People, please read this... (re: Same sex mariage)

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Hi, I believe the posters problem with Marriage is that Marriage is originally a religiously instituted function. In his/her case he/she would oppose not civil weddings, but religious weddings. This degrades everything the church believes in.
Personally if 2 gay men want to call themselves married, feel free, I couldn't care less, however to do so with the notion that a Christian God approves of it is mockery of the Christian Faith.

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Let's view legal and religious marriage as two separate things, then. If they weren't considered the same thing by so many people, legal recognition of gay marriage wouldn't be such a big deal. Of course, the fact that only certain people, largely ordained ministers, are allowed to perform legal marriages, makes that step forward rather difficult to achieve.

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You might as well be disgusted at how Christians show hatred towards child molesters or people committing beastiality.

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Actually, in my experience, and in that of many other people, Christian churches are a great source of shelter and character witnesses for child molesters and spouse abusers, especially male ones. I have lived with two of them (my father and stepfather), and in both cases people just wouldn't accept that a man of God could be guilty of such things until it was painfully obvious. The gender inequity inherent in the Jewish law and Paul's writings does a lot to perpetuate this. My mother regularly attends and organizes support groups for victims of spouse abuse, formerly married to men who were not only respected members of the church but leaders and even pastors. If you want to talk about deviance, don't go dragging the gays into the discussion. Their so-called crime hurts nobody, and the breeding-obsessed mentality that has made "normal" people fear them is a detriment to today's overpopulated world. I'm sick of hearing gays equated to predators and rapists. There's nothing to justify the comparison, only ignorance and fear.

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Zephyr: If you want to talk about deviance, don't go dragging the gays into the discussion. Their so-called crime hurts nobody, and the breeding-obsessed mentality that has made "normal" people fear them is a detriment to today's overpopulated world. I'm sick of hearing gays equated to predators and rapists. There's nothing to justify the comparison, only ignorance and fear.

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db

Hi, what do you want me to say ? Is there some way to formally end a thread ? I believe I did reply pretty much to it, but if you want, I'll bring up a piece of evidence I read in NewScientist later on..cheers

Considering that marriage (correct me if I'm mistaken) originated as a religious ceremony, it would indeed be difficult to seperate the two. The fact that the government introduced financial benefits to being 'married', was discriminating to non-religious people, thus non-religious marriages were introduced. Next step, gay people feel discriminated against and so now they also want to be married.Personally, I couldn't care less if 2 same sex people wanted to consider themselves married, however to try to do such is a religious context is futile. Little bit bias statement. Churches generally could be seen as way to rid oneself of 'guilt' of sin. My cousin forinstance had a very bad relationship with her husband, neither in any way religious, but when things got bad, including him trying to commit suicide, they turned to the Church for moral support and became 'Christians'. I can well imagine that many child molesters are not happy about their circumstance and want to find a way to solve the problem.
Not difficult to go to church and become a 'Christian' really.PS, your statement is actually pretty hatefull. Your experience is one thing, but no Christian church EVER condones paedofiles or adulterers. 'Love and honour your wife' ... yeah sounds alot like those Christian women beating men. Funny, but this entire post is about typecasting ONE apparent 'Christians' hatred onto an entire Christian community. Nothing is mentioned about any prior threads in that discussion, just that one post saying 'Look at how Christians HATE people', how can they be like that.I am truely sorry for your discomfort. I am good friends with 2 women that have been abused in their youth, and pray that such a thing would never happen to any of my children. Having said that if your best friend does such a thing, and is being accused and you honestly believe him to be innocent, I am sure you would also stand as a character witness.[This message has been edited by Zealot, 09-09-2003]

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Considering that marriage (correct me if I'm mistaken) originated as a religious ceremony...

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Though it is impossible to know for sure, it is a good bet that marriage arose from the pair bonding, associated with mating, found in many species and especially, for our purposes, those found among the primates. And thus, marriage was around in practice long before it was formalized by religion.

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Personally, I couldn't care less if 2 same sex people wanted to consider themselves married, however to try to do such is a religious context is futile.

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I don't pretend that I or anyone else outside of a religion has a right to force the church to perform same sex marriages, but isn't the point of the thread that legal same sex marriages are also restricted and for patently religious reasons?------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

Sorry I dont buy this. Very few primates mate for life. Not just that but the Jewish marriages and marriages for other religions/societies for one were polygamous, not pair bonding. Take an example of an african chief with 40 wives. You might actually question the purpose of marriage if not for religious ideals. The legal purpose would be purely to provide some form of financial security in the form of an agreement between 2 partners. Or in some cultures as a means of remuneration for the father of the bride for the costs incurred of raising a daughter. Called 'labola' in some african countries.If you look at the financial security side, it mainly (historically) points to the security of a woman, who probably wouldn't have worked for an income as she would have had to raise children. In today's society it generally proves the same purpose. As for the 'repayment of the father' aspect, this doesn't really apply to same-sex marriages.Thus the main reason for homosexuals to wish to be legally married would be the legal side (e.g. share of assets upon divorce), or just asthetic ideals to being legally married. Perhaps even to allow your partner to live in the same country as you (IE: Marriage visa). Very likely to be allowed to adopt children.Perhaps you can say marriages made sense in the form that most men prefer not to have their wife sleep with another man for a variety of reasons EG: Sexual dissease, love, or if you choose the more scientific approach it would be that a man would prefer his children to be of his line, not another man's line. Thus you can say it could have become a law that once a man chooses a woman , she is bound to him and not to sleep with any other men, unless the man chooses not to have her as his wife.Historically there have never been allowance for gay marriages. It never even featured as feasible. Thus if you choose to base legal marriages on religious OR cultural beliefs, it needs to adhere to the reason why there were marriages in the first place.[This message has been edited by Zealot, 09-10-2003]

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You might actually question the purpose of marriage if not for religious ideals.

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In the modern day? Plenty of reasons. For starters, under current law, if a gay man is his by a car and is on life support, his boyfriend of ten years can't visit him in the hospital.

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Historically there have never been allowance for gay marriages. It never even featured as feasible.

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Except for the Catholic Church, of course.

Problem lies with hospital policies, not marriage laws. References please...

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Problem lies with hospital policies, not marriage laws.

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Not really. You can ask for an across the board change in policy of every situation where only immediate family is given certain privelidges, (insurance companies, hospitals, schools, etc) or you can say "okay, you're married." Shortest distance between two points.

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References please...

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The Catholic Church had a same-sex marriage ritual in the middle ages.Do a google for "adelphopoiesis."

So because of the legal status couples achieve when they become married, marriage thus discriminates against Gay couples because they cant get married and thus because of other institutes's discrimination, gay couples should thus be allowed to achieve this status ?How about instituting a new title for gay couples, call it 'Partnership' , give them similar legal rights (or whatever those discriminating institutes feel they want to give to this new bond) and everyone will be happy. Issue it seems is not with same-sex couples wanting to be married, but them wanted similar legal rights. Really Dan. That is from ONE book. A novel idea and must have been a best seller in the gay market. Maby he could have included reference to the 'gay gene' while he was at it. I'm sure if I wrote a book about Darwin actually rejecting the ToE in his last days, I could sell quite a few copies to creationists PS: the first site I came across was some sort of semi porn site.. great [This message has been edited by Zealot, 09-10-2003]

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So because of the legal status couples achieve when they become married, marriage thus discriminates against Gay couples because they cant get married and thus because of other institutes's discrimination, gay couples should thus be allowed to achieve this status?

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Pretty much, yeah.Although it should be noted that the very fact that the government will recognize the validity of a heterosexual marriage but not a homosexual one (benefits aside) amounts to a violation of equal treatment under the law.

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How about instituting a new title for gay couples, call it 'Partnership' , give them similar legal rights (or whatever those discriminating institutes feel they want to give to this new bond) and everyone will be happy.

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Except that civil unions for heterosexuals are legal marriages. Presenting separate titles for each one opens a nasty legal door to unequal treatment under the law. The very fact that you point out "whatever those discriminating institutes feel they want to give" supports this. If it's a legally recognized marriage, same as heterosexual, the institutions can't cut them off without cutting everybody off.However, even if the treatment remains the same through and through for the two separate titles, I could have sworn the Supreme Court ruled a while back that separate was not equal.

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Issue it seems is not with same-sex couples wanting to be married, but them wanted similar legal rights.

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The good old false dilemna fallacy. Why can't they want both?Regardless... I hate to break it to you, but as it stands now, same-sex couples already have non-legally recognized marriage. It's real simple. Find a person willing to officiate, pledge life-long commital to one another, pour some champagne and serve some dip, and ba-boom. You are married without legal recognition.So yes, the legal battle is purely over legal rights. What else is any legal battle over?

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Really Dan. That is from ONE book. A novel idea and must have been a best seller in the gay market. Maby he could have included reference to the 'gay gene' while he was at it. I'm sure if I wrote a book about Darwin actually rejecting the ToE in his last days, I could sell quite a few copies to creationists

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You asked for a resource; now you have it.Do you want to argue against the ideas and reasoning contained in the resource, or should we assume you are not able to do so?

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the first site I came across was some sort of semi porn site.. great

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PORN?!?! ON THE INTERNET?!?!?SURELY YOU JEST, SIR!

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Considering that marriage (correct me if I'm mistaken) originated as a religious ceremony, it would indeed be difficult to seperate the two. The fact that the government introduced financial benefits to being 'married', was discriminating to non-religious people, thus non-religious marriages were introduced. Next step, gay people feel discriminated against and so now they also want to be married.

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This is all pretty much factual and I agree with it.

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Personally, I couldn't care less if 2 same sex people wanted to consider themselves married, however to try to do such is a religious context is futile.

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"In" a religious context, it is already done. All the time. It may be futile to try in your church, but there are many others.

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Little bit bias statement.

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No, no bias. Factual statement. I have seen it several times and stated the facts, generalized for those several situations.

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Churches generally could be seen as way to rid oneself of 'guilt' of sin. My cousin forinstance had a very bad relationship with her husband, neither in any way religious, but when things got bad, including him trying to commit suicide, they turned to the Church for moral support and became 'Christians'.

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It's great that they found that support. But I'm talking about people who have been in the church or churches all their lives, who are upstanding members of the community and seen as authority figures and mentors, who use this to hide their misdeeds. I never said it was everyone. Please try to view my statement in the context of the post to which I was replying.

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I can well imagine that many child molesters are not happy about their circumstance and want to find a way to solve the problem. Not difficult to go to church and become a 'Christian' really.

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Especially if you're already a pastor.

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PS, your statement is actually pretty hatefull. Your experience is one thing, but no Christian church EVER condones paedofiles or adulterers.

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There goes the h-word again... please understand that I am not accusing churches of condoning such behavior. I am saying that the us-vs-them mentality of many churches leads people to trust so-called men of God to an irrational degree, to such a degree that they ignore credible accusations of abuse and such. I have seen this with my own eyes.

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'Love and honour your wife' ... yeah sounds alot like those Christian women beating men.

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Don't go telling me it doesn't happen just because it's not supposed to happen.

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Funny, but this entire post is about typecasting ONE apparent 'Christians' hatred onto an entire Christian community. Nothing is mentioned about any prior threads in that discussion, just that one post saying 'Look at how Christians HATE people', how can they be like that.

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What? What are you talking about? I personally know of the behavior of many people, not just one, and I never claimed that it represented all. I'm only saying that it is a well-established pattern observed by me and by people to whom I am very close. I don't claim that Christianity is responsible for the abuse. I claim that it is an undeniable fact that Christianity fails to prevent abuse within its own ranks. That's all I see.

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I am truely sorry for your discomfort.

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Don't worry, I'm well on my way to getting over it. Life goes on, y'know....

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I am good friends with 2 women that have been abused in their youth, and pray that such a thing would never happen to any of my children. Having said that if your best friend does such a thing, and is being accused and you honestly believe him to be innocent, I am sure you would also stand as a character witness.

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Of course I would.

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Very few primates mate for life.

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And very few humans as well, if you mean 'mate monogamously for life.' But I didn't say that.

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Not just that but the Jewish marriages and marriages for other religions/societies for one were polygamous, not pair bonding.

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And? So are numerous primate cultures. That is exactly the point. It is this mating and social behavior that forms the kernel of the first societies. You would propose that our ancestors wiped the slate clean of these social structures and made marriage up out of thin air? It doesn't make sense.

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You might actually question the purpose of marriage if not for religious ideals.

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Marriage strikes me as being primarily functional in just about all cultures. Our western ideals are a bit of an anomaly. But what is the point. I really can't figure out what you intended to argue in the last bit of your post. It seems that you support legal same-sex marriage, but I find that hard to believe.------------------
No webpage found at provided URL: www.hells-handmaiden.com

So men and women should receive exactly the same rights ? Perhaps we should sue insurance companies that have decided to offer lower car insurance to women as they are statistically more likely not to cause a car accident. Funny because insurance companies could use statistical analysis to compute their policies which might prove gay couples at a disadvantage or advantage. Putting everyone in the same boat isn't always the solution. Hehe, why go to all the effort. Why even pledge life long commitment ? You dont need to spend the rest of your life with just that person.. indeed you can not be married a week later Yeah, perhaps more that one (homosexual activist) authors 'finds'.
I take it when you read this book you found it pretty accurate ? BibleGateway.com: A searchable online Bible in over 150 versions and 50 languages.: Mlm'(Taft) called it ridiculous to claim that the church of Byzantium was blessing homosexual marriages at a time when church laws imposed two to three years' penance for homosexual activity and Byzantine civil law dealt with it as a crime to be punished by 'torture, castration and even execution.''Father Taft said the blessing - which makes two people who are not brothers adoptive brothers - reflects the Christian Byzantine cultural context in which close friendship ('philia' in Greek), especially between males, was a 'very high ideal'. The blessing was 'the Byzantine Church's attempt to bring this into the church's liturgical system.'Taft further stated that considering the blessing as a sexual relationship 'is a very tendentious interpretation . . . . There is nothing in the texts of the rituals themselves that would allow this kind of interpretation.'Taft is not alone in his conclusions. Father Alkiviadis Calivas, professor of liturgy at Holy Cross Orthodox School of Theology, says ' . . . . there is no explicit or implicit thing about marriage connected with the blessing. And as for a homosexual blessing, certainly not. In the early Christian tradition this would be an abomination.'Paul Meyendorff, a theologian who teaches liturgy at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York, said the 'adelphopoiesis' blessing resembles the type of blessing used in adopting a child, which bonds family members together who aren't biologically related.'"My appologies if the rebuttals are not my own, but there really doesn't seem to be too much information on Boswell on the Net.

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So men and women should receive exactly the same rights ?

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From the government? Yes, according to the constitution. 14th amendment. From private institutions? Morally, I think yes.

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Perhaps we should sue insurance companies that have decided to offer lower car insurance to women as they are statistically more likely not to cause a car accident.

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If I'm not mistaken, it was only recently that the courts said the insurance companies had to stop charging black customers more than white customers. If someone bothered to take the insurance companies to court over the man/woman issue, they'd certainly have a case.

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Funny because insurance companies could use statistical analysis to compute their policies which might prove gay couples at a disadvantage or advantage. Putting everyone in the same boat isn't always the solution.

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See above.

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Hehe, why go to all the effort. Why even pledge life long commitment ? You dont need to spend the rest of your life with just that person.. indeed you can not be married a week later

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Now I'm confused. Are you suggesting abandoning the institution of marriage?

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'(Taft) called it ridiculous to claim that the church of Byzantium was blessing homosexual marriages at a time when church laws imposed two to three years' penance for homosexual activity and Byzantine civil law dealt with it as a crime to be punished by 'torture, castration and even execution.'

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My God, contradictions in Christianity?

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'Father Taft said the blessing - which makes two people who are not brothers adoptive brothers - reflects the Christian Byzantine cultural context in which close friendship ('philia' in Greek), especially between males, was a 'very high ideal'. The blessing was 'the Byzantine Church's attempt to bring this into the church's liturgical system.'

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Doesn't really seem to be any evidential basis for this one.Nor can I figure out a way to say that two grown men are "adopting" one another without it sounding really gay.

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Taft is not alone in his conclusions. Father Alkiviadis Calivas, professor of liturgy at Holy Cross Orthodox School of Theology, says ' . . . . there is no explicit or implicit thing about marriage connected with the blessing. And as for a homosexual blessing, certainly not. In the early Christian tradition this would be an abomination.'

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Again, I understand that people disagree. They're not backing it up, but they disagree.

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Paul Meyendorff, a theologian who teaches liturgy at St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York, said the 'adelphopoiesis' blessing resembles the type of blessing used in adopting a child, which bonds family members together who aren't biologically related.'"

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So... once again... two grown men are "adopting" one another?I don't wanna say that sounds gay, but......well, I can't think of a way to end that sentence.