Homosexuality and Evo, Creo, and ID

I recommend to you Liars for Jesus: The Religious Right’s Alternate Version of American History by Chris Rodda. It is the results of her researching the lies and distortions of American history being generated by the Religious Right. She takes particular claims, cites and quotes from various writers such as Barton and Federer, shows how the lie develops as it passes from one writer to the next, and then goes back to the original documents being misquoted and misrepresented to show what they really said. Her website includes images of the documents in question so you can see them for yourself. Since it is a PDF file, we need but to search the "quotes" you posted to see what the true about them is. On page 14 we find the actual text of the resolution:

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Whereupon, Resolved, That the United States in Congress
assembled, highly approve the pious and laudable undertaking
of Mr. Aitken, as subservient to the interest of religion
as well as an instance of the progress of arts in this country,
and being satisfied from the above report, of his care and
accuracy in the execution of the work, they recommend this
edition of the Bible to the inhabitants of the United States,
and hereby authorise him to publish this recommendation in
the manner he shall think proper.

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Absolutely nothing about "the use of schools". Wherever did that part come from? It was taken from a letter written by Aitken. The revisionist misquoting of the resolution is also intended to leave out the purely secular reason for the recommendation, which was to promote the American printing industry:

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The secular benefit of this resolution, omitted by Hutson and others,
was that it acknowledged an instance of the progress of arts in
this country. Publicizing the accuracy of this Bible was a great way
for Congress to promote the American printing industry.
Few American printers at this time were printing books. Most
limited their businesses to broadsides, pamphlets, and newspapers.
The books that were printed in America were not only more expensive
than those imported from England, but had a reputation for being full
of errors. Congress knew that as soon as the war was over and books
could once again be imported, any progress that the book shortage had
caused in the printing industry would end. The war had created an
opportunity for American printers to prove themselves, and Robert
Aitken had done that. Printing an accurate edition of a book as large
as the Bible was a monumental task for any printer, and Congress
wanted it known that an American printer had accomplished it. But,
by omitting the part of the resolution acknowledging this instance of
the progress of arts, it is easily made to appear that Congress passed
this resolution for the sole purpose of promoting religion.
In 1968, the American Bible Society published a reprint

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As it turned out, Aiken couldn't sell his Bibles and return to the government for help:

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Aitken ended up losing over 3,000 on the 10,000 Bibles he printed.
Few stories about the Aitken Bible mention that it sold poorly, and
those that do blame it on the competition of cheaper British Bibles.
The problem with this theory is that Aitken completed his Bible seven
months before the end of hostilities was declared by Congress, and
over a year before the peace treaty with Great Britain was ratified.
According to the treaty, American ports would not be open to British
ships until all British troops were removed, which was clearly going to
take a while, so the possibility of a supply of imported Bibles was still
uncertain even at this point.
In 1777, Rev. Alison had written to Congress that the number of
purchasers is so great, that we doubt not but a large impression
would soon be sold. Obviously, Rev. Alison greatly overestimated the
demand for Bibles because, in 1782, after five more years without a
supply, Robert Aitken couldn’t sell his.
In 1790, Aitken wrote to George Washington, using his losses from
printing his Bibles as one of the reasons that Washington should help
him get the job of Printer and Stationer to Congress. In this letter,
Aitken not only exaggerated the involvement of Congress in his 1782
printing, but hinted that he was still looking for government help to
print Bibles. Aitken claimed in this letter that the scarcity of that
valuable book was such, as to claim the attention of Congress, and
excite their solicitude for a supply and that the Book was undertaken
in a great measure at the instance, and under the Patronage
of Congress. Congress never solicited a supply of Bibles, nor did
Aitken undertake his printing in any way at their instance. The Papers
and Journals of the Continental Congress clearly show this was all initiated
by Aitken himself.

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Rooda spends over 20 pages describing this claim and goes to no less pains with the other claims she covers. From Quotations on the Jefferson Memorial, here is Panel Three and where those quotes were lifted from:

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PANEL THREE

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"God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever. Commerce between master and slave is despotism. Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Establish a law for educating the common people. This it is the business of the state and on a general plan."

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ORIGINAL PASSAGES
"But let them [members of the parliament of Great Britain] not think to exclude us from going to other markets, to dispose of those commodities which they cannot use, nor41 to supply those wants which they cannot supply. Still less let it be proposed that our properties within our own territories shall be taxed or regulated by any power on earth but our own. The god who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time: the hand of force may destroy, but cannot disjoin them." - "A Summary View of the Rights of British America"[4]

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"For in a warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labor. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just: that his justice cannot sleep for ever . . . ." - Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII[5]

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"The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submissions on the other. Our children see this, and learn to imitate it. . . ." - Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XVIII[6]

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"Nothing is more certainly written in the book of fate than that these people are to be free. Nor is it less certain that the two races, equally free, cannot live in the same government. Nature, habit, opinion has drawn indelible lines of distinction between them." - Jefferson's Autobiography[7]

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"Preach, my dear sir, a crusade against ignorance; establish & improve the law for educating the common people." - Jefferson to George Wythe, August 13, 1786[8]

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"It is an axiom in my mind that our liberty can never be safe but in the hands of the people themselves, and that too of the people with a certain degree of instruction. This it is the business of the state to effect, and on a general plan." - Jefferson to George Washington, January 4, 1786[9]

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So then a Christian source of Faith's has yet again been found to be wrong. Why are we not surprised?For that matter, did Faith even bother to read that article that she linked to? -- Gay Advocate Raises Money to Help Christian Bakers Pay $150K Fine for Refusing to Bake Cake for Lesbian Wedding. It's about Matt Stolhandske, a gay evangelical Christian who's on the board of an activist group called "Evangelicals for Marriage Equality" and who is trying to raise the money for the fine that the couple may be facing (though the article says that the amount of the fine is a done-deal, though that could be because of what the Kleins themselves were telling everybody as they've been hitting the rounds at Religious Right meetings and conventions, eg Values Voter Summit). The article ends quoting Matt Stolhandske:

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"But I am also pleading with them and other Christians to stop using the name of Jesus to explain to the LGBT community why we don't deserve access to the civil rights afforded to heterosexuals through the legal institution of marriage," he continued.

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"I hope the Kleins will accept this sign of good will. After all, they must see that our goals here are the same to live our lives as we see fit and be treated equally under the law," he added.

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Edited by dwise1, : source

In other words, your Christian source lied to you. Again! One would have thought that having had that happen to you before (remember the false Founding Father quotes you had posted?), you would have learned to not trust a Christian source so readily and completely. But then you have fairly consistently demonstrated an inability to learn.It has gotten so that we cannot believe anything that a Christian says anymore. Used to be (at least half a century ago when I was still a Christian) that being a Christian actually meant something. Used to be that they did stand for morality. Now they readily tell any lie they can in order to advance their social and political agendae. How far they have fallen! And they want to drag the rest of us down with them! Absolutely disgusting!

I just looked and for an "all fora" search the only option was for open ones. Perhaps you should take that up with Percy. Well then, have you read James Madison's A Memorial and Remonstrance yet? You can't understand the intent of the First Amendment unless you read its drafter's thoughts on those matters going in. I still have it posted at http://dwise1.net/rel_lib/memorial.html, or you could Google on A Memorial and Remonstrance to find any of thousands of copies on-line. As I describe it on my DWISE1'S RELIGIOUS LIBERTY PAGE page of links:

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A Memorial and Remonstrance by James Madison. To my knowledge, contains the earliest reference to church-state separation (see the quote above), written a few years before Madison drafted the First Amendment. According to the standards demanded by the Religious Right in the 1980's, this document clearly reveals the original intent of the drafter of the First Amendment. Madison also clearly describes here the detrimental effects of not keeping religion and government separate.

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That "quote above" is:

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The preservation of a free Government requires not merely, that the metes and bounds which separate each department of power be invariably maintained; but more especially that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great Barrier which defends the rights of the people. The Rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment, exceed the commission from which they derive their authority, and are Tyrants. The People who submit to it are governed by laws made neither by themselves nor by an authority derived from them, and are slaves.
A Memorial and Remonstrance, James Madison, ca. 20 June 1785

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Another quote pertaining to your sentiment that people's rights can and should be voted out of existence by a mere majority vote:

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We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man's right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is, that no other rule exists, by which any question which may divide a Society, can be ultimately determined, but the will of the majority; but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority.

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As expressed by Madison in A Memorial and Remonstrance.That quote you repeated was at the end of the first of 15 enumerated remonstrations that Madison made in that pamphlet (written in order to oppose Patrick Henry's proposed bill, "A Bill establishing a provision for Teachers of the Christian Religion," which would have supported Christian clergy with tax money). Here it is in its entirety:

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Because we hold it for a fundamental and undeniable truth, "that religion or the duty which we owe to our Creator and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only by reason and conviction, not by force or violence." The Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man; and it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. This right is in its nature an unalienable right. It is unalienable, because the opinions of men, depending only on the evidence contemplated by their own minds cannot follow the dictates of other men: It is unalienable also, because what is here a right towards men, is a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage and such only as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considerd as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governour of the Universe: And if a member of Civil Society, do it with a saving of his allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain therefore that in matters of Religion, no man's right is abridged by the institution of Civil Society and that Religion is wholly exempt from its cognizance. True it is, that no other rule exists, by which any question which may divide a Society, can be ultimately determined, but the will of the majority; but it is also true that the majority may trespass on the rights of the minority.

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Rights of Conscience. Madison even included that very wording in earlier drafts of the First Amendment, but it was not approved. Still, that does indicate his original intent (the Almighty buzzword of in the 80's of the Radical Religious Right as it began revising American history).Edited by dwise1, : Forgot to fill the qs

People have personal consciences; companies do not. Of course, now legal considerations will come into play, especially regarding what kind of company they had (ie, a sole proprietorship in contrast with a corporation).So if their personal conscience were so important to them, why didn't they just hire or contract in a Shabbos goy to do that work for them? It's a centuries-old tradition. Even The King had served in that capacity.But I guess the bottom line would be: Why would they want to conduct a business that would require them to violate their deeply-held religious convictions by not allowing them to discriminate against any group? If they truly felt so strongly about their religious convictions, they would never have wanted to open that business in the first place.

We do not live under any form of Christian Sharia Law (and may we never!), but rather under the Constitution of the United States of America and the laws derived therefrom. We live under a concept of inalienable human rights, a concept that a branch of Calvinism, the Christian Reconstructionists (who wanted to transform America into an Old Testament theocracy and who were the political inspiration and mentors of the Radical Religious Right), denounced as having been invented by Satan, along with other heresies such as democracy and religious liberty (of which one Reconstructionist wrote that Reconstructionists should invoke their religious liberties constantly in order to eventually deprive all others of theirs).Human rights are not subject to the vote of the majority. Human rights are not subject to sundry other individuals' own peculiar convictions and religious beliefs. The laws of the land are not subject to your own nor anybody else's "God's Law", but rather to the Constitution of the United States of America, under which laws cannot be made for purely religious reasons. That is why such laws (eg, the "monkey laws", laws banning same-sex marriage) are found to be unconstitutional. The only reasons for laws banning same-sex have been found to be purely religious.You live in America now. Until you can find a place to emigrate to that enforces strict "God's Law", you may as well get used to living in America.

And yet to you the only thing that marriage is about is the sex? No love? No caring for each other? No mutual support? No building a life together? Nothing but sex?How sad. How tragically sad for you. No wonder you are incapable of understanding.

And don't forget the children. There are families involved in this and severely affected by laws banning same-sex marriage. Children of either or both partners from previous marriages or relationships, as well as adopted children. These families face all kinds of legal problems that would not exist if the parents could be legally married. And even if they can be and are married in a state that allows it, they dare not move to a state that does not recognize their marriage. Nor travel to or through such a state, for fear of an accident or medical emergency that would result in their children being taken away from them.This issue is also about families! And the children of those families!

Familial relationships between a child and their single parents, grandparents, aunts, and uncles are already automatically recognized by law. Same with a parent's legally recognized spouse, even if that spouse is not the child's parent. Not so with a parent's same-sex partner in a state where they are not allowed to marry. That is the difference.Families headed by two same-sex partners do exist. Are you trying to claim that they do not exist? A quick Wikipedia search produced this article, Same-sex marriage and the family. That article starts with:

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Concerns regarding same-sex marriage and the family are at the forefront of the controversies over legalization of same-sex marriage. In the United States, an estimated 1 million to 9 million children have at least one lesbian or gay parent. Concern for these children and others to come are the basis for both opposition to and support for marriage for LGBT couples.

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I would think that one to nine million children is not an insignificant number.My main source was an NPR article from about a year or two ago following same-sex families lobbying US congressmen in their offices at the Capitol. Part of their message was that they are under near-constant threat of losing their children because of the laws that bar them from getting the same legal status as other couple. Some parents interviewed described the scenarios that they fear the most, scenarios that had already played out for other families, in which the "wrong" parent is the one present to handle a medical emergency in which case social services takes the child from the family.The Wikipedia article refers to research that shows that children benefit far by being raised by two parents instead of by just one, so your single-people-raising-children scenario is actually the undesirable one. Furthermore, studies show little difference between those two parents being same-sex or different-sex; if anything, children raised by same-sex parents fare better.I'm a family man. Family is very important. The well-being of children is important. This is very much a part of same-sex marriage. Laws that threaten the family and the well-being of children are bad laws, even evil. That includes your "God's Law" which is your and others' only reason for opposing same-sex marriage. You yourself advocate opposing evil laws -- no, not "advocate", but rather insist upon emphatically. That includes your "God's Law".

There were many times when I was at work when an emergency happened, so it was my wife who handled the emergency. And there were times when she had travelled out-of-state with our children. IOW, there are many cases in which both parents are not present, but rather only one. That's the problem. Under the old laws, the partner has none of those right. Hospital visitation rights. Being authorized to make medical decisions for a family member. Custody of the children when the natural parent dies or is incapacitated. Inheritance (that is the basis of one of the lawsuits that brought down DOMA). Military housing -- base housing is only provided for opposite-sex families and housing allowance to offset off-base living costs is much higher for married members than for single members, as well as the difficulty that single members can have to get permission to move out of bachelor enlisted quarters. And survivor benefits. And health care coverage.All because you personally decide that you don't like it. That would be one solution, but as has been pointed out the term, "marriage", is so intricately intertwined within laws and contracts that it would be virtually impossible to go through all of them and change them. For one thing, that would require state and national legislatures to create and pass bills for each and every one of those laws ... and that's not even considering all the contracts.Marriage is a legal term which is independent of the religious definition. The legal definition of marriage can be modified without affecting the religious definitions. What is important is for the government to recognize these marriages as such. You and your church is and will be perfectly within your rights to not recognize them. Who would care? There are plenty of churches that would recognize them.

A friend or neighbor or babysitter would not be able to stand in for a parent in making decisions for medical treatment.The interviewee stated that scenario as having actually happened to others. All you need is one overzealous official to get that whole nightmare started. That is a very big deal.

Psychologist Bob Hartley had a patient with anger issues. He was a big middle-aged black man who was always angry about everybody hating him because he was black.Patient (angrily): Everybody hates me because I'm black!
Dr. Hartley: Maybe nobody likes you because you are an unpleasant person.
Patient (having an epiphany): Huh.

Which is to deprive other people of their own "business for acting on their religious belief"?So you define your own religious "business" on your own "right" to oppress the religious business of others? And you dare to denounce that denial of others' religious rights as being in violation of your own? For your own protection, as for others'.