christian nationalism

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On the flip side, Brenna, the Christian Reconstructionists only propose to stone male homosexuals to death (stoning would become the preferred means of execution in the new Christian nation because of its edifying public and participatory nature). Of course, only Christian men (of the right sort) could hold office or sit on choirs...er, juries.

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But apparently the Reconstructionists cannot find an explicit passage pertaining to lesbians, so stoning Sappho is out. I'm sure they'll come up with something, though. One would hope that, like the Inquisitors, the new rulers would have the decency to torture suspects into recantation and salvation before they execute them, since their immortal soul is most important.

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This reactionary movement also intends to criminalize all forms of contraception. The Christian Reconstructionist interest in this (and other) Catholic stands on social issues partly explains why Protestant denunciations of the Catholic Church are now relatively rare.

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Evangelicals also provide considerable political and financial support to Israel because of the necessary role they see Israel playing in the end times: seems odd that they seek to control conditions for the fulfillment of prophecy, as though they could manage whatever events and timing God had in mind.

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So the Jew and Catholic bashing that once characterized the evangelicals has largely quieted, but it seems a tactical maneuver rather than a change of heart.

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Like all religious fanatics, they are determined to do what God would do if He was in possession of all the facts.

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It's The Handmaid's Tale come to ugly life.I think I may cry from fear.

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I supppose the best way to explain it would be to ask you for some evidence of Faith being hateful

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Once, after she became frustrated during a debate with me, Faith called me the stupidest person here at EvC, and although she apologized for it much later, she had to be needled into the apology.She has since become much more civil and contributes much more productively to the board, and it does her credit, but wow, you should have seen her then. Venomous, she was.You really aught to read some of her early posts. They are breathtaking in their abusiveness and anger and invective. Edited by schrafinator, : fixed errors

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Freedom never meant that anyone could do what he liked. That is one way the idea is seriously distorted these days. It never meant having the right to demand some special status from the government,

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You mean like religion institutions (Churches) being tax-exempt?

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the right to force the majority to accord you a status you believe you should have,

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You mean like voting rights and property riights and non-discrimination rights of all kinds for, say, women and blacks?

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the right to anything more than protection of your life and liberty to live as you choose -- and even then, only within the criminal law and community standards.

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NO, NO, NO!Community standards have nothing to do with who should have rights!It is, in fact, "community standards" that the Bill of Rights is designed to protect individuals against; the so-called tyrrany of the majority.If you think that "communities" should get to decide who is allowed their civil rights, then you have a grave musunderstanding of the issue.

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When you get into demanding that the historic definition of marriage be altered to suit your tiny minority lifestyle and falsify its clear meaning over the millennia you have left the domain of natural rights and freedoms.

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The historic definition of marriage is an exchange of property; that is, females, who had very few rights, were considered the property of their make relatives and later, husband.Is this how you would like us to define marriage?

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Gay marriage by the way isn't even a specially Christian cause. It may be Christians who most feel the meaning of it in this day and age, but no society ever considered such a thing in the past, no pagan society, no other religion, nobody at all ever.

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That is not true.

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And I do not consider Jar a Christian. Sorry, but it has to be said.

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It's a good thing that you are not the arbiter of who is a Christian, then, isn't it?Or are you? Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

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Marriage presupposes the ability to GENERATE a family.

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It does?I suppose that we should disallow women who have had hysterectomies or who have gone through menopause from getting married, and also impotent men.Are you also suggesting that we not allow people who have voluntaritly sterilized themselves from getting married?

The historic definition of marriage is an exchange of property; that is, females, who had very few rights, were considered the property of their male relatives and later, husband.Is this how you would like us to define marriage? Edited by schrafinator, : spelling errors

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the right to anything more than protection of your life and liberty to live as you choose -- and even then, only within the criminal law and community standards.

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NO, NO, NO!Community standards have nothing to do with who should have rights!It is, in fact, "community standards" that the Bill of Rights is designed to protect individuals against; the so-called tyrrany of the majority.If you think that "communities" should get to decide who is allowed their civil rights, then you have a grave musunderstanding of the issue.

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The ability to generate a family means the PRINCIPLE of heterosexuality.

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So, what you are saying is, "heterosexuals should be able to marry because they are heterosexuals, and homosexuals should not be able to marry because they are homosexuals."Circular argument.

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Always the feminist slant.

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No, it's the historical slant.Marriage began as a way to exchange propery. That is historical fact.

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No, marriage is the uniting of male and female.

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...for the purpose of forging clans/political and family alliances/combining resources.

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Goes back to Eden.

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Eden is not history. It is part of your religious mythology and while it might influence your religion's attitude regarding which unions it recognizes, it should have no bearing whatever upon what a secular government recognizes as a legal contract.

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Property considerations are something extra added on by fallen humanity, not part of the definition.

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Again, "the fall" is a religious concept that is irrelevant to our secular government or the Bill of Rights.

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What you are calling civil rights is not civil rights, that is the whole point. You and others are asking for special rights, not civil rights,

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Since when is getting the right to do what everybody else has the right to do a "special right"?Please explain.

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though you don't mind defining it in this new way no sane society ever before entertained. But ours is no longer a sane society. I guess I should just acknowledge that and let it disintegrate without my complaining about it. Takes too much energy to no purpose.

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This is the same argument used by the people opposed to the abolition of slavery, interracial marriage or women's suffrage."This is the way it's always been, common sense and the Bible tells us that it's right, and the rest of you are crazy for thinking any different!"

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Churches never demanded the right to be tax exempt that I'm aware of.

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Er, so? It's still a special right.Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

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How very very odd that the Founders didn't just start out defining their work in your terms, took out the majority-rule stuff, and explicitly made sure that civil rights includes what some of us recognize not to be civil rights at all but special rights over the majority's rights. Ah well. Obviously they should have. That's what all you liberals think.

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Faith, our individual civil rights are our rights regardless of if the majority believes that we should have them or not.If you believe that to be a "liberal" idea then I am proud to call myself a liberal, although I believe it to be a basic American value which is vital to our precious freedoms and way of life.Civil rights are not subject to "majority rule".They are not open to a vote.That is the whole reason they were written into the Constitution.Edited by schrafinator, : No reason given.

Please explain how they are special rights.

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They are special rights because they aim to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and foist it on the public consciousness Emperor's New Clothes style; they create a pretense of a status gays are not qualified for. And historically no culture has ever countenanced such a crazy idea.

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But I suppose our Brave New Society will. We're going to do every crazy thing that no society ever did before and call it a civil right, against all the saner voices trying to bring some reason into the situation.

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So, your definition of "special rights" is simply that you don't want homosexuals to have the same rights as everyone else. This is a similar view, as I and others have mentioned before, to the view from a few hundred years ago when it was considered by the majority "crazy", "unchristian", and "unnatural" for women to have the right to own property, to inherit property, and to vote.See, to me, to demand a "special right" is to demand a right that nobody else has. Clearly, gays are not demanding a "special" right, because they are only demanding to have the same rights that heteros enjoy.

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Yes, quite crazy. It's already crazy though to send women into combat at all, and in fact to send them anywhere at all when they have children at home. This is due more to feminism than anything else. Just another sign of the increasing irrationality of our culture.

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I quite agree.I propose we go back to the time when fathers were the moral authority in the family and took the responsibility for the instruction and raising of the children.Things were so much better then.

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It's a matter of the child's KNOWING he has both sexes for parents, with the ability to identify with his/her own sex, and can grow up understanding and appreciating the difference. This happens even if one parent is unfortunately absent, though the more interaction the better of course.

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Can you provide some relevant research to show that parental arrangements other than the one mother and one father one you provide are in any way detrimental to children, or that the one mother one father arrangement is shown to be superior?

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See, to me, a special right is a right you have no right to.

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That is circular."A right you have no right to is a right you have no right to have."I think that your definition is one that nobody else uses and mine is the generally accepted one.

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It's common sense that children need a male and female parent, and I'm SO sorry if you lack the common sense to see it but that's the way it is.

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How so?

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And I already said that under some circumstances gays make fine parents, better than some heteros. That is the only consideration, that there be no adequate male-female parenting possibility, and then single parent or gays may be better than the alternatives.

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Then you should be in support of gays adopting and also of them getting married, since married families are more settled and stable for children than those that aren't....at least, until there are no children in foster care waiting to be adopted.

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But the ideal is a father and a mother.

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Again, why do you say this? Based upon what knowledge?For most of human history, children have not been raised by one father and one mother.

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And again, it's common sense. A person with common sense doesn't need research to prove it.

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It is common sense that the sun travels around the Earth. It is common sense that the Earth is flat. It is common sense that people with dark skin are inferior in most ways to people with light skin. It is common sense that women are not as smart as men.Thank heavens people in the past were not as fearful of questioning "common sense" as you clearly are."Common sense" is usually just collected prejudice based upon incomplete knowledge.

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I don't believe in research *, much the less so after hanging around EvC for many months.

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So, when social research shows that people who have a strong religious faith tend to recover from surgery faster and better than those who do not, you consider it bogus and highly suspect?Is that correct?