Gay Marriage

[Shadow1]

Re: Gay Marriage

Churches would do well to stay out of people's bedrooms also.

You are not required to be a member of a church. Why should I be required to subsidize an immoral lifestyle?

[Jimbo1]

Re: Gay Marriage

You are not required to be a member of a church. Why should I be required to subsidize an immoral lifestyle?

Racist!



That's what's coming eventually you know!

[Hemlock]

Re: Gay Marriage

You are not required to be a member of a church. Why should I be required to subsidize an immoral lifestyle?

Churches pay no taxes, yet put just as much of a load on infrastructure (roads, emergency services) as any other small business. By not paying taxes themselves, I have to subsidize their existence. Why should I subsidize oppressive groups of people?

And how exactly is love between two consenting adults "immoral"?

[Shadow1]

Re: Gay Marriage

Churches pay no taxes, yet put just as much of a load on infrastructure (roads, emergency services) as any other small business. By not paying taxes themselves, I have to subsidize their existence. Why should I subsidize oppressive groups of people?

Churches also provide community services. Things like soup kitchens (where even atheists are fed) and youth groups that allow kids to do something constructive with their time. Many summer camps are free to underprivileged families because of a church sponsorship, and let's not forget The Salvation Army is actually a church. Many churches have "Meals on Wheels" programs for seniors in their community, and help for those same seniors or other poverty stricken families in paying basic utility bills. (and I mean things like electricity and water - not a free government paid cell phone) Many times these programs are provided to anyone if they attend that particular church or not... or no church at all. You would prefer these services didn't exist? or maybe you think they should be provided by the govt?

A church or other non-profit group providing these ministries operates with orders of magnitude more efficiency than a government institution. Perfect example from here in Mississippi - Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. The govt spent 4 times more administering the program than the money, goods, and services they gave out - even more now to prosecute all the fraud, both internal and external. I saw one article less than a year after the hurricane stating (based on figures from the GAO) for the amount of money FEMA spent they could have written everyone who applied a check for over $117,000.00. They all could have built a new house for that.

And how exactly is love between two consenting adults "immoral"?

I love my sister, should I be able to marry her? We're both over 21... And if you are willing to accept that level of perversion what is the deal with queers and gerbils? The answer, of course is that people get put in jail for stuff like that, and rightly so...

Please don't explain the gerbil thing - I really don't want to know.

[mojorolla]

Re: Gay Marriage

God is an invention ,or concept, of men. So men have created AND defined God. You are following the words of men, not God.
The inner workings of a copy machine can be explained scientifically; in all aspect. There is no mystery about it, pure science.
This cannot be said for the Bible.
This is pretty heavy stuff;so on a lighter note:
-Why does God always appear to people who are alone? Why doesn't he just show up at a Dodgers game?
-The Rapture; what is he waiting for? How bad does it have to get on this planet?
-Immaculate conception, c'mon, really?
-Why all the pee pee touchers in the church? So the priests and gays are in the same boat, no marriage for either.
-Do you really believe the earth is a mere 6000 years old?

[Hemlock]

Re: Gay Marriage

Churches also provide community services. Things like soup kitchens (where even atheists are fed) and youth groups that allow kids to do something constructive with their time. Many summer camps are free to underprivileged families because of a church sponsorship, and let's not forget The Salvation Army is actually a church. Many churches have "Meals on Wheels" programs for seniors in their community, and help for those same seniors or other poverty stricken families in paying basic utility bills. (and I mean things like electricity and water - not a free government paid cell phone) Many times these programs are provided to anyone if they attend that particular church or not... or no church at all. You would prefer these services didn't exist? or maybe you think they should be provided by the govt?

A church or other non-profit group providing these ministries operates with orders of magnitude more efficiency than a government institution. Perfect example from here in Mississippi - Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. The govt spent 4 times more administering the program than the money, goods, and services they gave out - even more now to prosecute all the fraud, both internal and external. I saw one article less than a year after the hurricane stating (based on figures from the GAO) for the amount of money FEMA spent they could have written everyone who applied a check for over $117,000.00. They all could have built a new house for that.



I love my sister, should I be able to marry her? We're both over 21... And if you are willing to accept that level of perversion what is the deal with queers and gerbils? The answer, of course is that people get put in jail for stuff like that, and rightly so...

Please don't explain the gerbil thing - I really don't want to know.

Two hands at work will always accomplish more than 1000 folded in prayer.


I bake pies for the homeless every thanksgiving.
I spent 9 years volunteering to take handicapped kids camping for a week every summer. Kids in wheelchairs and walkers, 24/7, doing everything from helping them with arts and crafts to helping feed and bathe them.
I volunteer my time and, possibly, my life as a firefighter & EMT.

I'm an atheist.

So, no, god is not required in order to be 'good' - no matter how you choose to define it. And churches can limit themselves to particular communities when offering aid. As a country, we need something a lot more inclusive. Could it be run more efficiently? Of course. But, if I'm in need, I don't want to have to define whether I'm straight or gay, heretic or believer. Nor should you or anyone else.

I don't really care if you marry your sis, as long as both are consenting and happy. Christ, with your logic, coloreds and whites shouldn't get married either. Or Jews & Catholics. Or someone from the rich side of the tracks and someone from the shacks.

The gerbil bit is nothing more than a distraction from the topic at hand. But, since you seem to be hung up on perversions, let me tell you about a call we had in my first due area (albeit before I was an EMT) - seems a *straight* couple had a sex party. And, being as kinky as anyone, attached a dildo to a reciprocating saw - by running the blade into the center of the latex toy and gluing it.

The *straight* couple fired up the toy, put it into the woman, the blade cut through the latex and then cut her from vag to anus, through the perineum. Much blood was lost, no charges were filed, and she did live.

linkage

Straight christians are just as fucked up as anyone. And they're not forgiven, they just like to deflect attention.

[Hemlock]

Re: Gay Marriage

And a homosexual couple can go into any lawyer's office and sign documents granting eachother those privileges (at least the personal ones), and in the U.S. there's actually benefits for doing this and not getting married. (income tax rates for example)

Government needs to stay out of places it doesn't belong, like churches and people's bedrooms. Period.

Here are some of the legal rights that married couples have and gays and lesbians are denied:

1. Joint parental rights of children
2. Joint adoption
3. Status as "next-of-kin" for hospital visits and medical decisions
4. Right to make a decision about the disposal of loved ones remains
5. Immigration and residency for partners from other countries
6. Crime victims recovery benefits
7. Domestic violence protection orders
8. Judicial protections and immunity
9. Automatic inheritance in the absence of a will
10. Public safety officers death benefits
11. Spousal veterans benefits
12. Social Security
13. Medicare
14. Joint filing of tax returns
15. Wrongful death benefits for surviving partner and children
16. Bereavement or sick leave to care for partner or children
17. Child support
18. Joint Insurance Plans
19. Tax credits including: Child tax credit, Hope and lifetime learning credits
20. Deferred Compensation for pension and IRAs
21. Estate and gift tax benefits
22. Welfare and public assistance
23. Joint housing for elderly
24. Credit protection
25. Medical care for survivors and dependents of certain veterans

Also, marriages are recognized from state to state, civil unions aren't. So, gays can only (a) move to states that have reciprocal recognition or (b) stay right where they are.

A United States citizen who is married can sponsor his or her non-American opposite-sex spouse for immigration into this country. Those with Civil Unions have no such privilege.

In contested wills, the preference goes to the married partner before other family members. With a civil union, the family would have the benefit - likely the same family that shunned or scorned them.

Marriage license - a couple bucks. Couple hours in a lawyers office - hundreds, if not thousands.

So yeah, not at all the same.

[DAG COPIERS & COMPUTERS]

Re: Gay Marriage

This thread is becoming increasingly interesting. Let us now define the ENGLISH word MARRIAGE. According to the: OXFORD ADVANCED LEARNER'S DICTIONARY, 7th Edition, published in 2010, MARRIAGE is DEFINED as :". . A LEGAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUSBAND & WIFE". The English word WIFE is defined as '' a WOMAN who is married to a MAN.'' And HUSBAND defined as a MAN married to a WOMAN. This particular dictionary, OXFORD, is the world's most trusted dictionaries, according to the authors! This is the true definition of that marriage, NOT same sex whatever you call it! It has its origins from the supreme infinite intelligence, GOD himself. IT is the absolute, unshakable, uncompromising & ETERNAL WORD from GOD. No amount of repeated lies can alter its truthfulness as an institution started by GOD, for the sole purpose of PROCREATION. As for those who say there is NO GOD, I pity them for they are living a life of illusion! I pray they soon come to their senses, AS did the mighty communist Soviet Union who tried it for over 70years, until they came back to their senses. the rest is history

[Hemlock]

Re: Gay Marriage

Legal isn't always morally right.

It was legal to own brown people in my country for a very long time; doesn't mean it was right.
Brown people and women couldn't legally vote in my country, doesn't make it right.
Children were legally allowed to work in dangerous factories for a very long time, despite the fact that they were too young to understand the dangers they were working around; doesn't make it right.

Denying someone the same rights you enjoy is a shitty thing to do. And, though legal, not morally right.

[DAG COPIERS & COMPUTERS]

Re: Gay Marriage

Yes, that is precisely the point we are trying to put across i.e. Legalizing naturally illegal acts doesn't make the act Right ! It is always a question of time before the truth comes to stare you in the face and you can't run away from it. The people who were enslaving those black or 'brown' people as you refer to them, knew, at the back of their minds, that it was wrong. That shrill inner voice condemning their action, was the voice of the Truth yearning to express itself outwards, it was the uncompromising, eternal word of GOD, of inherent freedom of humanity and it eventually PREVAILED. What two grownup adults do in the privacy of their lives, or privacy of their bedroom, is a matter of no concern to the public. It only becomes a matter of public concern if say, they become a public nuisance with their act, or one threatens to harm or kill the other etc. And here in my country, the citizens are telling our government, '' W e don't need to establish a special ' GAY-RIGHTS/HOMO' Police force to keep an eye on their bedrooms/ private lives to see that they are safe or protected. No one wants to pay taxes or waste resources on/ for that nonsense. You are absolutely free to do your thing, but in private. No need to write it down in our books of Law, leave alone debating the matter.

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Re: Gay Marriage

Wow!

Well humans truly are the worst aren't they! No where else in the animal kingdom will you find a species so horrible to it's own and to other creatures...so let's rule out other animals.

It seems that humans always have to have somebody to pick on. Just thinking back to recent times, and heck even still going on today, we had and still have racism, sexism, homophobia, mock Jewish people and historically even in Bible times have had slavery (which still occurs this very moment and isn't confined to color of skin. See link below on child slave labor or child kidnapping and cocoa beans in the Ivory Coast for instance). Jewish people were persecuted for over a thousand years. People of different colors (typically races) were kept as slaves, women just recently got liberation in some countries, although several countries still do horrible physical afflictions to them; Native Americans (improperly called Indians) faced more horrors from early Europeans (now called Americans) than most people today even realize (take a history course or google things like "trail of tears"), and now I suppose the final frontier is the persecution of LGBT people. Oh and religious persecution is a never ending dilemma as well.

And the one thing I can't stand is when some black people (hopefully just a few) try to make a contest out of whose civil rights issues were the worst. (meaning that LGBT rights were nothing compared to slavery or racial discrimination). Frankly it isn't a contest and it doesn't matter and if we were to actually rank what group suffered the most, blacks would be low on the bottom. LGBT is a group of people not confined to a race, color of skin, single gender, or age, and it can really be anybody anywhere.

And what's troubling is that there are many countries see reference (File:World homosexuality laws.svg - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) where you can get life in prison or murdered (technically tried and sentenced to death by the ruling government but let's call it what it really is, for being a homosexual. That's pretty hard core. Maybe the USA should pull our troops out of "oil-land" and go liberate the gays in Africa. While we're at it we can free the 9-14 year old boys that are kidnapped or sold by their parents to work in cotton, cocoa, or coffee farms as slaves. (just one reference Stop Chocolate Slavery - News and Information)

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So back to gay marriage and I'll try and keep it brief...

It's nobody's damn business who someone else wants to "marry", get a "civil union" with, or just live with and have sex with. Just as it's none of their damn business who you may do those things with.

There's really only three things I see that makes "marriage" mean anything:
1. You get to have a long boring bs ceremony, typically in a church, in which you can flout your love and affections and solicit unwilling participants for money and presents.
2. You get a whole boatload of legal rights and protections relating to all kinds of domestic affairs (that civil unions and domestic partnerships/contracts don't cover).
3. You get the hopes, wishful thinking, and broken promises of safer and easier sex for many years to come; and the false satisfaction of "knowing" that your spouse is off the market and will be faithful.

See how marriage is basically BS?

Am I the only sane person that realizes how the above three things in how they relate to ANYBODY on the planet somehow affects no one but those two (or more) people?
-----------
The Solution:

Well the easiest thing to do would be to just give me dictatorial powers for a few years and I will solve everything...

...but since America is a Plutocracy and I don't have the most dango...

If you're gonna keep marriage sacred, which btw has only about 1% of the marriage concept coming from the Bible as the rest is a man made tradition (see good article at Greg Carey: What Does the Bible Actually Say About Marriage? then let breeders/heteros/whatever get married to one person and make divorce illegal. Seriously, the only way out should be by hiring the mob.

You might say I'm "pro gay marriage" but I think that view is too narrow. In all this debate we're forgetting people that just are or choose to lead a single life but may want to have a "life partner."

I think there should be a "marriage" concept and you get to pick anybody, or several people that you want to get "married" too. The whole idea is there could be a relative(s), a friend(s), etc., that you want to share those life partner benefits with. And sex may or may not have anything to do with it.

There could be three or four friends that love each other, trust each other, but don't have sex with each other, but want to share life with and don't trust anybody else to handle the legal things that they could share as "life partners".

Again, taking sex out of the picture (since sex really has little to do with marriage anyway); even a parent and child could benefit as "life partners". It actually makes great sense. An elderly parent is being supported by an adult child and basically live together, and they could benefit from various tax and legal benefits of being "married," not too mention if the parent could get on the health insurance plan of their child just as easily as a spouse could.

So realistically the only potential interest society at large could have in people getting married is the legal ramifications that come with marriage, and even then it's a private affair.

So let's piss off the straight people by giving them what they want in marriage; being the traditional, religious, but not really Bible based concept called marriage...let's take away the civil rights and benefits of marriage. Since marriage is supposedly a church based function, which has no business in affairs of state; let's make straight marriage nothing more than an expensive "religious" ceremony.

[kingpd@businessprints.net]

Re: Gay Marriage

See this is why I get nothing done.

I come here to find a simple piece of information on a copier and an hour later I finish my essay on Gay Marriage!

[Hemlock]

Re: Gay Marriage

The people who were enslaving those black or 'brown' people as you refer to them, knew, at the back of their minds, that it was wrong. That shrill inner voice condemning their action, was the voice of the Truth yearning to express itself outwards, it was the uncompromising, eternal word of GOD, of inherent freedom of humanity and it eventually PREVAILED.

Yeah, that's it, God was that inner voice saying slavery was wrong. Except God kinda condones the whole slavery thing throughout the Bible -

"Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear" (Eph. 6:5)

Now these are the ordinances which you shall set before them. When you buy a Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's and he shall go out alone. But if the slave plainly says, 'I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,' then his master shall bring him to God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ear through with an awl; and he shall serve him for life. (Exodus Chapter 21, verse 1)

If a man beats his male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies as a direct result, he must be punished, but he is not to be punished if the slave gets up after a day or two, since the slave is his property. (Exodus Chapter 21, verse 20)

Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can will them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly. (Leviticus Chapter 25, verse 44)

Slaves, obey in everything those who are your earthly masters, not with eyeservice, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing the Lord. Whatever your task, work heartily. (Colossians, chapter 3, verse 22)


And at what point in the gospel did Jesus instruct others to set their slaves free? I mean, if the bible was all that, he surely would've made it clear that owning people was wrong. I guess we can just go back to the good old days of buying and selling people since the OT and NT don't prohibit it.

[Shadow1]

Re: Gay Marriage

I come here to find a simple piece of information on a copier and an hour later I finish my essay on Gay Marriage!

I'd say you've accomplished something after all. Scratch that essay off your to do list.

Yeah, that's it, God was that inner voice saying slavery was wrong. Except God kinda condones the whole slavery thing throughout the Bible

And in biblical times what was a slave? Not what we think of in America where some "uncivilized" blacks were kidnapped, packed on a boat, and sold into a lifetime of forced servitude and cruel treatment. Anyone could be a slave, didn't have to be any particular color or relilgion, Jew or Gentile. Many people were sent into slavery because they were criminals. Others sold themselves to pay a debt, more like an indentured servant. I'm sure there were some who would fit into our more modern definition (the Jews in Egypt for example), but as a rule, no, that's not what a slave was back then.

And this is, as you say, a distraction from the point of this thread.

Maybe the best way to make you understand the point is by analogy: Let's say you're having trouble with your copy machine - say it's something like light copies. You put in a service call, and a guy shows up wearing a lab coat and stethoscope. He puts on his rubber gloves, listens to the machine with the stethoscope then cuts into the front cover with a scalpel opens a new bottle of toner with his forceps and hemostats and proceeds to change the bottle using various implements better suited for laproscopic surgery.

While his technique may have been rather impressive, the copier still doesn't make good copies. Try as he might the guy just can't get the machine to do what it's supposed to do, and after you eventually get tired of his shenanigans and throw him out of the office he becomes very indignant. He starts a petition to require that he be given the title of "Copier Technician" and given union benefits (Let's leave that a topic for another thread) claiming that he might have been more successful if it weren't for the "obvious bias against his 'different' approach to repairs."

So...

This man obviously has skills with some form of tools, and appears to have a high degree of intelligence to have learned the trade they are cut out for, but is he a copier technician? Was he equipped with the necessary tools and skill sets to perform the job? Who should determine if he's given the name he's obviously not cut out for, and why does he deserve benefits he hasn't earned?

Marriage is a union between one man and one woman for the purpose of creating and raising children. (who said that first? DAG COPIERS & COMPUTERS? Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.) The protections and benefits granted to married couples are for the benefit of creating stable and sustainable families.

Homosexuals do not have the proper SET of tools to do the job.

If they want to form their own union, and go on strike until they get the benefits they want, so be it. Lots of different trades have the same list of bennies, but a doctor is not a copier tech, and he can't just go around calling himself one because he wants to.

[Shadow1]

Re: Gay Marriage

God is an invention ,or concept, of men. So men have created AND defined God. You are following the words of men, not God.
The inner workings of a copy machine can be explained scientifically; in all aspect. There is no mystery about it, pure science.
This cannot be said for the Bible.
This is pretty heavy stuff;so on a lighter note:
-Why does God always appear to people who are alone? Why doesn't he just show up at a Dodgers game?
-The Rapture; what is he waiting for? How bad does it have to get on this planet?
-Immaculate conception, c'mon, really?
-Why all the pee pee touchers in the church? So the priests and gays are in the same boat, no marriage for either.
-Do you really believe the earth is a mere 6000 years old?

Shall we debate the existence of God? Shall I point out the inaccuracies and / or propaganda in your statements?

Maybe it's pertinent to the discussion, but do you really want to go there and blow this up into a 100 page thread?