Try to keep hatred out of our Constitution.

Sorry Faith, but it is their ACTIONs, not anything I say, that will label people. I have not said anything about hating Gays, you are simply making that up and alleging I have said something which I have not.There is no reason, and no reason has ever been presented, for denying others equal rights under the law, access to health care, inheritance rights or adoption rights.If you wish to discriminate within your church, I will support your right to discriminate within your church, your sect. Your church does not have to perform same sex marriages.But I will not stop speaking out against those who wish to extend their discrimination beyond their voluntary communion to the public in general.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Message 51I think you missed this one.I clarified a little in Message 164 and Message 165.

So far as I can see your messages make a case for gay marriage. The bigger the commitment, the less likely it is to be taken on for improper reasons.If gay marriage is not allowed then simple fairness requires that gays should be allowed the same benefits for whatever, lesser, commitments society permits them to make. To say that gays should be denied certain benefits because society won't permit them to make the formal commitments that would entitle them to those rights is hardly a defensible stance.k

I don't see your point. Marriage is a contractual obligation with both privileges and responsibilities. It is not a one way street.Let's look at your issue related to health insurance. If you agreed to a marriage of convenience, what would it entail?Well, the insurance rates are based on either a single, or a family plan. the family plans usuall also include children although some have a two tiered system with basic family (husband and wife) or extended family (husband, wife and kids),Does it make much difference from an actuarial POV if the family consists of a man and a woman, two men or two women? If there actually is an actuarial difference, then the premiums could legitimately be changed to take that into account.Now let's return to this "marriage of convenience". When you contract a marriage, there is far more involved than just access to health insurance. There is a legal rrequirement to provide support, limitations on behavior, joint ownership of property and continuing legal and financial obligations even if the contract is dissolved. Those obligations can extend even after death under inheritance rights.Marriage is not all benefits, it is a combination of rights, benefits, responsibilities and contractual obligations.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Thank you for answering me: you said 'IN EVERY SOCIETY' that is what I refer to as a negative.You areusing the wrongs of others to justify your wrongs So, the answer is no you just assume that they felt that way and that makes you feel good

Again thanks for the replyThen I have no disagreement with you on the first part This part i have a problem with. You want a traditional christianmarriage to be the norm in the US .You say this is from god a fewthings4hat.1)Marriage pre dates yours or the hebrews tradition2) Which tradition exodus or how about before 1970.3) Yes it matters. But my questiion was what sexual behaviour do yourestrict for heterosexuals?40 Your in Tn. right maybe You should read the constitution of thestate you reside in . there a clause just for that.Other that that thanks for letting me see your perspective. You seemto be happy with the path you choose.Since ,to me, it seems that Imostly agree with you that ther should be no marriage ammendment!

Hi brennakimi:Sorry for that, republican controlled housesenategovernor,democraticlycontrolled state supreme court.This is what you get! Does christianity cause paranoia! Now we were taught that the first ten are called the bill of rights andcould not be touched( I went to school in Urbana Ill about a mile from UI) The peambl.Gee it says We the people . Are not homosexuals peopleof the US

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Without knowing how the stats are broken down but just taking them globally I can't be too sure but the odds are you have some individuals in your village that you will have to deal with. Hopefully with the tolerance and kindness that you have exhibited here.

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Er, he's already said he'd put gay people out of his village.If any of the kids are gay (and statistically, there probably are some), they certainly aren't going to advertize it.

Jar, just so you know, it is kinda amusing from my perspective (non-christian) to see 2 opposing christian groups here telling each other that they're not really christian.I think it's a matter of the point of view you are from. To me, 'live and let live' outweighs just about every moral objection one can have. This ultimately brings me to one conclusion, that legislating morality for the purpose of not allowing a group of people of pursuit of happiness for whatever reason is hate. People can call it whatever they want, and they have every right to. But for me, I will continue to view it and call it hate.

Just for the record, I do not think you will find a single place where I have ever said that someone who claims to be a Christian is not a Christian. I do not doubt for a second that Faith or iano or buz are Christian. I do not doubt for a second that Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Fred Phelps of even Dobson are Christians. I have absolutely no reason to even imagine that they are not Christians.When you have read some of what I have said here over the years, I think you will find that my position is that we must be honest and acknowledge the very great evil that Christians have done over the years, as well as accept the credit for any good. If we do not acknowledge the true history of Christianity we have no guide for our future behavior.I believe that the current position of many Christians in opposing equal rights for homosexual Americans is as absolutely wrong as the Christians that supported segregation and denied rights to Afro-Americans.Just as at every momentious moment in history, just as there were Christians that supported women's rights to vote and Christians that opposed that right, just as there were Christians that supported equal rights for blacks and Christians that opposed those rights, there are Christians today that support granting equal rights to homosexual Americans and there are Christians that oppose acknowledging those basic rights.That does not mean they are not all Christians.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

oh believe me. i know how messed up florida is. i'm a registered democrat in a red county. i had to change my address since i'm away at school and they have yet to send me my replacement voter registration card... it's been two years and three requests. at least my absentee ballots make me feel better even though they're probably lining someone's circular file.are you using a word processor to compose your posts? some of the words run into each other. you might want to look into that. i've been to urbana for a conference. it's lovely. i thought about going there...there's nothing special about the bill of rights except that they were added all at once as a compromise for some states to ratify. note. they were added as amendments right away. they were not made part of the original constitution. do you think there might be a reason for that? maybe that some people didn't want them or think that they were as important? every single part of the constitution can be repealed. you simply have to have the support for it. but it requires a GREAT deal of support. the bill of rights can't be touched by legislators alone and it can't be broken by any american government (federal, state, local) as long as it stands. but that goes for the rest of the document as well. the fourteenth amendment is just as strong as the first. but then we could also theoretically repeal the presidency or the judicial branch (the question of the day is how many fundies does it take to screw the supreme court?).Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given.

That's your opinion also.

hi:Haven't been to Urbana since 1977.Your probably right on the bill of rights that was the "60, and withall the problems from vietnam...?Okay I'm going out on a limb here. There will be no ammendment it is aanother ploy by bush co. to get attention from Iraq. The support amongfundies is know slipping at an alarming( to bush) rate.You know this is still hard. 2 years ago I tried but try doing thiswith only 30 minutes.

Not everything can be washed away by just stating "that's your opinion". When taken in context, jar's comment about opposing same sex marriage being bigotry is correct. You can, riVeRraT, be opposed to or disagree with homosexuality and not be a bigot . as jar has said himself, over and over. It's when you want to change our Constitution to deny homosexuals the same rights that others have that you become a bigot. You seem to be confusing the concepts of "disagreement" and "intolerance". I'm sorry, but if you support a Constitutional ban on gay marriage, you support bigotry, plain and simple. When you support this ban, you step out of the realm of a simple disagreement and into a realm where one group becomes intolerant of those that are different. And different, I might add, by virtue of be born a certain way. How is that not bigotry?

On this topic, maybe nothing. Maybe something. Comparing large nations and their society to little villages carries little weight to me. I do know that American Indian villages, at least some, had provisions for homosexuals. I'd be curious to know what old Celt vilages did, and whether it was even an issue, but I've not looked before, because, like I said, we've never had to deal with that.We'll see. I think it's entirely possible that it will never be an issue. I wouldn't bet money on it one way or another.