of "losing your life" in order to gain it, he didn't mean literally losing your life, as in physically dying.
It's also probably fair to say that Jesus was (accurately) predicting the consequences of following him more than he was saying He actually came to cause it. We all know the price most Messianic Jews and Muslims who convert to Christianity pay in terms of alienation from family and, in the case of Muslims, even murder by a family member for following Christ.
So I think it's wrong to blame Jesus for these things. I don't know of Christians, at least as a religious tenet, expelling or killing family members for leaving their faith for another. That comes from the other religions and is directed at Christians.
This post was edited on 5/11 5:22 PM by 4VANDY
FYI, I spoke with VA and he's going to think about addressing it tomorrow.
5/11 5:20 PM | IP: Logged
Diversity. Another liberal favorite. NYD could benefit from some diversity in regard to his media sources.
5/11 6:30 PM | IP: Logged
This country was founded upon Christian ideals and Christianity has undoubtedly played a major role in this country's evolution. I simply don't see why things like Christianity and freedom are under attack by the left.
5/11 12:33 PM | IP: Logged
I really don't care what gays do. It's their private lives and they can associate however they wish. However, I believe it is a misnomer to call gay partnerships marriage.
Does that make me a racist bigot?
5/10 11:28 PM | IP: Logged
Originally posted by Doreking:
I really don't care what gays do. It's their private lives and they can associate however they wish. However, I believe it is a misnomer to call gay partnerships marriage.
Does that make me a racist bigot?
No, it doesn't. Within your church, you're more than happy to define marriage as you please -- within your church. However, when you actively assert that your beliefs should govern others' realities, you've crossed over into bigotry because you are saying that those individuals are not entitled to human rights.
A religious community is perfectly welcome to mandate that none of their churches wed gays. I don't believe many people at all would have a problem with that. It's when a theology based law that oppresses a particular group is adopted absent a secular purpose that bigotry has entered the government. It's happened in the past. It will happen in the future. But ultimately I like to think that the "right side" will win out.
Interesting article, and good demonstration of how liberals handle opposing views.
Link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304363104577391842133259230.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
5/9 10:24 PM | IP: Logged
Yahoo! Sports
