Don't like it? Get out!

[wolf]

Yes. Hi, girl.

[mrnoodle]

Gay relationships are notoriously unstable, even in a culture where straight relationships are about as reliable as a Colorado weather report (i.e., not so much). The additional load of drama upon society would be crippling: the divorce rate would quintuple, insurance companies would crumble under the weight of millions of claims due to hair-pulling and slapping.

And imagine the bridal magazines. Some things can't be unseen, remember that.




/kidding. <3

[Skunks]

OC: Some of those passages are unmistakably Christian, but it is my understanding that a significant portion of the religious language used by the founding fathers was in reference to Deism, not Christianity.

From <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deism">wikipedia</a>:

Historical and modern deism is defined by the view that reason, rather than revelation or tradition, should be the basis of belief in God. Deists reject both organized and revealed religion and maintain that reason is the essential element in all knowledge.

Deism was championed by Enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire and some of the Founding Fathers of the United States. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin are among the most well-known of the American founding deists. There is debate as to whether George Washington was a deist or not.Thomas Paine published The Age of Reason, a treatise that helped to popularize deism throughout America and Europe. Paine wrote that deism represented the application of reason to religion. Deists like Paine hoped to settle religious questions permanently and scientifically by reason alone, without revelation.

The first six and four later presidents of the United States had strong deistic or allied beliefs, even if they did not proclaim them.

[Elspode]

I know I'm going to be sorry for jumping into this, since OC's research is obviously more thorough than mine (which is to say, none), but...once we've made it illegal for queers to engage in a legally binding contract like marriage, what's to keep us from, say, revoking women's voting rights and anything else that isn't keeping with the fundamentalist notions of how everyone else ought to live?

I cannot conceive of any valid legal argument whereby any two people should not be allowed to unite their assets and obligations in a legal manner, cohabitate, and derive the same benefits as any other two people are entitled to simply by dint of their genders.

Anything else is discrimination. If it isn't, someone needs to tell me why, and the explanation can't include anything about family values (mine might not be yours, and if I'm not hurting anyone else, why should I have to live by yours), historical precedents (go far enough back in history and you'll find a great many alternative lifestyles that were quite acceptable in their time) or {insert your religion here} tenets.

Marriage is a contract. If Bob and Mary want to believe that their contract is sanctified by God, great, cool, I hope they hire me to play at the wedding. But if Bob and Joe just want to ensure that they have rights of property inheritance and insurability...why can't they? If they each married a woman, they'd be entitled to those things, so there wouldn't be any more burden on insurance companies, the government or anything else if Bob and Joe got hitched.

There's no rationale for prohibiting same sex marriage other than religious morality. By my way of thinking, if you can limit one thing on that basis, you can do anything else on that basis, and taken to that extreme, you have radical Islam, Right Wing Christianity, and so on.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's a slippery slope, Elspode. You let 'em get married and before you know it all those faggot/lezzie children will be bitching the their separate but equal schools ain't equal and they don't want to sit in the back of the bus anymore.

[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by Elspode

I know I'm going to be sorry for jumping into this, since OC's research is obviously more thorough than mine (which is to say, none), but...once we've made it illegal for queers to engage in a legally binding contract like marriage, what's to keep us from, say, revoking women's voting rights and anything else that isn't keeping with the fundamentalist notions of how everyone else ought to live?

I cannot conceive of any valid legal argument whereby any two people should not be allowed to unite their assets and obligations in a legal manner, cohabitate, and derive the same benefits as any other two people are entitled to simply by dint of their genders.

You know what? I agree. So why don't we just bring this down to one point: marriage is male/female, civil union is same sex. Make civil union just as legal and binding as marriage, give it the same rights and responsibilities?

I'm 100% happy with that. Semantics? Absolutely. But it goes a long way to pacify the majority of the people.

Anything else is discrimination. If it isn't, someone needs to tell me why, and the explanation can't include anything about family values (mine might not be yours, and if I'm not hurting anyone else, why should I have to live by yours), historical precedents (go far enough back in history and you'll find a great many alternative lifestyles that were quite acceptable in their time) or {insert your religion here} tenets.

Marriage is a contract. If Bob and Mary want to believe that their contract is sanctified by God, great, cool, I hope they hire me to play at the wedding. But if Bob and Joe just want to ensure that they have rights of property inheritance and insurability...why can't they? If they each married a woman, they'd be entitled to those things, so there wouldn't be any more burden on insurance companies, the government or anything else if Bob and Joe got hitched.

There's no rationale for prohibiting same sex marriage other than religious morality. By my way of thinking, if you can limit one thing on that basis, you can do anything else on that basis, and taken to that extreme, you have radical Islam, Right Wing Christianity, and so on.

Upon further reflection, I think I agree with you. Again, call marriage male/female and call saem sex civil union. Legalize civil union. I really dont' see the problem in that compromise, but then I'm actually pretty moderate in my views.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by OnyxCougar

You know what? I agree. So why don't we just bring this down to one point: marriage is male/female, civil union is same sex. Make civil union just as legal and binding as marriage, give it the same rights and responsibilities?

Even better: Call it all civil union from a governmental point of view, and let individuals and/or their churches decide whether to call their unions marriages. No double standard, religious people still can put whatever restrictions they want on what they call marriage, and nonreligious people can ignore those restrictions and call themselves married anyway.

[xoxoxoBruce]

They call it marriage because civil union would be an oxymoron in many cases.

[OnyxCougar]

Originally Posted by Happy Monkey

Even better: Call it all civil union from a governmental point of view, and let individuals and/or their churches decide whether to call their unions marriages. No double standard, religious people still can put whatever restrictions they want on what they call marriage, and nonreligious people can ignore those restrictions and call themselves married anyway.

Why would non religious people WANT to call it married?
Marriage is a religious concept, located in Genesis.

If you're not religious, why would you want to call it marriage?

Originally Posted by OnyxCougar

You know what? I agree. So why don't we just bring this down to one point: marriage is male/female, civil union is same sex. Make civil union just as legal and binding as marriage, give it the same rights and responsibilities?

I'm 100% happy with that. Semantics? Absolutely. But it goes a long way to pacify the majority of the people.



Upon further reflection, I think I agree with you. Again, call marriage male/female and call saem sex civil union. Legalize civil union. I really dont' see the problem in that compromise, but then I'm actually pretty moderate in my views.

That is unacceptable to gay Chritians, being gay is not a sin, so I don't see the issue with it.

As for separation of Church and state.
Amendment 1 (1st for a reason)
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

In Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli, an agreement signed between the United States and the Muslim region of North Africa in 1797 after negotiations concluded by George Washington (the document, which was approved by the Senate in accordance with Constitutional law, and then signed by John Adams), it states flatly, "The Government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion." signed by John Adams
"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!" John Adams

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; -Benjamin Franklin

"Christianity neither is, nor ever was a part of the common law" -Thomas Jefferson

As to Jesus of Nazareth, my Opinion of whom you particularly desire, I think the System of Morals and his Religion...has received various corrupting Changes, and I have, with most of the present dissenters in England, some doubts as to his Divinity; tho' it is a question I do not dogmatize upon, having never studied it, and think it needless to busy myself with it now, when I expect soon an opportunity of knowing the Truth with less trouble." He died a month later, and historians consider him, like so many great Americans of his time, to be a Deist, not a Christian.
From: Benjamin Franklin, A Biography in his Own Words

"As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion"
John Adams April 27,1797

"The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries"
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal establishment of Christianity been on trial. What have been its fruits? More or less in all places, pride and indolence in the Clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, in both, superstition, bigotry and persecution." -James Madison fourth president and father of the Constitution

"Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less they are mixed together." -James Madison

The words "one nation under God" were not added to the Pledge of allegiance until 1953

None of the 85 Federalist Papers written in support of the Constitution reference God, the Bible, religion or Christianity.

The words "in God we trust were not consistently added to all money until the 1950s after the McCarthy Era

James Madison, Jefferson's close friend and political ally, was just as vigorously opposed to religious intrusions into civil affairs as Jefferson was. In 1785, when the Commonwealth of Virginia was considering passage of a bill "establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion," Madison wrote his famous "Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments" in which he presented fifteen reasons why government should not be come involved in the support of any religion.
The views of Madison and Jefferson prevailed in the Virginia Assembly

Jesus even said it:
Mark 12:17
And Jesus answering said unto them, Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's. And they marvelled at him.

Matthew 22:21
They say unto him, Caesar's. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's.

Luke 20:25
And he said unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which be Caesar's, and unto God the things which be God's.

“The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.” - Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 (1943)


As for immigration... I hate the new semantics. I am pro-immigration, pro-legal-immigration, this nation was built on it.
Illegal is illegal.

I happen to be extremely conversant with the issue involved, in fact I have dealt with it all of my life living in the citrus industry working side by side with illegals. You know what, they are good people, salt of the Earth... the one's I managed and worked with (I was not a white hat, though I was the Foreman, it was a family business. I was down in the dirt with them) busted ass and sent every spare dime it took not to live home to their families... but that is the problem, no?
If they were not here we would have paid a fair wage with benefits that Americans would have been happy to take to do the work. Know how I know that... I was doing it when we could not find illegals.
It ain't hard. Hell, I was doing the work as well for a decent wage too.
They do not pay taxes, ever, that they do is a myth and a lie.
We pay for their medicine, their children's school, all social services and more than I can think of. One crew on my farm, one crew had to have have cost the Florida tax payers hundreds of thousands every year, easily.
As individuals, I liked them... but as a groups, as a whole... if your nation sucks, stay and make it better.
Kick some ass and take some names.
Fix it.
Especially when you are so close in a nation like Mexico with such great resources... But no, instead you run away and steal from another nation... People in the US during the depression did not pull this crap.
If you want to be an American do it legally... if you want to work in the US, get a work visa. For those of you who say it is too hard..
I guess that means if it is too hard for me to get a car, it is ok for me to take my neighbors?

Do you what we will do in the citrus industry if you get rid of the illegals or make them get visas?
We will pay a decent wage like we used to, a wage that Americas will be happy to work for....
"Jobs White/Americans won't do", stupidest thing I have ever heard. I have had jobs a hell of a lot worse than picking and cleaning rooms... I know, because I have picked and cleaned bathrooms.
Worked at a distillery (we have our own waste treatment center and you should see the stuff we have to clean-up after a run... sugar and yeast bags can be 100lbs), at an organic fertilizer plant (bet it won't take you long to figure that one out) and go to a state or county waste treatment unit that us union run and see who runs them.... not illegals and not predominantly minorities in Northern states I promise you. They make bank and when a pump or a line breaks.... well, you can just imagine...
Again, it is just a stupid argument pushed by, I am sad to say, the Left... the older I get the sadder I am about the lunacy I see in what I used to align myself with.

[Hagar]

Originally Posted by Kitsune

Aussie Gov't Ministers have stated their position on Muslim extremism. This is pretty amazing stuff:...

There are a couple of interesting points that the Snopes articles didn't mention.

1/ There were serious and violent (Youth of "middle-Eastern-apperance" vs "Australian") riots in the Cronulla region of Sydney, late last year. There was substantial fault on both sides, massive and often divisive media coverage, followed by no real resolution.

2/ A enormously popular right wing radio talkback personality has been running an "Australia - Love it or Leave it" campaign, intermittantly for several months. Speaking very generally, the main demographic of this radio personality's audience foverlaps substantially with a big part of the Howard government's voter base.

I think these comments from the Australian govermnent are simply political rhetoric aimed at answering the question "What's the goverment doing about all this Muslim violence at home?"

I am a proud Australian, and while I personally agree with the stated basic sentiments, I doubt they will change anything of consequence one iota.

[xoxoxoBruce]