Homosexuality and Evo, Creo, and ID

Neither does playing backgammon. Still like it though.

On a personal note, I have estimate that sometime in the next couple of weeks, don't know exactly when, is an anniversary of sorts for me. Exactly two decades will have passed since the last time I had sex for the purpose of a producing a child. I don't consider any of the times after that my wife an I have indulged using contraception to be any kind of sinful episodes, but I suppose some people might. I really don't care what those people think. I don't think my practices are going to somehow stop evolution or cause the human race to die out either.

I think you can see why your argument might not be all that persuasive to some.

Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

That is simply not true. It is easy to name prominent habitually sinning Christians who later repented. Were they not Christians before repenting? Then what does that do to your definition?

Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

As I understand it, Faith says that the country had already gone wrong in this regard when the constitution was formed. And perhaps she has a point. Some of the pilgrims came here because they wanted to the religious freedom that included the right persecute and exclude others, and they certainly did manage to do that exactly that.

That experience that provided excellent examples and reasons for keeping religion out of the federal government, but even then, the Church of England was the state religion for most of the states on the eastern seaboard for decades after the Constitution was ratified.

We have indeed gotten away from some of those early ideas of freedom. Doesn't stop some people from longing for the good old days when you could own people or kick them to the curb for being different.

Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

For example, you find it hard to see James Madison as a Christian?

I don't think the practice of declaring people who act badly as fake Christians works all that well for you in general. But slavery is a particularly thorny issue over which to judge not only the founding fathers, but large groups of Christians. Both the Southern Methodist Church and the Southern Baptist church were created by splits from larger national bodies over the issue of slavery.

And there is of course the problematic stance taken on the topic within the Bible itself. It seems that the only bad slavery described in the Bible was that imposed on Hebrews by others.

Edited by NoNukes, : No reason given.

Actually the framers and the authors of the Bill of Rights did not do that. Most of the parts of the constitution that extend equal rights to everyone were installed after the civil war. Women received the right to vote well after black men received that constitutional right.

And even the 14th Amendment was interpreted in a crabbed, rights denying fashion up until the mid 1900s.

Is that what you think happened? What school system taught that nonsense?

Slavery was the law of the land up until nearly the end of the civil war. It was completely legal and existed not just in the Southern states, but also in Delaware. Slavery had existed even in Pennsylvania and New York prior to 1800. Benjamin Franklin and John Hancock both bought and sold slaves. At the time of the civil war there was a slave market operating in DC right near the seat of the federal government. At the time of the civil war the Supreme Court had validated the right to own slaves and the inability of the federal government to do anything about.

Slavery was enshrined in the constitution by the founding fathers, and given a protection period during which it was unconstitutional to even attempt to dismantle the institution. That provision while defunct, is still part of the constitution today.

Is there any subject on which you won't make a complete buffoon of yourself?

What's amazing to me is that such an amendment would even be needed. A literal reading of the 14th amendment would easily addressed everything that would be covered in the ERA.

What you say is simply not true. Not having rights means not being legal enabled to take care of some of those love responsibilities. I won't have any problems taking care of my wife's estate when if she passes before I do, or making sure her wishes are respected at the hospital if something dire happens. She can do the same for me. But gay people cannot do that for their loved ones because their relationship is not respected by the state. The law in my state is that there can be no legal recognition of a gay married couples relationship as a civil union, marriage or anything resembling marriage.

That the state would set up that kind of cruel and inhumane situation is something I find irrational and unfathomable. Yet that's what the people of this state voted in large numbers to enshrine in the state constitution.

Just as not every Christian acts like the Phelps family, not every LGBT person acts like the ones described in the article you linked to.

The article talks about people making death threats to people engaged in hate speech. I agree with you that the people issuing the threats have actually found a way to occupy lower moral ground that the Christians they address. Quite remarkable.

Still, both sides activities are lower than whale excrement.

So apparently it is possible to be vile while expressing my first amendment rights. I agree that such a thing is possible. Similarly the fact that people saying vile things to homosexuals is protected speech is no argument that their behavior is not vile.

Here is some more protected speech. You are just a thug. Or at least you would be if you had access to any gay people and if you actually owned a business. Fortunately you are harmless.

Correct for the particular civil suit in question. But...

Not correct. As an example, contempt of court is usually a civil matter, but it can result in imprisonment or fines. In fact, civil contempt can lead to indefinite periods imprisonment if the judge is using the imprisonment to force the release of evidence. In anti-trust cases, the government often has the option to seek either civil penalties or criminal penalties. Both actions can result in fines.

Once the state has elected to do such a thing, then what is the rationale for not considering the resulting state a marriage? The answer would be simply because a bunch of people not involved in the relationship don't like the idea for religious reasons.

Perhaps you can articulate a secular purpose for a non-marriage marriage. Because on its face your idea seems contrary to the Establishment Clause.

And it wouldn't solve all of the issues anyway. In NC the constitution abolishes not just gay marriage but also all gay marriage substitutes, so what you are asking for is not what many bigots want anyway. Are you going to bake gays people a 'committed relationship recognition cake'?

Because the 'right' parents rights can be violated. In the case of a lesbian couple where one of the partners is the biological parent, grandparents should not be standing in where the other parent is available. And if the parent is not available, then both sets of grandparents should have equal say so. And the 'right' parent should not have to go through some expensive, discretionary adoption procedure just to vindicate those rights.

This is exactly the kind of crap that goes on now. In one case a state refused to accept a child support payment from a gay spouse and instead insisted that a sperm donor was the father who owed the payment. Total crap.

Harold Camping lives!

In fact, the first amendment does not render invalid generally applicable laws that don't target religion and affect adherents only incidentally. It does not prevent the federal government from firing a Seventh Day Adventist who refuses to work on Saturday if the job requires so doing.

What is less clear is the fate of any law passed by Congress to allow religious conscience discrimination directed at LGBTs.